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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A transcript, an artwork, not a novel. Great entertainment., July 11, 2002
This review is from: a: A Novel (Paperback)
I first read this book when I was 18. Being enormously taken with it, I never returned my copy (an original hardback in paperback size with the big "A" on the front) to the university library. I ended up paying the library $272 in back dues before the university would release my diploma. It was worth every cent. To create "A," Warhol followed and tape-recorded one Factory personality, Ondine, for 24 hours. Ondine was reportedly high on amphetamines at the time, so it was a full 24 hours involving no sleep. (Ondine was also a homosexual. He speaks graphically about homosexual sex often in "A" - that is why it was branded as pornographic in its day.) "A" is simply the transcription of those 24 hours worth of audio tape. Nothing more, nothing less. The women who were hired to transcribe the tapes reportedly got bored with their jobs and started typing the material in different layouts and formats. This formatting was left in the original book. "A" is a collaborative work (Warhol, Ondine, Ondine's associates, the typists). It's pre-post-modern, if you will. And it is a splendid artifact from its time. It shouldn't be described or experienced in the context of literature and novels. It is an art piece, like any of Warhol's films. One does not compare the films "Empire State Building" or "Sleep" with "Sleepless in Seattle." If you like being a fly on the wall, "A" will please you. It's like being there. Watch for references to the introduction of Pop Tarts and the release of the first James Bond flick. If you appreciate pop art and post-modernism, you'll get even more out of the book. If you're a Warhol/Factory officianado (like me), it's great fun trying to decipher the real identities of the codenamed characters. Watch the film, "I Shot Andy Warhol" after reading "A." Much of the film's dialogue and situations could easily have been culled from the book. "A" is quintessential Warhol: pop art as historical record / historical record as pop art.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A captures the peak year of the sixties experience., April 6, 1998
This review is from: a: A Novel (Paperback)
A was written/recorded in 1965 when Andy Warhol first experimented with his new Norelco tape recorder. It wasn't until 1967/68 that the tape was actually transcribed, by Factory-ites working for minimum wage, one of whom was Moe Tucker, the drummer for the Velvet Underground. A was first published by Grove Press shortly after Warhol was shot on June 3, 1968. The original dustjacket is a giant red A -- Warhol turns Hawthorne's scarlet letter on its head. A is 24 hours in the life of the Factory denizens. A is Andy Warhol updating James Joyce' Ulysses. Whereas Joyce took 7 years to write about one 24 hour period, Warhol took just 24 hours. A includes all the gossip, pauses, stutters, and drug babble as one might expect. A just might be the only example of true "new journalism." Tape recorders don't lie. As a document of one typical day in 1965, the peak year of the great sixties decade, A is an unqualified success. Andy Warhol was at the vortex, watching/recording all from his silver throne. Warhol biographer Victor Bockris calls A "part of Warhol's great trilogy," the other two works being CHELSEA GIRLS, Warhol's 1966 3-1/2 hour film (it's actually 7 hours worth of film, since two reels are projected simultaneously) along with lp THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO, recorded in May, 1966. Get a copy of A now that it has been reissued. Start anywhere. Skip around. Read it your way. Just like the sixties.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
In with the in crowd, December 12, 2004
This review is from: a: A Novel (Paperback)
But how far in do you want to be?
If you ever had a fantasy of hanging out at The Factory for a day, reading this may make you wish instead you were trapped watching reruns of Monday Night Football for 24 hours.
Well, maybe it's not that bad. I was able to read attentively for 150 pages before I started browsing which became little more than page-turning for the last 100 pages. Perhaps I'll go back and see if it grows on me.
I guess you had to be there, but I'm glad I wasn't. It seemed like it was horrifically boring. Small talk rarely gets this small. Some mention of sex, some of drugs, some perverse humor hardly covers the emptiness.
"12 hours of Ondine ... a novel?" Not for me. If I had to pick, I've have featured the more coherent Sugar Plum Fairy (SPF, present in the 2nd half of the book) not Ondine. But unless I were doing a doctoral dissertation on Warhol's Factory,l I would have avoided "a". Now that I have it and want to make the best of it, there is, admittedly, something absorbing for a while in the rantings.
The glossary by Victor Bockris provides some help about who was who and what seemed particularly important. You can probably start in on any page without much loss.
Another such experiment by someone of taping with a different cast of characters would be welcome. Based on "a", there does seem to be a value in doing a "novel" in this way: a lot depends of who and when you tape. Like novels, "a"'s conversations seem contrived, just contrived by a lot more people than a single novelist and that could be good. I wouldn't want to read a day's worth of tapes of the Osmond Family or of the board of General Motors, but there's got to be a group whose taping would lead to a better "novel" than "a".
Consider reading "a" if you are curious enough about the Warhol scene or about what a novel by tape recorder would be like or are just feeling whacked out enough.
Sugar Plum Fairy: "Making silkscreens and photographs and, do you consider that work? I mean does he get up in the morning and say, 'Mom, I have to get down to the office...'"
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