Customer Reviews

Some Can Whistle

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

You people are incredibly rude! Please don't tell the ending of the story in the review. If you haven't read the book, don't read the reviews from Laura or Paul. Could you be more rude?

By the way, I loved the book.

I loved Texasville, and couldn't finish Terms of Endearment. Unfortunately, "Some Can Whistle" is closer to Terms of Endearment, although I can take the main character, Danny Deck, more seriously. He is the former writer/producer of a number one rated TV series, who has become depressed, and doesn't do much on an isolated estate. The 21 year old daughter he has never seen contacts him, and sets the plot in motion, while awakening him from his depression. In some ways she is his antithesis: vital, joyful, impulsive. The book revels in eccentricities, but I didn't find it very amusing. It does make some interesting explorations of the nature of love and friendship between man and woman (parental love for children is unconditional in the novel). I found the main character interesting at times, and enjoyed the daughter. The book's ending was moving.

This book I found the characters leaving a bad taste in my mouth. There is only one scene I found endering. I found All My Friends... enjoyable. But not this one. Mr McMurtry I love the rest of your woorks.

It is easy to see in reviewing the reviews, that people either love or hate this book. It is a short book which treats itself as unimportant until it reminds us to live life. It is like "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in that it teaches us that the essence of your life can be defined by a very short period of time. This can be a very moving book.

I love this book. Danny Deck's journey from a self-involved recluse to the walking wounded is both funny and tragic. Just as in real life, Danny's life changes forever in the course of a phone call. T. R. and the cast of characters that draw Danny back into the land of the living for an all too brief time are unforgetable. I sometimes find myself thinking of this story, partly because something similar happened to me. But I also think of this story when I realize yet again that life short and can turn on a dime. Danny's story is universal, although few of us a gazillioniares. Love, loss and the journey not taken is something everyone, in one way or another, can relate to. This book will make you think.

Ever since I read "All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers," I wondered what became of Danny Deck. Come to find out that Deck is alive, though not particularly well. He has isolated and insulated himself. Then, after being lost to him for twenty years, his daughter appears and overturns his life. She pierces his armor and brings him joy and tears. There are moving and beautiful moments in this book, and some hilarious ones as well.

...but unfortunately he doesn't always know what to with the plot. This is a very well-written and entertaining book, but the protagonist goes from beginning to end letting things happen to him rather than actually living his life in an active manner. McMurtry uses a particular literary device (which you'll understand if you read the book) to shock him, but unlike the defibrillators used to shock heart patients, he still lives his life in a more or less brain dead manner. McMurtry has used this same literary device in other novels, and it starts looking like his default choice when he doesn't know what else to do with his characters.

Danny Deck is a character that winds through many McMurtystories, but this is his first major appearance since "All MyFriends.." In both books, Deck is like the audience watching a performance artist--set on the role of observer, but often getting sucked in (bewildered and unprepared) by the artist's actions. Things begin with Danny sitting at breakfast in his Los Dolores mansion (same house that Jacy stayed in during "Texasville"). He's stinking rich from his successful sit-com years and quarreling with Godwin, his lecherous gadfly/friend from "All My Friends.." The phone rings: his 22-year old daughter, from his short and rough marriage with Sally, is taking him to task. Danny tracks down his girl and brings her to Los Dolores along with the usual unusual cast of McMurty characters. How they get along in this group brings in some hilarious moments (the ex-con boyfriend accidently blowing up Danny's oil tanks while target shooting his AK-47 is one good example). Danny has little choice but to leap into his father/grandfather roles and finds renewed joy in life.
McMurtry uses the theme of death and coping with grief thoughout much of his work--but this story is truly devastating. How Danny tries to keep going for the remnants of his new family is powerful and very moving. Although hard to read in places due to these intense moments, I count this as one of McMurtry's best. END

It's really hard to put in to words what "Some Can Whistle" does to you. You feel so sorry, you ache for happiness for all of them, and you can't put it down. It's somewhat like "Great Gatsby" in that no good deed goes unpunished. Please read it and fall in love with McMurtry's characterizations.

What an imagination this man has! How in the world does he inhabit old men and young women and gay professor brains all at the same time? This is a glorious extension of ALL MY FRIENDS, and I loved every roller-coaster minute of it. T.R. is lovable, beautiful, tragic and haunting. Danny's newfound fatherhood is hysterically funny. Vintage, vintage McMurtry, in every way. Read it and laugh out loud; finish it and weep.