Customer Reviews

The Mushroom Man

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Wow. Once again: wow! Her prose is like a roller coaster ride, extremely fun, making scenes and life spin so fast, it's like nothing you've ever experienced before. I was impressed with how tight this whole thing is--this being a first novel and all. After I read this book, I did a little research on the author and found out that she was only 22 when she published this book!

It's an extremely well-written story full of innocent candor and dark sexual irony. It does not unnecessarily dwell on things. Sophie Powell avoids every single pretentious mistake so commonly seen in other writers' first books.

I am sure even greater works will most defiantely be penned by Powell. This work is also great. It's absolutely great! I'm not very good at reviews, and usually don't write them, but after reading this book, I just had to write one. This is one of those books that makes you grab someone and tell them that they ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK!

I always do searchs on this page for new books by first time novelists. It's a good way to keep on top of who's who in the next coming years. I would definately have to say that Sophie Powell is going to be up there.

The title is a little weird, even a little bland, and misleading. Because I thought this was a children's book. After three words, i was like no this isn't. And is it a book for adults or what!

The language is so fresh. It just flows through your ears as delicately as music. I really think this book is an absolute most definate you-can't-ignore-this-rec must read.

Once again. Amazing. This is the type of book you read once, then again. Then again and again.

I can't begin to express who wonderfully writtin this book is. Powell's writing is so amazingly different from the norm. It is extremely experimental, and yet very very accessible. Powell has done the impossible: she has created something completely new it the English language, and at the same time, made so very accessible for every and anyone (literary minded or not).

This is book is a good start to bring good literature back to the masses.

I just wanted to say that I'm British (and WELSH) and the fact that Sophie Powell is British (and WELSH), makes all the more excited about this book. But even if I wasn't British (or WELSH), I'd still be raving about this book whilst reading it for the second or third time.

This is book is extremely ambitious in it's BREAKTHROUGH literary style, and yet it is also very playful. I was absolutely stimulated by every single word, and entertained by every single character.

This book is a start of something very new. If you read this book, you'll know what I mean. The style is off the charts, and bloody brilliant. It's something I have not seen in any work of literature before. Ever. Five stars for the MUSHROOM MAN. And know I never give 5 stars to anything unless I'm sure it's going to go down in history as an utter masterpiece of language.

and so far I'm like totally enthralled!

I actually bought this book at a Barnes and Noble in New York, and there she was, the author, giving the reader. I didn't know who she was, nor did I hear of her book (I later learned this is her first book), so I sat and listened to her read and bought myself a copy while I was at it.

So I started reading it before I went to bed . . . and I ended up going to bed at 3 in the morning, before I finally made myself decide to sleep.

It is a crisply told story about two sisters and their children in pastoral Wales. Usually, I'm very cynical about cutesy stuff, but this stuff had me laughing out loud. It was so completely endearing with rival sisters locking each other in the bathroom, little girls picking their nose--and mushrooms. I couldn't believe I started thinking of mushrooms as being magical!

I was a little skeptical about the title, because you have to admit that as titles go, this one is quite odd, but after listeing to Powell speak about her childhood in Welsh country with curmudgeonly relatives, I knew there was a good story behind it--and I have was not disappointed once I started reading.

Her words really scream out with an energetic youth, and seeing her read, I realized that she IS quite young herself. Which is another delight. That someone so young has so much to say, and to say it in a completely strange and unique manner.

The prose caught me off guard because it's so different from I guess what other people like to call standard writing. Every single detail jumped out and spun around (I don't know if what I wrote makes sense). But the writing moves very fast. It spins. I don't how to describe it, other than that it is simply beautiful.

I like how Sophie Powell jumps from scene to scene, going from vignette to vignette, almost like a movie trailer, which makes the reader's experience with each character extremely intense. As surreal as the writing makes everything, the characters feel very real, from widow reflecting on what she did with her husband's ashes to a man cheating on his wife with a young, tartly nanny to his wife who seems to know about the love affair but tolerates it and just has to get away to her daughter, the central character of the story, oblivious to everything because she is so caught up in a world of magic and wonder.

What I liked about the book is that even though it talks about fairy tales and such, it does not hesitate to show the sexually deviant, neurotic world that children eventually see when they grow up--and yet at the end, it closes with a such light, magical touch (nothing too pat), a very light and inspirational message that no matter what the world is like, there is great significance around the event of a child who has not lost the gift of wonder.

Even if you don't know a lot about european myths, this book will keep you turning. The story is exuberant and light and tip-toe all through out, and the writer has an amazingly ironic sense of humor that never gets overwrought.

This book is definately one for the personal bookshelves.

One of things that sruck me was how vividly sensory this book this was written. After finishing the book, I felt like I had this cool breeze blowing my face back. The writer of this book does not give you too much space to think for yourself. So you're like immersed completely in the lives of these people (not just one or two, but a BUNCH), and no life is really that simple, and all these lives are interwined in one way or another.

1) If you like novels that don't just follow one person on a journey but instead devles into the lives of a community of zany yet real characters--then read The Mushroom Man.
2)If you like writing with a lot lyrical pizazz and details that stick to your brain like velcro--then read The Mushroom Man.
3) Most importantly, if you love myth, the power of myth--Greek, Roman, Celtic, Western European myth--then read The Mushroom Man.

I grew up reading a lot of JRR Tolkien and always lamented why things concerning myth had to happen a long time ago before the record of time. I also read CS Lewis (The books about the lion and wardrobes and children and stuff) and lamented why when fantasy and real life collide everything had to be so happy-go-lucky and black-and-white and all rainbow and stuff.

What I liked about this book was that it had all the magic of whimsy fairy tales and myths--but it also went into the reality of the world we live in, where people screw other people when their spouses aren't looking, death, filial conflict, adolescent sex, the works. A wonderful contrast between the innocent and corrupted, between the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.

Plus, the book is short, which is a good thing, believe it or not. A lot of writers write more than they should about a story and people--especially with their first book. But Ms. Powell never oversteps her boundary--and immediately makes friends with the reader, and tells her tale in good time. It's a very accessible book that over new insights into language at the same time.

I'm looking forward to this woman's next book, and I hope the whole thing with myth and paradise lost will be an ongoing motif.

As a mother, I really appreciated this book. As a mother, I'm very surprised by how well Sophie Powell was able to articulate the lives of other mothers (two in fact, sisters), seeing her picture and realizing that she is quite young, and presumably too young to not be a mother yet.

Regardless, the mothers in her story--and all their worries about their children, their misgivings towards husbands who cheat on them--were undeniably real and heartfelt.

Her sense of words becomes especially sharp when the children take over the scenes and you see the world through their eyes. You want to believe in all that they've made up. Eventually, you do.

I think this is a good book for anyone, but for anyone who is a mother out there and worries about her children (little daughters, especially), this book can really evoke something.

I really wanted to give five stars to this, but it's a rare rating I give (only to two other novels). If Amazon allowed it, I would give it 4 stars and a half. However, I am eagerly waiting for what Powell will produce next, hopefully something even more powerful so I can give my rare rating of a full five stars.

This book is a myth in it of itself! Once you start reading the first page, everything becomes extremely dreamlike. Very surreal and fast-paced and extremely engaging.

Even though the language is extremely experimental, it is also absolutely accessible to every and anyone. Powell has done the impossible. She has made something completely new with the English language, and in such a way, that every and anyone (literary minded or not) can enjoy.

This book is the start of bringing good literature back to the masses.