Customer Reviews

No More Mister Nice Guy

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

 

 

In spite of the writing, this book was self-indulgent, dull, difficult to read and unrewarding. Parts of the book were quite raunchy (or titillating, depending on your point of view) but they improved neither the plot nor the characters.

A complete waste of time. I gave it two stars because of the obvious care with which the author constructed his prose, but in the end the writing did not save this book. Not even close.

Readers who can tolerate an abundance of explicit and raunchy sexual narrative will find Howard Jacobson's novel, No More Mr. Nice Guy, entertaining and funny while addressing the serious subject of marital relationships. Protagonist Frank Ritz finds himself thrown out of his house by his partner Melissa Paul. He travels around the country remembering sex past and looking for sex present. His introspection about his life and sexual activity leads him to view his life in a more complete way. I picked up this novel after I read Jacobson's Man Booker award winning novel, The Finkler Question. The two books hold little in common in subject matter and style, but share fine quality writing from a skilled novelist.

Rating: Three-star (Recommended)

Frank is a 50 year old British television critic, who has just left his partner, a highly dysfunctional author of feminist porn plagued by bulimia and neuroses. He is literally a talking and breathing penis, whose thoughts about having sex are interrupted only by eating, sleeping and other necessary bodily functions. He returns to Oxford and other towns where his sexual conquests as an adolescent and young man took place, but to his apparent surprise, he cannot relive the past. The novel is well written, but incredibly juvenile, vulgar and boring, and it may well be the worst book I've read this year.