Customer Reviews

Seduction Theory

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

 

 

I've had this book now since it was released in the UK several years ago and I have to say that I love it. Thomas Beller was a name I'd never heard of so I bought it on a whim and ended up so glad that I did. I've read it now six or seven times and each time I enjoy it as much as the last, maybe even more. Simple but beautiful writing, "real" stories of "real" lives, humorous in the right places and to see so many people criticizing the book because of Beller's appearance or how he was at school etc. amazes me. Who cares what an author looks like or who he or she is? If a book is good, it's good - period, and I for one wouldn't part with my copy. I give this one an unreserved 5 stars, and I look forward to reading more of his work.

i loved this book. i read it in one night. i loved the stories about peoples lives, the way they interact with each other. i found this book simple and poignant. READ HERE: if you did not like this book, why attack the author? it is fine to just say you didn't like it!

I picked up "Seduction Theory" down at the Blue Pear book store on Attalee Street. The summary compared the author to Salinger and promissed the reader an interesting view of New York through the eyes of a struggling college graduate.

Right away, this raised two red flags for me. Whenever a new author is compared to a previous one, the connection is almost always languid or non-existant. But more importantly, who wants to see anything through the eyes of a college graduate?

But I read on hoping to be pleasantly suprised. The book was not good and it was not bad. The prose was vapid to be certain, but was still a few levels above excerable. Poe once remarked that the only successful criminals are the gifted or the insane. I'm afraid the same is true of artists, and particularly so of authors. Unfortunately, the content and Style of Herr Beller's work is meaningless.

When Pushkin first published Eugene Onegin, his readers complained that it was bland and pointless. But soon even the most severe critics admitted that they saw a little bit of Onegin in everyone. Eugene Onegin was supposed to be dull. He represented a personality that was typical of late Imperial Russian society. But Pushkin was a genious and Beller is Beller.

I think his book was published because it attempts to stamp New York on every page. Beller gave his purile prose a geographic identity and his publisher thought it might go somewhere. Ah well...

Let me start by saying that I've met Mr. Beller and he's really not THAT attractive--so you can all start taking his writing more seriously now. I absolutely love this book and have read it over and over. I literally read books for a living and so rarely come across prose as sharp and stories that hit home as much as Beller's. There is something unflinchingly real about his characters and their situations. I had no idea that there was a backlash against his work until now, and I still don't understand why. Beautiful people can write beautifully. I just wish any praise Beller has gotten for his looks could be transferred onto his writing.

While not a huge fan of short stories, "Seduction Theory" contains several very good ones. All of the stories are interesting and cover a wide array of topics incluing love, lust, friendship, and family relationships. Add a star to my rating if you're from NY.

............unlike some of the reviews about this book on this site.

I read this while laid up in La Paz, Bolivia, and am on here to buy myself a copy five years later.

I hadn't been to NY by then, but in rural Great Britain, Oxford and London in the 1980's had certainly lived many of the thoughts and situations Beller describes.

It resonated like 'The Graduate' did as a film for me.

While buying a few books for the Thanksgiving holiday on a trip to NY, I remembered his name and decided I had to read it again.

What else can a book do for you, that you wish to look it up like an old friend once in a while?

The snide tone of the negative reviews betrays their motivations.

Bravo Thomas! (If you bother to still check these reviews out - I often check my own ratings here)

Yes, so Thomas Beller is not Ernest Hemingway. He does not conquer great themes of literature; nor does he address the weighty issues of modern living. Or does he? Setting aside for the moment his "Alex" stories, I have yet to read anyone who presents a better picture of the ambiguities and uncertanties of being 22 in New York -- or, for that matter, 22 anywhere. "The Hot Dog War" is the best -- bar none -- short story I have read yet at capturing that certain end-of-college anomie that propels one to do stupid, stupid things in pursuit of a woman. Is his work the most finely crafted prose? Is it the best-written work of the year? Certainly not. Does it accomplish what it set out to do, namely convey the nameless fears of someone in their early 20s? Absolutely and unequivically. Beller is no Fitzgerald. He is, though, the closest thing his generation has to a voice and, more importantly, he is more than eminantly readable. We can, and should, expect more from him.

Seduction Theory is actually a rather impressive debut. I don't understand any of these criticisms, which often sound like jealousy. The writing, line by line, is clean and polished. Yes, the prose is very workshop honed, but what is wrong with tight, taut prose? So what if it's taught!

Thomas Beller's "Reduction Theory" is a bold and timely account of a young man's quest to engage in bathroom sex with multiple male partners.

Through the eyes of the hero, Alex, the reader is lured to the fascinating underworld of public restrooms. Normally such places are associated with the disposal of digestive toxins, but Beller cleverly reconstructs them as venues of seduction.

Dark, smelly and at times lyrical--by the time you finish "Reduction Theory", you won't look at a public lavatory the same way again.

Now we finally have a book by a young man that concerns his ego and little else. After reading imaginative, well written works for years, it is refreshing to encounter something different in Tom Beller.