Customer Reviews

The Thought Gang

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ostensibly, this book is about a pair of bank robbers whose robberies are based on various schools of philosophical thought (the positivist view: "I'm positive I want to rob this bank"; also check out the ludicrous Socratic-dialogue scene). That's part of it, yes, but the book is about so much more. It talks about the nature of fate, apocalyptic fears, the downfalls of academia, as well as two or three dozen other things. And it does so in a language that fluctuates between pretentious effusiveness and ironic silliness.

Hubert and Eddie Coffin (the title characters) are a modern day Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (not the Shakespeare but the Stoppard versions). Their brand of illogical logic is the only thing maintaining their existence. They are great characters caught up in a fascinating relationship. Like Ros and Guil, every attempt by one to understand the thoughts of the other comes back empty. That lasts for a while, and then Hube (a man missing more limbs than he's kept) goes and morphs into Tyler Durden. Fischer's style had me perplexed for awhile, but I think I've nailed it down. Think of a movie you know with hip dialogue and at least one torture sequence (my mind skips to 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Fight Club'). Now, imagine that story told to you in the first person by a bookish, lazy, witty, fat, balding, Cambridge-educated philosopher, whose inner dialogues are always terribly funny and exceedingly self-deprecating. Oh, and he has attention deficit disorder. I think that describes it pretty accurately.

My thoughts re all those Z's: coupled with much 'fin de millennium' talk, Fischer appears to be leading us towards some kind of apocalyptic end. Not to worry, for we will be reborn on the other side. Listen to his description of the car wreck that thrusts our narrator towards his bank robbing ways: "...I was ejaculated through the windscreen, reborn from the automotive womb." We have our experiences, he appears to be saying, and they change us (for the better?) when we get to the other side.

This is a good, quick read, punctuated with big ideas (or at least they seem like big ideas -- if the narrator doesn't take them seriously, should I?), and great comic set pieces. It somehow manages to build all this up to a very suspenseful ending, which it pulls off with great panache.

Eddie Coffin is a second rate professor of philosophy with many troubles--the bottle, authority, remembering his name, and so on. Immersed in a mini sexual scandal, he flees to France, joins fortunes with another interesting social outcast, and begins a life of crime.

Essentially a commentary on social disaffection and anomie, Fischer cleverly shrouds his consideration of general social ills in a skewed, aberrant, yet extremely entertaining veil of philosophical didactics between the partners in crime.

The key here is character development as the plot, such as it is, remains minimal throughout the novel. The characters are fully capable of carrying the day, however.

All in all a very good, if somewhat lightweight (for Fischer, anyway), effort.

Tibor Fischer is one of the best writers on the planet -consistently hilarious, fiercely inventive and possessed of thatintuitive insight which makes you think - "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?"

The Thought Gang is a blast - a bald, lazy, dishonest Cambridge Philosophy professor joins forces with a one armed, sociopathic, French armed robber to form the Thought Gang - bank robbers with a philosophical bent who embark on a bank job spree in the south of France. From the ridiculous to the.... well, even more ridiculous really, Fischer draws you into his world where statements such as "I suppose we've all found ourselves running brothels in Amsterdam without the proper training at some time or another" or questions like "Does it help being the clever pig on the way to the abbatoir?" are pretty much the norm. Many zeds and Fischer's penchant for turning nouns into verbs add to the sense of absurd realism, giving the Thought Gang the feel of a Woody Allen movie, but with more philosophy (if that's possible).

Both the Collector Collector and Don't Read This Book If You're Stupid are excellent, while Under the Frog is even better. If you've never read any Tibor Fischer, you are definitely missing out. So treat your brain to some comic philosophy (or is it philosophical comedy?) - read the Thought Gang.

Get the zet. Actually if you don't "get the zet," don't read this book. Littered with obscure philosophical references and amusing anecdotes about the Ionians, this is not a book for the faint-hearted. I knew I was in trouble when I had to look up the definitions for two different words in a 6 word sentence.

If you are in any doubt please pick up this book and read it.You will not regret it. It has to be one of the funniest books I have ever read and it is an exhilerating read to boot.
The sheer panache of Fischer's prose is dazzling and there is more fierce intelligence at work here than in a thousand formulaic bestsellers. The plot outline that you can read in Amazon's introduction just cannot convey at all what a wonderful reading experience this is. It makes most books look lame by comparison.
The story is simple but in Ed Coffin and his sidekick Hubert, Fischer has created 2 great characters.They are the Thought Gang and they indulge in a zany series of improbable bank raids across the south of France.All this is the backdrop for Coffin's hilarious philosophising about life and the zeitgeist.
I can fully understand why some reviewers of this book claim to have re-read it many times.It really is that good an experience. If you have never read Fischer before you are in for a treat.Do yourself a favour and buy this book, or perhaps in the spirit of The Thought Gang "liberate" it !

My favorite work by Fischer. I can't say anything about this that hasn't been stated already- I just wanted to add my two cents. I love this novel. I've read it four times since I first picked it up in '99. It is whimsical, hilarious, poignant, original and (best of all) a completely dead on send up of academic philosophy/ers. Experience in point: as an (philo)undergrad, I lent my copy to all my favorite philo profs. Only one of them thanked me. And he didn't return it. Even if you don't dig on the love 'o wisdom bag- you will laugh out loud at this book. And his other novels as well (though I will say, if you are a female- you may like Under The Frog or The Collector Collector, better- I've noticed a trend that way, with my female friends who ask for good reads).

What can i say? Quite a caper, quite an adventure, and quite a dictionary of Zs at the back. Fischer's novel is a riot and as irreverent and confusing as philosophers go. If nothing, take it as a new lesson in vocabulary.

I feel that if I don't get you to read this book I've done a great wrong in the whole scheme of things. This book is the funniest thing I've ever read (Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a close second). Fischer has a brillant command of the English language and the way he twists words around will have you gwaffing as you reach for your Greek/English Lexicon. I couldn't put it down--even the fourth time I read it! If you like books that aren't straight laced and that break every rule of novel writing you'll dig this. In other words, if your idea of a debaucherous time is renting a R rated movie on Saturday night, look else where, but if you've got a pulse and muscles to laugh with, don't hesitate to buy this book imeddiately.

Middle-aged layabout Eddie Coffin wakes up naked & groggy in an apartment full of child-pornography just as the police break in. If you ever find yourself in similar circumstances, Eddie advises "try to be good-humoured and polite" because "it makes the police fret about having got something wrong."

So begins this hilarious tale of a tenured philosopher at Cambridge who absconds with departmental funds to France, where he meets up with a deranged(?) one-armed robber named Hubert, a psychopath with "a gluttony for erudition." Soon the two of them are on an increasingly improbable crime-spree, rifling bank-vaults & schools of thought with equal aplomb.

As the loot mounts and the police circle ever closer, Eddie & Hubert decide to make one last, climactic heist, to put the capper on their caper career and to put their philosophical conclusions (which include contributions from the Ancient Greeks to Nietzche) to the ultimate practical test.

Tibor Fischer has created a side-splitting narrative that is as full of deep intelligence as it is full of belly-rending guffaws. This is a novel whose pace puts the average potboiler to shame and whose implications stretch the envelope for literary fiction. Eddie & Hubert are characters you will love to hate and vice-versa. If you have an appetite for Felony and Philosophy, then this book is a must-read, a re-read, and a keeper.

I've read this thing every bit of twenty-one times. It is a work of audacity, genius and supremely mordant humor. To say I over-indetify with (and more than somewhat resemble) the protagonist (excepting the baldness) is to do a great injustice to Dr. Coffin. This is the book that got me through graduate school sane, for a relative value of "sane." This is an unwholsome book to take as a guide to life at *any* age (paraphrasing Hemingway),
but damned if it hasn't mostly worked so far. I only got canned once. You've *got* to read this. Get someone else to do the work.