6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Treasure Trove, January 29, 2006
If you like well-written, hysterical short stories, Jack Pendarvis's "The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure" is for you, and likely will raise your bar.
The wit is dry and the twists twisty, for sure, but it's tough to piegeonhole the writing, much like a unique and terrific ice cream flavor, which is to say that Pendarvis is an original. The collection is the short story equivalent of the smartest episode of "Saturday Night Live" you've ever seen.
My favorite was "The Pipe," a thirty-or-so-page story of the men guarding the breathing apparatus of a radio personality buried alive for a month as a publicity stunt. I also liked the much briefer mock-publisher's catalogue of new offerings where the editor shares a little too much of his feelings.
I look forward to more or the same from Mr. Pendarvis, or more at all.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't read this in public!, November 27, 2005
Jack Pendarvis has the kind of wit that ambushes you - and then bludgeons you until you can no longer suppress the laughter. This collection of nine stories and a novella mocks bad writing and moronic thought through a complete submersion in each, with protagonists believing in absurd premises (like the dead-beat husband who imagines himself as a famous historian and the unemployed drinking buddies who want to be writers without doing the work.) The subtitle - "Curious stories" - only begins to describe these off-the-wall forays into the hilarity of self-importance.
One of the most developed stories in the collection is "The Pipe" about a DJ buried alive in the desert as a publicity stunt, with a security guard and a paramedic watching over the pipe for signs of distress. The paramedic is more interested in smoking pot and fooling around with women, but the security guard takes his job seriously - to the point of obsession. The story has hints of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" and "Waiting for Godot."
The funniest piece is the collection is the title novella, which satirizes amateur writing and unrealistic ambitions. The narrator is the self-described laziest man in South Preston who decides to be a historian: "In fabled times of days of yore, only the 'landed gentry' had time to write and contemplate. In today's modern age, it is the unemployed and the upset who enjoy such luxuries." As he researches the history of probably the blandest place in America, he decides instead to track down a treasure. Peppered with exclamation marks, elaborate dialogue tags, rhetorical questions, clichés, unnecessary adverbs, stilted phrases, and redundancy (see the title), this has to be the funniest send-up of bad writing I've read. Somehow, Pendarvis manages to keep the story moving through ninety pages of (intentionally) dreadful writing.
Many of these stories, including the novella, go on for too long. As a result, these stories, although a hoot to read, often lag in the middle or near the end. Pendarvis's humor, though, is well worth the lapses.
One word of warning: Don't read this collection in a public place unless you want people to stare. When Pendarvis sneaks up on you with one of his offbeat lines, you won't be able to stop yourself from laughing. -- Debbie Lee Wesselmann
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Possible Choking Hazard, November 6, 2005
I laughed so hard when I read this book, my daughter asked me, "Daddy, what's wrong?"
It's very funny. I think Mr. Pendarvis is out of control in the way Mark Twain was out of control, or Donald Barthelme, or Buster Keaton. Or maybe it's the opposite: they stuck to the rules no matter how absurd. Anyway, I put these four in a class together, and I loved this book.
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