Customer Reviews

The Mulching of America

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a relatively new convert to Crews, but this was the worst of the four books I've read to date. He sets up a great concept to skewer the zeal of salesmen and corporate America, and the first third of the book does grab you, but it soon dissolves into wanderlust. Characters you would have liked to seen fully sketched out and explained are merely pencilled in, and the ending is one of the weakest and unsatisfactory of ANY novel I've read recently. I like it when Crews leaves something to the imagination, but here it just seems like laziness. Mulch this book and pick up "Celebration" or "The Knock-Out Artist" instead.

Obviously, "The Mulching of America," doesn't quite measure up as one of Harry Crews' best works -- I would put "The Knockout Artist," "Feast of Snakes," "Body," and the two novellas "Car" and "Gypsy's Curse" well ahead of it. Warts and all though, and some very stilted dialogue (which would continue in Crews' subsequent and last novel, "Celebration"), "Mulching" is a hell of a ride, with twists and turns so unpredictable, it's almost dizzying. In his satire of corporate America, I wouldn't say that Crews is the next Jonathan Swift, but I truly doubt this was his intention. Instead, we are given the typical Crews mix of eccentric characters in hyper-realistic surroundings, with, of course, a shocking ending.

Here, Hickum Looney, a relatively successful door-to-door Miami salesman of soap products, who has no other life, learns the hard way that he should never outsell his demented, hare-lipped boss, known as "The Boss" a/k/a "The Lip," and later known as Elmo Jeroveh (which isn't his name either). The Boss, who gets a perverse pleasure of beating the crap out of his chauffeur, Pierre Lafarge, and masseur, Russell Muscle (a recurring Crews character), is perhaps the strangest, most grotesque Crews character in any of his novels, which, if you've read some of his books, you would understand is really saying something.

"The Mulching of America," doesn't quite work as satire, or even as a cohesive novel. However, it's well worth the wild ride, and lends additional proof to the fact that the unique Harry Crews is one the best post-Faulkner Southern writers.

I don't see how others can put this book down so much, it's definetly one of his better books. Although, yes, I have to admit it does slow down a bit and the characters aren't as defined, almost as if Harry got lazy around the middle. But I would definetely recommend this book to people who like the ethical kind of graphic expose' books.

Hey, I LIKE Crews but this book stinks, and its a pity because it starts out good, but it runs into a tough patch and just keeps getting deeper and deeper in it. Every writer has his flaws, and often they are intimately related to his strengths; but played improperly as it were. That's sort of what happens here. Crews starts to work his magic, creating cracker archetypes from a few glimpses, a phrase, a cliche, and a heavy dose of alchemy; but the thing falls apart. The characters never form, they have nothing to do, nowhere to go and too much time to get there, which turns out to be the worst of this calamity because as a consequence they have entirely too much too say about nothing to each other while they wander about committing felony non sequitur for 200 or so pages. I've never seen Crews stumble like this, but this book reads like a novel one reads in spurts over a couple of months: you keep having trouble tying it together and wonder if you've forgotten something. Well, if nothing else it serves to illuminate just how magical Crews other work is, because this reads like a half assed attempt to emulate him. Kind of makes one wonder, after all Jerzy Kosinski...nah..never mind. Oh well, he's recovered now with Celebration, and presumably the new book,so no great loss, but don't waste your time or money on this one unless you are so into Crews that you want to see what happens when he flounders

The Mulching of America is almost a lot of things- almost a great allegory for blind allegiance (religious, political or otherwise), almost a brilliant satire on corporate America and almost an engrossing page turner... but because it is only almost all of those things it falls far short of being anything great- especially for Harry Crews. Initially the strong premise and requisite eccentric characters draw you in but the plot of the novel never comes into complete fruition and the reader is left unfulfilled and sorely disappointed to the point of frustration.

Worth the read? Yes (I give it 2.5 stars actually), just prepare yourself for abject disappointment in the end.

I LOVE some of Harry Crews' work so this came as a real disappointment. It seems designed to work as a sort of anti-establishment fable, and some of the characters are typical of Crews' better work. But this book lacks the heart and the careful plotting of the better books. It's almost as if this is self-parody, a kind of Harry Crews-meets-Soylent Green. I don't suggest this unless you are a committed fan!

For many years Crews has been one of my favorite novelists; his personal life is an astonishing example of how endurance can conquer tragedy. Futhermore, the early '90s books, BODY and THE KNOCKOUT ARTIST had him back on the track he had cut with the early novels. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for this near travesty. MULCHING, as an idea, has great promise, but the work reads like a rough draft. The author wants so badly for the audience to embrace the bizarre protagonists of this book, that he sacrifices plot and often sense to accomodate them. Rather than a scathing sendup on American business, MULCHING becomes a parody of its own ideas, a product without substance.

If you're new to Harry Crews, don't start here. This book is rather uninspired and nowhere close to the high quality of Crews' other, earlier works. If you're curious about this unique writer's work, start with A Feast of Snakes. It's unarguably his finest work of fiction. His memoir, A Childhood: A Biography of a Place, is among the best works of creative nonfiction written in and about the South. A must read.

Although this book was not as strange, or as blatently shocking and funny as Crews' other masterpieces, this book is truly one of his greatest, and one of the greatest social satires to date. In the spirit of "Death of a Salesman" and in the tone of a truly tortured soul, this book was witty, remarkable, and brilliant.

I had the wrong impression of this book. I thought it was one of those character portraits, eccentric and revealing, at least of the poor sclub which it details. Wow, was I wrong. I was right that it was eccentric, but it was so in a completely different fashion from what I'd imagined. 'The Mulching Of America' is an absurdist fantasy in all senses of the word but, at heart it really is quite a clever commentary. I recommend this book for it's inventiveness, if not for it's ridiculousness.