Customer Reviews

Ruining It For Everybody

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

You will inhale this book, possibly in one sitting. Great cover, but the odd, square packaging makes it look a bit like a gift-book. Look past that and buy this book, because it contains the writing of one of our most gifted writers. Knipfel is brilliant.

Um, giving Jim Knipfel one star because he's not like David Sedaris is absurd. Knipfel is better than Sedaris because he's darker and he's smarter. This is an extraordinary book for intelligent people. And you'll look cool reading it.

Knipfel's memoir opens with one of the best opening lines that I've ever read: "Whenever I hear the word 'spiritual,' I reach for my revolver." I thought, "Hell yeah," and continued to nod my way through the rest of the book. The book is a sort-of spiritual awakening (of the non-religious variety). Jesus only makes one appearance--riding a horse and swinging a giant flaming sword.

The writing style is loose and friendly, like a good conversation over beers at a dive bar...and there are plenty of beers and dive bars in the book's brief 235 pages. "I don't even want to think about the condition of my liver," Knipfel says in the introduction. After reading Knipfel's three memoirs, his liver is probably the least of his worries. Thankfully, he's still alive and kicking, and shows no signs of slowing his writing or drinking.

Jim Knipfel, a longtime columnist for the New York Press (a free weekly that's kind of a more surly, localized Village Voice), has crafted a side career for himself by documenting the degenerating state of his mind and body, moves into somewhat uncharted territory in "Ruining it for Everybody." Whereas "Slackjaw" was mainly about his struggle with the disease retinitis pigmentosa (i.e., he's going blind) and "Quitting the Nairobi Trio" his stay in a psych ward, now he deals with matters of the "spirit." Opening with the line "Whenever I hear the word 'spiritual' I reach for my revolver" may clue you in to the fact that he's not exactly a religous fellow--he professes his atheism early and matter-of-factly in the procedings--he nonetheless sets out to examine how his pessimistic attitude has exacerated his problems, and how he decided to turn a new leaf. Along the way the reader is treated to real-life anecdotes that are so sharply observed--and filled with bitter humor--that even blind, he sees more than most of us ever will.

Of course, one has to wonder how much of his low self-opinion is in his head. While he constantly berates himself for his "evil" thoughts and barely controlled temper, one also finds a guy who'll help senior citizens cross the street as a matter of common courtesy and is even polite to people he'd rather not have to deal with (notwithstanding the incident where he starts strangling a rude person upon a rare visit to a nightclub). In fact, I'd even go so far as to say Mr. Knipfel has as much of the plainspoken decency of his midwestern upbringing as he does the punk nihlism of his adopted New York City. Even while atoning for his past "sins" (some of which are actually pretty sinful, to be honest) I sometimes want to tell him that no apologies are necessary. Sure, he's got plenty of things rattling around in his skull that would scare most people, but it's really rather amazing how little of it he unleashes on the outside world.

While the rest of the country seems to be descending into faith-based intolerance led by the usual crowd of pious hypocrites, we can actually use a guy like Knipfel to show that being a good person doesn't mean plastering a happy face on just so people will like you. He shows us through the example of his own life that some external morality has nothing to do with a person's character. While he may subscribe to a creed he calls "Buddhism for Drunkards" (which is actually a pretty catchy phrase), his sharp and caustic wit would be nothing but a boon to the much-maligned cause of secular humanism, even if he isn't much of a "joiner." At least, I'd drink to that.

I loved Ruining It for Everybody. This latest memoir is an easy, entertaining read, but I could also count about 5 or 6 times that I actually wept while reading it--mostly from laughing, but sometimes because it was touching.

Knipfel examines the normally mundane travails of himself and others with humor and insight, and without the slightest hint of self-pity or cruelty (well...maybe a little cruelty). It's the kind of work that makes writing look deceptively easy. I envy the man's talent.

And yes, his fiction is excellent, too.

Jim--if you read these stupid things--more, please.

(side note: Amazon's recommendation of Knipfel's books to Sedaris fans probably assumes that these readers have the capacity to find humor in things not usually considered funny. This may be too great a leap for some.)

That was my second thought after closing the book. I mean, Ruining It for Everybody almost, ALMOST ends with Jim and Morgan embracing on the beach and professing their love. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just, Jim Knipfel has been by source, my supply of Midwestern understatement as applied to daily demons, justifiable paranoia, sadness, rage.

It's hard to get a Lutheran, lapsed or not, to discuss such things outside the VFW, let alone write them down. And if one did, his spelling likely would be not so good. And much as I love the beat guys, the punks, the howlers, I get a little uneasy sometimes with so much ... effluence. So, Knipfel's honest, no-frills descriptions feel comforting. It's not so bad to be sad or mad or bat guano crazy. I'm not alone.

And then comes happiness. What to do with that? Where I come from, we don't talk too much about that, either. But there he goes. Talking about it.

I've got to tell you - I pre-ordered this book and then took two years to crack it open. First, there was the back jacket with the prominent words being "spiritual" and "revolver." When I see the word "Revolver," I never think "gun." I think "Beatles." When I saw "Revolver" and "Spiritual" together? I thought "Tomorrow Never Knows." And then? "Double Fantasy" and Mark David Chapman. When you get happy, are your best efforts behind you? Is it over? Because I really never liked "Double Fantasy" as much as pretty much anything else John Lennon ever did. Then MDC went and shot him, so there's no way to know what might've come later.

Not that Knipfel equals John Lennon, that's not where I'm going with this at all. Each is sui generis. One thing they share, however, is an often antic view of the less-celebrated among us. I didn't want to open "Ruining It," because I was afraid that, in love and happiness, Knipfel might have lost perspective.

Guess not, though. Knipfel's prose remains compact and well-constructed to the point of elegance. That alone makes "Ruining It" worth the time. You don't have to have read the other memoirs in order to enjoy this book, but I think you'll feel more special if you have. Read "The Buzzing" as well, while you're at it. You'll be glad you did.

While "Ruining It" lacks some of the salt and sarcasm of the first two memoirs, it presents a unique view of contentment, comfort, love, routine, passing delusion, and, once again, those pesky daily demons. Unique in its honesty and elegance; less so, in the sentiments themselves. Because, once again, after reading one of these books, I feel comforted and less alone.

So far, this has been my least favorite Jim Knipfel book. The others were far more effective and easier to read. This one seemed strained, as if Knipfel is really trying to mine a played-out vein. The book has its moments, and it's very much worth reading, but it's just not as well written as his previous efforts. I can still recommend it, but if you want to read finer efforts from this very talented author, go for SLACKJAW, the best of his memoir work, and THE BUZZING, his novel, which is just purely a lot of fun.

I thought this book was extremely well done.
It reads like Jim Knipfel's personal confession. I van read how he has changed - from a sad little misanthropeto am empathetic misanthrope. I don't mean that in a negative way, I think Jim would agree.

I"m really enjoying "Ruining It for Everybody". It is a lesson on living with all the foibles and failings in life. Jim would have plenty of reason to complain and have a bad attitude but he takes life on a 'whatever' basis. He's not the only one with a black cloud hanging over him but does a good job of carrying on.

For those who have been following Jim Knipfel's work for a while, RUINING IT FOR EVERYBODY represents yet another plateau achieved by a writer who, with his two previous memoirs, SLACKJAW and QUITTING THE NAIROBI TRIO, has been carrying his readers along a sometimes harrowing, often hilarious ride through his "karmically"-challenged life full of foibles, fools, and shenanigans. (Oh, so many shenanigans!)

In RUINING FOR EVERYBODY, Mr. Knipfel examines the specters of his angry youth that continue to haunt his present. It is a work full of careful observations. It is also an apologia, but this apologia comes not at the end of life. Instead, it comes at what must be the beginning of a new life for the author. (A beginning whose path we can begin to see branch out in one of Mr. Knipfel's fictional works: THE BUZZING... May there be many more to come!)

I suggest this book be read in one sitting if you can manage it. Then try going back over passages at random. I believe this book, like Pessoa's THE BOOK OF DISQUIET, lends itself to this sort of casual perusal and contemplation. For in a sense, Mr. Knipfel's present work stands closer to parable than memoir, and defies simple genre classification but rather bends, distorts and juxtaposes genres in new and interesting ways (much like he did in THE BUZZING).

The various memories, reflections and observations explored in this book offer the reader wisdom on a par with THE ROSY CRUCIFIXION and Kurt Vonnegut's best works: BLUE BEARD, SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, and CAT'S CRADLE. Best of all it's a spiritual work that doesn't require faith in anything outside of oneself. It is a work of great human spirit... A must read.

Oh, and it also answers that age-old question: "Can a person get a mild dose of stigmata?"