In Misterioso, set on the last Sunday of August 1982, an encyclopedic survey is made of all the people, places, and objects from the first two novels. Beginning and ending at an A & P supermarket, the novel spontaneously generates out of the store's rack of "magazines which promise stories of action," a trashery of ludicrous and perverse exploits and ads well suited to the actions of the novel's large cast of ludicrous and perverse characters and the trashy culture they inhabit. All hope of discovering the truth behind the apparent death of Sheila Henry (in Odd Number) is finally abandoned in this hilarious attempt to organize the facts, a task made hopeless by new information that contains further facts and incidents, scenarios and conversations, as isolate, mysterious, and ambiguous as ever. The charactersdespite the candor of their presentationremain unknowable. A masquerade of the substantive, Misterioso is a comic inquiry into details that are, at once, revelatory and enigmatic, and concludes a major fiction series of the 1980s.
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Book Description
Misterioso is the final work of Gilbert Sorrentino's trilogy, the first two volumes of which, Odd Number and Rose Theatre, attempted to discover the shifting, evasive truth concerning a myriad of characters, all vaguely connected with "the arts," whose lives become more contradictory and unaccountable the more we learn about them.
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Only close readers of the previous two volumes in Sorrentino's trilogy ( Odd Number ; Rose Theatrestet Brit spelling ) can hope to discern anything resembling a plot in this final work. A truncated series of frustrating anecdotes outline a ragtag crew of individuals who are somewhere on the fringes of the arts and/or life. Details about these eccentrics are revealed in brief "items" interspersed throughout ("Plain Lucia Lewison, at one time Henry's wife, was not locked out of the Kodak Motor Inn, 'allegedly nude,' by John Greene Czcu; she was ejected from the Lido"). Sorrentino fires off numerous references to other literary works and characters as well as peppery attacks on the literary establishment; he ventriloquizes the language of supermarket tabloids, apes European accents and produces a gaggle of stewardesses all named Karen, but his evident wit might have been better diverted to character development.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Odd Number ( LJ 10/1/85) and Rose Theatre ( LJ 11/15/87) were the first books in this Beckettian trilogy, which pays tribute to Sorrentino's mentor through halting investigation. Both were notable for their invitation to sample a different sort of fare. Now, the trilogy ends with a work so dense in structure and character as to challenge the most determined reader. Plot is reserved for the comic novel within the novel, "Buddy and His Boys on Mystery Mountain," a Hardy Boys takeoff that proves Sorrentino can assemble a traditional story, but only in jest. The end result is a novel of characters without plot, and while most of these people have appeared before in the trilogy, their presence here clarifies nothing. Where, then, is this novel's audience? Professional writers and critics will enjoy its achievement, but the wider reading public will not invest the time.
- Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty amazing and a lot of fun,
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This review is from: Misterioso (Hardcover)
Wow, this stuff is wonderful. One of my favorite books. Read it and become "tarnation perceptive".
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