Nog [Paperback]

Rudolph Wurlitzer (Author), Erik Davis (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2009

“Nog is to literature what Dylan is to lyrics.”—Jack Newfield, The Village Voice

“A new kind of American travelogue.”—David Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Somewhere between Psychedelic Superman and Samuel Beckett.”—Newsweek

Originally published by Random House in 1969, Nog became a universally revered cult novel and a symbol of the countercultural movement.

In Rudolph Wurlitzer’s signature hypnotic and haunting voice, Nog tells the tale of a man adrift in the American West, armed with nothing more than his own three pencil-thin memories and an octopus in a bathysphere.

This edition of Nog features a new introduction from noted critic and writer Erik Davis (TechGnosis).

Yesterday afternoon a girl walked by the window and stopped for sea shells. I was wrenched out of two months of calm. Nothing more than that, certainly, nothing ecstatic or even interesting, but very silent and even, as those periods have become for me.

Rudolph Wurlitzer is the author of the novels The Drop Edge of Yonder, Quake, Flats, and Slow Fade, as well as the nonfiction memoir Hard Travel to Sacred Places. He wrote the screenplays for such classic films as Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Two Lane Blacktop, and Walker, among others, and co-directed the film Candy Mountain with Robert Frank.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

LJ's reviewer dubbed this odd little novel "an interesting stylistic experiment" (LJ 11/1/69). Its psychedelic Sixties atmosphere might seem a bit dated now, making this more valuable as a snapshot of those chemically inspired times for those who never experienced them.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Rudolph Wurlitzer is an acclaimed screenwriter and the author of The Drop Edge of Yonder, Quake, Flats, Slow Fade, and the nonfiction book, Hard Travel to Sacred Places. Erik Davis is the author of TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Harmony Books, 1998) and is a continuing contributor to Bookforum, The Wire, ArtByte, LA Weekly, Gnosis, Village Voice, and Wired.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Two Dollar Radio; Reprint edition (August 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0982015127
• ISBN-13: 978-0982015124
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #548,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is full of unhealthy mental excitement., February 22, 1999

By 

Andy Glick - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nog (Midnight Classics Series) (Paperback)

I wish that I could take credit for the "unhealthy ..." quote, but it is attributed to Donald Barthelme from his capsule review which appears on the back cover of my old paperback copy. Writing about Nog, Pynchon proclaimed, "The novel of bull **** is dead." I thought that the book was marvelous. Wurlitzer has a field day with issues of identity, integrity and all sorts of other topics that, as far as I am concerned, were explored in a manner that was much more compelling during the late '60s and early '70s. The notion of a character who invents/chooses his "memories" tickled my fancy then as much as now. Wurlitzer has always been willing to step out into areas where other authors were either afraid or simply unwilling to follow. Try to find the video of "Two Lane Blacktop" if you haven't already seen it. Wurlitzer wrote the screen play and that of "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid" as well. If unhealthy mental excitement is appealing to you, I would recommend this work highly. If not, save your yourself some upset and read something a bit more tame.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "I am becoming Nog, I am Nog, except that he slips away...", June 25, 2000

By 

A. C. Walter "awalter" (Lynnwood, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nog (Mass Market Paperback)

Reading "Nog" is a little like living in the mind of Zen monk strung out on drugs. Whatever, whoever Nog is, I'm not sure that he's human. If a human being is one step removed from reality-having to interpret the physical world through the senses and through the mind-then Nog is about four or five steps removed. Impressions from the world come in, bounce around inside his cavernous mind and finally end up distorted beyond recognition, which is where the fun begins.
Nog strives to maintain a maximum of three memories, considers facts subjective, and will not, under any circumstances, give out information. But don't get him started on the octopus...
"He kept complaining about a yellow light that had been streaming out of his chest from a spot the size of a half dollar. We drank and talked about the spot and the small burning sensation it gave him early in the morning and about his octopus. He had become disillusioned about traveling with the octopus and had begun having aggressive dreams about it. He wanted to sell it."
Rudolph Wurlitzer's style is reminiscent of other writers of the era-Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, et cetera-and the novel's genre is the good old American "yarn." As with Mark Twain, Wurlitzer just wants to keep pulling your leg as long as you'll let him. This sort of thing is difficult to sustain outside the confines of a short story, however-and, like some of Twain's novels, "Nog" does lose a bit of its steam somewhere. The opening of the book is absolutely priceless, but soon Wurlitzer must do something to up the ante in his narrative con game. This, unfortunately, means falling back on an listless plot to move Nog around and add fodder to that bizarre imagination. If "Nog" never quite surpasses the flair of the opening chapters, Wurlitzer has still achieved a deliciously eccentric style and created one truly unforgettable character.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Surrealistic Existential Nightmare Classic, February 8, 1999

By 

Philip Tone (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Nog (Midnight Classics Series) (Paperback)

I may have been one of the first people to read this book. God knows for years I would thrust my tattered copy at friends and insist they read it. My best friend and I still use phrases in conversation that we picked up from the book 20 years ago ("hasten a focus" comes to mind). For some reason I even remember the moment I purchased the book, in paperback, in a Woolworth's back in 1970, mostly because of its "psychedelic" cover art and the promise that "Nog is to literature what Dylan is to music." After a single, futile attempt at reading it, I found it on the shelf in my old bedroom at my parents' house one day in 1974, and noted that a glowing blurb from my favorite author, Thomas Pynchon, graced its back cover. If there is a message in "Nog", it may be: mental illness and hallucinogens are probably not a very good combination. Then again, there's more to "Nog" then meets the eye.