Customer Reviews

Slumberland: A Novel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
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Paul Beatty has written a really scathing and hilarious tale about a Black guy, who goes by DJ Darky, on his journey of creating the perfect beat. The most significant part of this journey involves him going to Berlin to get validation from his musical hero, jazz musician Charles Stone, who he and his friends- The Beard Scratchers- have affectionately dubbed "The Schwa". This novel presents ideas of race, culture, and music with language that's lyrical and cheeky. From the opening page, DJ Darky declares that Blackness is over and while reflecting on years of tanning says: "My complexion has darkened somewhat; it's still a nice nonthreatening sitcom Negro brown, but now there's a pomegranate-purple undertone that in certain light gives me a more villainous sheen." Brilliant!

I was laughing out loud from just the first few pages. This is rare that a book invokes emotion in me that's evident. This has to be my favorite book thus far for the year. That this book's focal point is music and the level of music snobbery by the host of such thoughtful characters was so on point for me as I can be quite a music snob. Slumberland is like your favorite movie from which you love to quote every other line. Yes, this book has too many lines I want to quote. I'm glad I held on to Beatty's White Boy Shuffle even though I couldn't get into it on my first attempt many years ago. I think I have more appreciative eyes towards his writing now.

As a German living in Los Angeles (well Pasadena, but you know what I am saying) I just couldn't put down Slumberland. There were a couple of unfortunate mistakes in the German expressions used in the book but I have rarely seen any American, or any writer at all, display a better insight into the schizophrenia of a person's struggle between identity, purpose, and projection. We all are constantly trying to define our identity between our own delusion, heteronomy, and reality. As this might be read as a text on racism, I would argue it simply addresses identity issues at large. That racism, "white man's burden", colonialism, and slavery still linger through the ages, is a given, but it is the individual's struggle to find his or her place in the world tat really matters. Funny enough white man travel to Asia and indulge into the illusion of "yellow fever" while white women seek the holy grail of sexual nirvana in Africa - but what does it really say about human nature? It is the other, eternally defined as something unattainable, the promise of a better tomorrow that, let's be honest, will never come. But that is not the point of this novel that deals with a fish-out-of-water turning from a seeker to a seer: It is the jazzy and irreverent prose that takes us down the rabbit hole of a "former" fascist society struggling with the contradiction of its failure to implement the bizarre nightmares of racism and its inability to make amends that transcend the narrow horizon of its overcast sky, while seeking definite absolution for the holocaust - but it does not matter if the final solution is worse than slavery - in the end it is that we are all human besides our divisive, and absurd, ideas about what constitute the other and ourselves. Music will slave us to a common beat with all our foibles and fears... I was blown away by this work and its style. I like to see this adopted into a movie. Paul let me know if you are interested...

grand book by a lovely new york writer about berlin just before the fall of the berlin wall. much fun and wisdom, totally enjoyable novel.

Beatty has written a wise and funny glimpse of African-American angst as seen through the paradiddles of noise masquerading as music. The story may be set in Germany during The Wall collapse, but the text mirrors the culture and attitude of American thought, juxtaposing post-Nazi German population coping with the sins of the past with post-Lincoln African-American life still muddling through the oppression of past and present; all played to the funkiest jukebox in Berlin. A great read...

Paul Beatty is one of my all-time favorite writers, and with Slumberland, he does not disappoint. His sense of humor and comedy strongly mirror my own. He is HILARIOUS! He is brilliant and his world seems at once vast and peculiarly small. He is, in my opinion, his generation's best writer.

This is one of the best books I read in 2008. The story is chaotic; however, Beatty once again pulls off a read that at once moves a reader into Europe during a time of evolution while also localizing a story about a man coming to understand himself. This is a great read!

Paul Beatty's novel Slumberland may leave you with more questions than answers, but somehow, that's just fine. Set in Berlin just as the Wall was coming down, Slumberland explores race, bigotry, music, fame, obscurity and about a dozen other topics through DJ Darky, Schallplattenunterhalter extraordinaire. DJ Darky, a young Los Angelino, heads to Berlin to locate a mysterious jazz musician who has been somehow forgotten behind the Iron Curtain, because only he- Charles Stone, AKA the Schwa- can complete Darky's "perfect beat," a groove so amazing, it can breaks hearts and mend them, make a man see God and simultaneously question His existence.

Equal parts Confederacy of Dunces, High Fidelity, Big Fish, and some other stuff I haven't read yet, Slumberland is funny, irreverent and substantive.

The character says "I am about words" I think Mr. Beatty is talking about himself. I am only on page 100 and I'm loving it!

Comment on the first review by DatDudeCrazee. Trust his monicker: he is crazy. Slumberland is Beatty's most mature novel and, so far, his best. Trust the reviews above, like the one from the Washington Post. Trust Beatty, he is the real thing.

Book arrived in good shape, and came quickly. Only thing was that there was a big black line running across the bottom of the book; if I'd known that, I would've paid the extra and bought it new, as it was a present.
Luckily, the recipient was very pleased, and couldn't care at all about the line, so the transaction ended happily!