Customer Reviews

St. Burl's Obituary

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've read this book several times and with each rereading find more to admire. It's rare to find a work that is at once original, erudite and unceasingly entertaining. It succeeds on several levels -- as a contemporary allegory, as a character study of the intelligent, funny and tormented-by-his-bulk Burl, and as a rollicking great yarn. Burl's enormous appetite is a terrific metaphor of our consumer society; his journeys through a hilariously gothic America and his virtual death and resurrection are the stuff of great literature.

This novel entertained me for as long as I could make the reading last. Please call Joel & Ethan Cohen and have them make a moovie of Burl.

This was a great book. The reviewer 'Gluttony and Tedium' must have read a different book from what i read. I'd love to have dinner with Burl(before his obese-demise), just to share the joy of taste. This book is as good as the movie "The Big Night"--the transforming power of food, both good and bad is profound.

Dan Akst sure is one of the brightest authors I've ever come across. Just to start with that statement. I guess one would have to read that marvel of a novel over and over again, just to discover all the literary cross-references he has embedded with such great subtlety. I've read it twice, and I'm sure that there's still loads of hidden treasures. An excessive, a disturbing and a brilliantly talented book. Phew. If we only had writers like that over here.

I selected this book from the library shelf based on its intriguing cover. I read the first couple of pages right there, and was hooked. This is one of those rare books I shall remember all my life, as Burl was so real, quirly and loveable, and his life and views so fascinating, that I was sorry to finish and say goodbye to a new-found friend. Daniel Akst's language is a joy to read, his erudition impressive, and his wit absolutely beguiling.

I started reading this book a few days ago, a chapter or section at a time but had to finally sit down today and read it cover to cover in one sitting. Once you get past the first few chapters, you won't want to put it down and leave Burl stranded anywhere along his journey. If you loved A Confederacy of Dunces, you will find this book most satisfying. The characters are all richly drawn, the language as full and tantalizing as Burl's feasts. This book is a feast of language and image that will leave you thinking about it for a long time to come. I suggest you buy a copy now while they are still available.

Humorous account of a food addict battling weight and various social problems who has a number of adventures during his incognito absence from New York.

Burl Bennett an obituary writer for a New York paper stumbles into the aftermath of a mob killing in the restaurant he co-owns with an uncle. Intimidated by threats against his life, Burl leaves New York for his own protection and heads out West into a series of lifes adventures.

His food obsesion and weight fluctuations makes you wonder whose obituary is being written along the way.

Eventhough at times it seems a bit unrealistic, it is still a great read. I think a lot of people will see a little bit of themselves in Burl even if you are not over weight. My book club read this and everyone thought it was a great book. I probably wouldn't have read it otherwise, but I am sure glad I did. I guess that is one of the benefits of being in a book club.

When I read the synopsis of this book, it seemed like an intriguing odyssey through the bewildering and often grotesque landscape of modern America. It may be the greatest disappointment I can remember reading in the past decade. Askt's pedestrian prose style and wearily-paced plotting managed to make even as sure-fire a sequence as a gangland slaying seem tiresome, while the lovingly-detailed descriptions of every meal the obese protagonist eats become numbingly repetitious and dull. Burl himself is so wretchedly unappealing a character that it seems a penance to have to spend so much time with him (and he appears on virtually every page except for the rare merciful interludes devoted to his detective friend, who appears inexplicably interested in finding the missing Burl after he goes off on his secret cross-country journey. Most people, finding that someone as needy and self-indulgent as Burl had dropped out of their lives, would heave a sigh of relief and just hope that he never reappeared). Gluttony is, of course, one of the seven deadly sins, and Askt has performed the rare feat of making sin seem neither wicked nor intriguing -- simply boring.

I just finished it. I think Part II was much better than part I, but as a whole it was an okay book. I enjoyed some parts more than others. I wouldn't read it again, though.