Customer Reviews

By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee

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

 

 

This is trash- great trash... extremely funny. I read it as a kid (maybe 12?) and haven't since, but enjoyed it thouroughly at that age.

i'd like to start by saying that up until this point, i have loved absolutely everything that i have read by tama janowitz. EVERYTHING!!!! that is why i was so disappointed with this book. it did not seem to have the wit and absurdity that the rest of her books have. i didn't find the characters interesting and the story line was so strange, it didn't even make sense. if you have not read anything by tama janowitz, i suggest starting with "cannibal in ny" or "the male cross-dressers support group". they are excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bought this book with a new interest in Janowitz's writing following the publication of Peyton Amberg. While on the holds list at the public library for Peyton, I decided to give her earlier works a try. This particular book was so horrible, just in the first few pages, that I don't think I'll waste time with anything else she's written. The story is non-existent, the characters are all the same and the tone is just silly. I couldn't tell if the narrator was drunk, but I definitely thought the writer was too shallow and patronizing to deal with. It didn't help that the author photo shows a prissy Janowitz standing in the middle of nowhere, rolling her eyes. Rolling her eyes at her own book, I think. I wouldn't recommend this insult to anyone!

There's nothing more disheartening than watching an aging stand up comedian dying on stage, unable to comprehend why the tried-and-true routine that made the career is failing them now. There is very little that is more disappointing than to have a childhood idol revealed as a one-trick pony.

These, unfortunately, are the feelings that overcame me upon reading Tama Janowitz's latest effort, By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee. Being only the fifth novel by Janowitz published since 1981, and the first we've heard from her in about four years, I had high hopes when I curled up with the novel.

I was disappointed to find that, although the style of her previous The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group was evident, Janowitz's attempts at humor fell terribly flat. There is very little direction in By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee and the characters lack even a remote sense of credibility. With a one or two exceptions all of the characters, ages six through adult, speak in almost the exact same voice (probably Janowitz's own).

This novel is so blatantly bad that I felt insulted and pandered to in reading it. If Janowitz can turn out a book this awful, heaven knows in what low regards she must hold her audience.

I love this book. I came across it quite by accident, and I am so glad I did: it turned out to be one of the funniest, most creative books I ever read in English. Think Gargantua and Pantagruel in 20th century America. Very humorous and enjoyable. Ridicules conventional notions and values, and wonderfully written. The characters are quirky, over-the-top and yet so lovable. They don't take themselves or the life around them too seriously, and that's their secret to happiness. I've re-read it many times.

Just goes to show, one person's humour is... not effective for some people. My sister and I read this a few years back -- yes, as adults! -- and we both thought it was one of the funniest books we'd ever read. Totally absurd. We both want to buy copies. Loved it!

Maybe it was the "coral seas." After 30-some repetitions of this phrase (meaning lips, I guess) in the first two chapters, I was taken back to the time years ago when a friend loaned me a Judith Krantz novel, where the character's jammy lips were always being commented upon. I'd like to think Janowitz is a better writer than Krantz, but frankly I'll take glitz, sex, and shopping over this senseless surrealism. Janowitz has a fine eye for detail, so her descriptions of the scenes were amusing, but the characters seemed indistinguishable from one another, and I cared nothing for their fate. I'm not one to ever leave a book unfinished, but after five chapters of torture, I gave up.