Customer Reviews

What's Not to Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer

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

 

 

I laughed aloud frequently while reading this self-effacing if not wholly self deprecating series of stories which appear to be author's true adventures.

Ames' writing is a lot like Woody Allen's humorous plays, old standup work, and screenplays... Readers get to laugh at the ridiculous yearnings and whines of a pitiful but somehow loveable nebbish, right? But Ames is apparently writing truthfully about his own sexual guilt, perversions, and fantasies. Quite remarkable that the writer can spin details of his unsavory problems with very taut, humorous prose. The result is, reader ends up rooting for the poor sap.

It's all here: sex with a transsexual, his Oedipus complex, tales of his pal the exhibitionist, prostitutes, getting the crabs, you name it. Reader just doesn't know what to expect next, but Ames always manages to top each story with the next. Perhaps just as much could be said for average reader's appetite for the bizarre and perverse. I would guess that Ames knows all too well what sells, and he's just happy to oblige. Food for thought, but meanwhile, just go ahead and laugh your way through.

Remarkably candid accounts and perfectly crafted humor make it impossible to dismiss him as a creepy pervert. Good old human frailty and honesty seem to prevail.

Jonathan Ames is a thirtysomething New Yorker, a Princeton graduate, a former taxi-driver, a performance artist, a father, a devoted son and nephew, a lover of women, a friend to many, a romantic, and a very funny man. He is a raconteur, and writes about sex a lot. Puberty arrived late for him, and he still frets about size - even the size of his nose (too big, he says). He's been a model, but thinks he's ugly. He doesn't ever have much money. He worries about flatulence, and is beset by constipation (for which he takes a fiber supplement) and stomach troubles. He watches TV with his dad. He adores his mom. He's unconventionally sexual at times - fretting guiltily that his great-aunt Pearl, a real character with whom he is wonderfully close, lives nearby some of the locations of his escapades, and he isn't going to be stopping in to visit her.

He's insomniac and wonders how he could ever spend a full night with a lover, since he has so much trouble getting a good night's sleep, period. He is drawn to many women, endeavors to please them, and it would seem that he does. He is funny, but he is quite competent.

Ames freely admits to intense Oedipal conflicts (except for him they aren't conflicts; he embraces them - and they don't get in his way in the least). At the age of 28 he meets an appealing woman, a composer 37 years his senior. They go to bed, and have a lovely time of it. Ames describes the event in its entirety ("Oedipus Erects"). He's sweet. He wants you to laugh and to love him, and it's easy to do both.

Ames' revelations about love, attachment, sexuality, and his winsome acceptance of his own and others' foibles make this book a delight. He is sincere and sweet and uninhibited. He believes in love and friendship, and he has a great memory. This book is thoroughly worthwhile.

I've long been a fan of the comic essay -- from Thurber and EB White to Woody Allen and Fran Lebowitz to David Sedaris. All of these people are brilliant. Perhaps it's because I share so many of Ames' peccadillos that he is my very favorite. People have compared the Jewish-sexually anxious (understatement of the century) Ames to Philip Roth. I understand the comparison, but Ames really is in a league of his own. I've never read anything quite like him. In the opening essay, "Pubertas Agonistes," Ames recounts his latent puberty with vivid detail and recollections of a harrowing time: He is forced to wear a corset for a back ailment, he suffers from an elevated testicle, he has no pubic hair and, as he tells it, "a secret, tiny penis......the penis of a five year old." In "Sex in Venice," he details his stint as a male nanny in Europe, where "in a mad act of affection" he steals the panties of his French "mother," tries them on and masturbates. "Then," he writes, "I threw them away, wanting to destroy the evidence of my crime." As in all of Ames' writing (both of his novels contain this), there is a tight-rope walk, balancing utter frantic joy with desperate melancholy. He is just as likely to make you weep sadly as he is to make you cry from laughing so hard. I must say, I was pretty disappointed by the assessment of this book by Kirkus Review, citing as proof of its inferiority, "The Playboys of Northern New Jersey," in which the author recounts an early sexual experience with a street hooker in Manhattan that concludes with her throwing tea in his face. Kirkus deems the essay insipid, done before. But not like this. Of the hookers who stand on the corner in the middle of winter drinking tea, he writes: "I didn't know if they drank tea to stay warm or to wash the taste of sperm out of their mouths." Lines like this abound. "My colon was clean," he writes elsewhere, " and my spirit was light." In "The Mangina," an essay about his friend Chandler who invents a prosthetic vagina for men to wear, Chandler produces a videotape of himself wearing the Mangina and playing with the labia and inserting a finger. Of this, Ame's says, "This is completely depraved....This makes Karen Finley look like a rank amateur." The same could be say of What's Not to Love? Jonathan Ames is one of a kind. And this book is absolutely hilarious. I laughed so hard, I nearly punctured a lung.

There's a lot of undue hostility toward John Ames and his book. I'm always baffled by it. His book is honest, hilarious, twisted and, above all else, a beautiful read.

Lazy writing style? I would call it easygoing and effortless. We're stuck in a craze where we want authors to indulge in page after page of "pretty" prose. I praise a man, like Elmore Leonard, who writes so smoothly you're instantly swept away.

Ames might not be for everyone -- but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be sought out for those with an open mind and a penchant for devastatingly funny, sometimes raunchy and truth-revealing humor.

(And...I cannot even THINK about his South of France story without weeping because I laugh so hard.)

THEN READ THIS BOOK!!! For here you will not find tales of a misunderstood old man or unique black boy that some annoying liberal chic met doing volunteer work year's ago or any other typical fare you find in short story publications these days. Nope, Jonathan Ames writes to entertain not to score points with the creative writing departments at Midwestern grad schools. The stories in this book are mostly hysterical and very relatable even to those of us who are not polymorphously pervous sexually. Written in 1st person perspective, these stories give one an inside look at the "typical NYC jewish semi-obsessed with transexual" mind. I urge anyone who is looking for something, dare I say, ENJOYABLE to read, to pick up a copy for there is so much to love here, Mr. Ames mother should be proud!

Jonathan Ames conceives of himself first and foremost as a fiction author and a column writer (for the New York Press, whence this book is drawn) very much second -- a way to stave off starvation between the advance and royalty checks. The problem is, compared with his fiction writing, I think his columns are actually better. Both draw upon the same life experiences, often even phrased in the same ways, but in a column, the confessional tone is more entertaining and less neurotic. That's not to say columnist-Ames isn't neurotic -- he's neurotic about his neuroses, for crying out loud -- but he's more endearing when simply laying his heart on the line than when trying to create a character independent of Ames in his novels, all of whom are more guarded.

What's Not to Love starts off with some of the experiences Ames has written about in The Extra Man and I Pass Like Night as well as other encounters not integrated into his works of fiction. There's an affectionate fascination of society's forgotten and dehumanized (the homeless, prostitutes, etc.), obsessions with his sexual performance, and his difficulty connecting with the opposite sex. Never cynical, Ames' New York City is an array of corner bars and personalities left out of television's prettification.

This book isn't for the easily offended; Ames doesn't hold back. At the same time, those who have dabbled in urban subcultures or anyone who reads, say, Savage Love on a regular basis won't bat an eyelash except maybe at Ames' willingness to buy tuna sandwiches from strangers on the street. (Jon tries it so you don't have to!)

What's Not to Love is not arranged chronologically, which is a shame since the author develops over the course of the book if one takes the time to divine which were written earlier. Instead, the best material is loaded in the front -- a good sales technique, but one that leads to the book petering out (no pun intended) in the last third. Regardless, fans of Ames' novels will immensely enjoy this collection.

An eight-hour flight across the Atlantic is never fun. Right? Well, in most cases the answer is an emphatic "right!" But, there are a few exceptions, and one of those exceptions would read as follows, "An eight hour flight across the Atlantic is never fun, UNLESS you are reading "What's Not to Love? : The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer" by Jonathan Ames." I am being honest when I tell you that on many occasions during the flight and the ensuing train ride to Venice, I encountered perplexed looks from the Italians as I roared out loud at Ames' riveting accounts of his personal adventures, triumphs, mishaps, idiosyncrasies, and follies.

In a time when we are barraged with images of violence from home and abroad, the hilarious (and vivid) image of Mr. Ames sitting in an undersized bath tub rubbing his head with a scalp "invigorator," finding new uses for his curtains, and providing a forum for a friend of his to showcase his "artwork," are MOST welcome and treasured by the imagination.

Ames doesn't just write, he pulls you into his world and lets you come along for one wild ride after another. For those of us who wear a tie everyday to our humdrum jobs and only dream about TRUE adventure, Jonathan Ames is our ONLY hope!

I strongly suggest you buy this book. Simply put, spending a few bucks to buy your own copy is cheaper and infinitely safer than experiencing an Ames-like existence for yourself!! Thank you Mr. Ames for living your life so that the rest of us can experience it from the backseat.

I got this book the day after seeing the hilarious Jonathan Ames on Letterman, and what a treat! He's one of the most candid and funny writers I've ever read. Not many people can reveal episodes of intestinal distress or having erections in the presence of an elderly great aunt to the public. Talking about its content makes it sound like the juvenile stuff of Farrelly Brothers movies, but it's not all lighthearted. He deals with issues of early fatherhood, failed love, and depression too. Ames writes it all with intelligence and a self-deprecating wink. This book is a gem!

Not for the faint-of-heart or the weak-of-stomach, Ames' memoir swerves from hilarious to nauseating, touching on every scatological subject in-between. From enemas to impotence to prosthetic sexual organs to baldness, Ames waxes poetic on every conceivable body part and its function (or, more likely, its DISfunction). In the author's own words, "What's Not to Love?" is the kind of book one's mother shouldn't read. If not always humorous, Ames' stories are always pointedly and seat-squirmingly honest. If you are in an adventurous mood and are looking for something out-of-the ordinary, "What's Not to Love?" is the book for you.

What was always ingenious about Spalding Gray's raconteurism was his way of explaining in very rational terms the way he'd made a total mess out of his life. Ames does the same thing, albeit with his own twist. As Ames portrays himself in the essay collection, he's a man completely possessed by his own body ... and bodily urges. No matter how he tries to stop himself with intellect, his visceral desires take over, often getting him into a hilarious, bizarre kind of trouble. Only at the 11th hour is his brain able to swoop down and save him, and even then he doesn't completely get away clean. His voice is at once refreshingly candid yet self-loathing, a balance few authors are able to pull off this convincingly, or dare I say, endearingly.