Customer Reviews

The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature

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This is not a stand-up: just a very, very sharp and merciless parody of those self-styled intellectuals that you can sometimes catch on National Public Radio (nothing against NPR, you understand).

Pollack makes fun of the "travel writers" who pretend to be above the tourist crowd and yet offer nothing but shallow banalities from which they claim to be so different. The mumbling tone of these writers, narrating from their own books, is captured perfectly; cheesy "ethnic" background tunes add to the effect of authenticity. This is great.

Writing is superb: Pollack spices the steady stream of narrow-minded pretentious cliches with bits of similarly narrow-minded politically correct remarks about unfair way of the world. You can practically believe he is a bona fide overpaid writer, pretending to shed tears over injustices of capitalism (and then employing a fierce literary agent who manages to get top dollar for these brave unmaskings of greed).

Self-righteous contributors of certain periodicals (and, if I may note, some authors of Lonely Planet travel guides) need to listen to this CD every morning before they put pen to paper - a healthy dose of irony will do them no harm.

For all others - this CD is really a very good fun. If you like sharp, refreshing comedy, go and buy it now.

This collection of pieces from the book of the same title is a bit limited in its appeal, and grows tiresome at times; one wishes he would expand the scope of his satire beyond the navel-gazing of modern literary non-fiction. But even if the humor is a bit repetitious, at least it's funny. "I Am Friends With a Working Class Black Woman" makes the entire CD worthwhile, with the bourgeois reporter befriending his subject, only to be forced to endure the casual homophobia of the WB. The Pine Valley Cosmonauts' soundtrack, while sometimes sounding more like Ken Burns documentary than NPR, generally fits the mood well. This isn't Neal Pollack's very best, but still worth a listen.