Customer Reviews

Superbad

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4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
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If all goes just right, Ben Greenman should be my favorite writer 10-15 years from now. His sensibilities are my sensibilities, his tastes my tastes, his humor my humor. This is merely a personal matter, but let's face it - what higher praise can you give a writer? I only hope that he and I would agree on where his current strengths and weaknesses lie.

Greenman's two major affiliations define the literary worlds his fiction straddles: McSweeney's and The New Yorker. His writing trades in the brash cockiness and occasional absurdism of the former, as well as the staid "contemporary traditionalism" of the latter - but it does this by turns, not simultaneously. This may be because the two are too disparate to be reconciled, but the impression I get is that Greenman's loyalties are simply too divided: he doesn't want to have his cake and eat it too, unfortunately; he's perfectly content with two cakes. The result is a book whose individual pieces are fine for the most part, but whose overall personality feels split. It's not so much that he keeps his "serious" and "comic" pieces separate; it's that he reserves all his insight and substance for the one and leaves many humorous pieces thin and smirky.

As is the case with many first books from young writers, it's easy to play "spot the influence" while reading Superbad. Greenman has ingested, but not completely digested, his forebears, especially the three B's: Borges, Barth, and Barthelme (the last of whose estate ought to get a percentage of profits from "In the Presence of the General" and several other pieces here), with a healthy dose of Woody Allen thrown in, and a dash of Calvino for good measure. Hell, "Fun with Time" even seems to owe a debt to Yoko Ono's "Grapefruit." The more overt moments of imitation detract from the originality of the collection, but never from the satisfaction of it.

Indeed, the book is consistently rewarding and highly readable. The author is eager to display his range, and the pieces veer from comedic musicals to pseudo-Tolstoy tragedies to mock interviews to celebrity daydreams to Oulipoian word games. This too is typical of smart young writers, who aim to impress and to get the most out of their book deal. There's something to be said for variety, though it does make the book more of a sampler than a themed, consistent volume. Greenman is not equally at home in all these styles, but no piece falls entirely flat. ("Getting Nearer to Nearism" - which lacks a heart and takes easy shots at pretentious avante guardism - comes close, though.)

My major complaint, however, has to do with the author's seeming reluctance to give in to his more sympathetic literary impulses. Greenman is smart, he is funny, and he has a strong sense of humanity. But the last of these - which is where greatness lies - struggles to be heard above the other two. This is in part because his brand of humor is often cutting (though never cruel, and his targets are well chosen) and because the oppressive cleverness that sinks so many McSweeney's writers troubles his work too. Of the lot, Greenman seems to have the best chance of overcoming this, if he can master the smart-[butt]... in him and make it serve his literary aims, instead of vice versa.

Which is why "Reeling" and "Hart Hurts His Hand," while not the most pleasurable or most successful pieces in the book, may be the most promising. Here Greenman dispenses with clever takes on established genres and hip post-modern irony to tell original (sort of), experimental, and most of all *sincere* stories. This kind of courage is what he and many other snappy young writers most lack; his work - always entertaining - too often keeps a formal distance from both reader and subject, rejecting unaffectedness and wearing humor not as a jester's cap, but as a suit of armor. (Greenman even inserts a comic professor throughout the book, whose quirky critiques mute some of the more serious works.) In these two stories he finds a way to meld substance and humor and the results, though uneven, are for me the most intriguing moments in Superbad.

But elsewhere too the author clearly understands and flirts with writing that wants to connect on levels of community, identity, and vulnerability, and this is where he shows true potential. "Ill in '99," "Snapshot," "The Theft of a Knife," "Dolores," and other pieces here all contain some deeply lovely passages. I look forward to the day when he ends his McSweeney's association; his pieces are among the cleverest in the McS stable and they invariably make me smile, but many are slight and lack resonance (like "Stuck on Red" and "Ten Kinds of Things," which here feel like filler) and there are lots of other writers out there doing the same thing (if less imaginatively - who else would produce the delightful "Blurbs" and "Elian! The Musical"?). If the expectations of his on-line fans, a burgeoning cult, have not yet become burdensome to him - and it seems, remarkably, that they have not - they should soon. Whatever McS's other virtues, it is too narrow and stifling a venue for Greenman's full range of gifts.

Superbad's "non-McSweeney's moments" (I realize the book itself is printed by the McS's press) point to a budding talent that's worth watching over the next few years. In one story, Greenman (or an authorial character) says in self-praise, "I have good ideas and attach good words to them." It's true. He has not yet found his voice, one to call his own, but the book is full of many sharply observed moments and beautiful turns of phrase, and the author's comedic timing is - to use a favorite Greenman word - unimpeachable. When he learns to synthesize these talents and put honesty above mere cleverness, he could really have something.

I never planned to write a review of this book, but I read the Joan Finaly review and a few things about it outraged me. I don't know if this other reviewer has followed Ben Greenman's work on the McSweeney's Website, but so much of what he does is about breaking down expectations exactly like this: that stories have to be a certain length, or that attention spans have to begin and end within a single story. There are are longer stories in this book, but I don't think that's the point. Neither is some old lady's concept of unity or coherentness. I'm not saying the book is perfect. It's annoying lots of the time. But there are too few books like this, and too many readers like that.

I just saw something in the Washington City Paper about this author coming to town to read. Interestingly, the listing of the event was the most negative paragraph I have ever read about any book. It was amazing. It's funny, because I was just telling a friend that I think this is the kind of book that arouses strong reactions in people, either positive or negative -- they think it's pointless and self-indulgent or fantastic in ways that make those kind of niggling judgments besides the point. I am in the latter camp, actually. I have a conflict and might not be able to go to this reading, but I am going to try. I bought this book on an impulse, because of the cover, and I have to say that I have enjoyed it thoroughly. There are some pieces I hate, but it's like a record album. There are always a few songs that don't work, or that don't work for you.

I noticed that the first review of this book was supposedly written by the author's mother, which is both funny and probably not true. I have followed Ben Greenman's work on McSweeneys since he started publishing, and I can say with some confidence that he is one of the twistiest writers I have ever read. Sometimes this is slightly annoying -- there's so much trickery built into every piece that it can be exhausting. But sometimes it can be exhilarating. I have been really looking forward to this book for months, both because it collects some of my favorite pieces from the McSweeneys site, and because there seem to be lots of new pieces. One of them, a story called "Snapshot," is one of the best short stories I have ever read, and it's not a humor piece at all. This is the least boring book I have read in years.

If Mr. Greenman wouldn't try so hard to be clever and witty, this could be a fantastic book. Unfortunately, much of the humor seems to forced and is at times, painful to read. I can almost feel him over my shoulder, telling me "Look, isn't that a clever twist. Oh! That's so funny! You should be laughing now!" I did laugh after the first few stories, but then when I knew I was supposed to be laughing, I didn't.

There are a few real gems in these stories, but many fall short of greatness. I feel they were just included to fatten up the book. Oh, and those "musicals" need to go.

I really wanted to like all the pieces in this book, but I just couldn't. The writing didn't seem sincere to me. Don't try so hard to be clever, and make me laugh. I can figure that out myself.

Superbad is, in part, inspired and, regretfully, often tired. It reads like the results of a college semester-long introduction to Creative Writing, the assignments of which lie within the bound pages of this book. Mr. Greenman has some true gems here, and as a prose essayist he excels (read the interview with the founder of Nearism for proof). However, too often the short pieces in Superbad ask, "Is this really writing? Is there a plot?" The reader begins to ask these same questions, and too often the work becomes tiresome in its quest to challenge and redefine contemporary fiction and prose writing styles.
Toward the end of this book, I began to wonder if Mr. Greenman could sit still long enough to compose a complete work of prose, either in novel form or a continous narrative, or if he becomes too bored or disinterested to do so. There is great merit in writing the short story, which is a true talent indeed, but even Mr. Greenman's short pieces seem incomplete.
A frustrating piece, that shines in parts, but is unrealized in others.

It wasn't the humor pieces that I liked best in this book but rather the more moving, genuinely emotional short stories. The author has a penchant for characters who are trapped in lives where they are forced to catalog, or keep lists, and they sometimes seem close to suicidal. For anyone who has ever worked in an office, this hits close to home.

There are some piece in here I don't understand, like one that's just a long list of items, but the last story, "What 100 People, Real and Fake, Believe About Dolores," is one of the best stories I have ever read. I thought so when it came out on the McSweeneys site, and I still think so now. It's not like any other story that i know.

I was mesmerized by this superb collection of short stories and pieces. Greenman moves from the ironic to the touching with ease. "Snapshot" and "In Shuvalov's Library" are among the most fascinating stories because they so elegantly evoke the great Russian literature of the past. On the other hand, "Elian the Musical" was just flat out fun. My only criticism: Superbad was too short. On this, his father and I agree.

I ran across this book at a friend's house and I was pretty impressed. There are at least a dozen different ideas, sometimes at cross-purposes, but they're handled very intelligently. The reviewer who found this book pretentious has the wrong idea, I think -- parts of it are supposed to parody pretention. To each his own, I guess, but I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to more books from this author.