The Wrestler's Cruel Study: A Novel [Hardcover]

Stephen Dobyns (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1993

It's after midnight. Two gorillas are descending the side of a New York high-rise. Can that be? But this is only the beginning of Stephen Dobyns's dazzling new novel. Part quest (in pattern), part comic book (in tone), and chiefly an exploration of a young man's search for his missing fiancee, it deals with such matters as heroes, good and evil, wrestling, kidnapping, and subplots from the Brothers Grimm - all as regarded by an omniscient "camera eye." Come see Michael Marmaduke as he progresses from confused innocence to darker self-knowledge; meet Rose White and her sister Violet, along with Deep Rat, cops Brodsky and Gapski, and Primus Muldoon, manipulator of men, who calls on Nietzsche to draw aside the veil of illusion we hide behind. Stephen Dobyns has invented a compelling world where fun and puns mingle with daring make-believe, and larger-than-life characters play out the crucial human questions: How do we live? How do we handle our demons?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist and poet Dobyns ( After Shocks/Near Escapes ; Body Traffic ) claims further new territory in this rollicking tale that echoes the novels of John Barth, Thomas Pynchon and John Irving. In a comic symphony of voices, razor-etched characters mix it up with Manichean heresies, existential conundrums and the ephemera of wrestling lore. Wrestling hero Michael Marmaduke, who as Marduk the Magnificent dresses in white and always triumphs in the ring, searches for his chaste fiancee Rose White, who has been kidnapped from her New York City apartment by two gorilla-suited goons. Michael's mission, much of it related by his Nietzsche-quoting manager Primus Muldoon, forces him to confront such dichotomous clashes as those between good and evil, appearance and reality. Led by the movement of a much-tossed spinning coin (the image of a devil on one side, an angel on the other) that often changes hands, Michael follows a dizzying trail through darkest New York (and the shadows of his soul) in the company of his friends and ring assistants, Thrombosis and Dentata. They encounter Rose's shady twin sister Violet, who works at a cosmetic surgery institute and consorts with a slick fellow called Deep Rat; wrestlers who have quit the ring to live full-time as their "Gimmick" (Taurus lives in a bull ring in Brooklyn; Big Snake, having surgically acquired scales and fangs, slithers around Grand Central Station); and a host of down-and-outs whose vivid stories inhabit this manic tapestry. Despite some threads left hanging at the novel's conclusion, Dobyns's muscular prose and high-energy narration provide exhilarating reading.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Poet and novelist Dobyns ( Body Traffic , LJ 10/1/90; The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini , LJ 5/15/88) has here penned a weirdly comic novel that is part philosophy, part epic, part surreal video. Ostensibly the story of wrestler Michael Marmaduke's search for his kidnapped fiancee, Rose White, this book offers the reader a world in which dualism is the order of the day. What is Michael Marmaduke (a.k.a. Marduk the Magnificent) really searching for--the missing Rose White or his own true self? Dobyns uses wrestling as a metaphor for the age-old struggle between appearance and truth, and his characters represent intriguing examples of human nature coping with lives out of balance. The poetic intensity of his imagery makes Dobyns a delight for lovers of good prose; there is a rich feast here. But those readers unwilling to digest large chunks of philosophy may not want to enter the ring. Recommended for literary fiction collections. For another work by Dobyns, see Saratoga Haunting , reviewed on p. 126.--Ed.
- Dean James, Houston Acad. of Medicine/Texas Medical Ctr. Lib.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 426 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (August 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393035115
• ISBN-13: 978-0393035117
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,082,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gimmick is form pretending to be substance...., November 11, 2001

By 

Brett McGuire (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wrestler's Cruel Study (Paperback)

"The Wrestler's Cruel Study" was a staff recommendation at a local bookstore here in San Francisco several years ago; and, that brief review, placed on the shelf near copies of the book, was written with such enthusiasm and humor that it charmed me the rest of the day. However, I did not purchase the book as I assumed that the reviewer was the talent and that the review was meant as a kind of comic hyperbole. That was a mistake. After running across the book again at another store, I finally bought it. Now, some years later and after a second reading, I think I can say that it ranks among my very favorites.

As the book jacket suggests, we begin by observing an apartment complex where we witness two gorillas scale the outside wall to gain entry. Once inside, they kidnap a young woman wearing only her nightgown and steal her away. Her fiancé, a professional wrestler, is warned against soliciting the help of the police in her recovery; and he is given no motive for the kidnapping or asked for a ransom of any kind. In an effort to discover her whereabouts and gain her safe return, the wrestler embarks on a search that, he discovers, will do more to unravel the mystery of who he is than it will to find the one he loves.

Here is a book that manages to be, among other things: a study in identity and the perception of the self; a nightmare; a story of redemption; absurdist theater designed to illustrate philosophical argument; and a big-dicked perversion of Nietzschean philosophy, albeit a charming and gravely humorous one.

In the book Mr. Dobyns makes much of "gimmick." Put another way, he makes much of the masks that we wear, focusing on how they serve us, but more importantly, how they do us disservice. In illustrating the many ways that it is possible for one to bandage his or her wounds, and wear layer upon layer of these dressings or masks, he has created fully-realized characters with all manner of human strength and frailty. To have done so without judgment is, to my mind, a huge achievement.

Each of the characters that populate this wild and enormously entertaining novel is developed with the skill of one who really seems to understand what it means to be human. Each of them has much to learn about life, their connections with others and, perhaps most importantly, with themselves.

As lucky readers, this all serves to do the same for us. It asks rather big questions and gives no simple answers. Again, this is quite a feat for a fiction. We are asked, "When we look in a mirror, do we see ourselves or a committee?" I submit that if we look closely enough, this book, like any good looking glass, might just give us a glimpse of who we are.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stephen Dobyns, always a cruel study with which to wrestle, February 20, 2001

By 

steve smith (Otowi, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wrestler's Cruel Study: A Novel (Hardcover)

One needn't be the least bit interested in professional wrestling, cruelty or studying to enjoy and grow from reading this absurdist, moralist, epic novel by Stephen Dobyns. It is truly a study in the human condition disguised as a day in the life of a professional wrestler.

The book simply works at many levels. I suppose a wrestling fan could almost read it literally and enjoy it as a hero/detective novel. Anyone with a taste for the absurd can merely enjoy the wonderful twists of fortune and circumstance the characters find themselves in. With an appreciation for Nietzche, arcane studies of Hebrew and Christian theology, a sense of Jungian analysis and a penchant for many-layered, indeed entwined metaphors on top of the rest, I was delighted.

If you like any of Dobyn's other works, or the twisted yet familiar view of humanity common to writers such as Anne Tyler, John Irving or Tom Robbins, you will likely enjoy this book as much as I did.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars smartly funny, November 27, 2002

By 

Paul D. Baxter (Mebane, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wrestler's Cruel Study (Paperback)

I don't have much to add here, but I thought I should let potential readers know that this was the funniest and one of the most memorable books I read this year. So different from Dobyns' other stuff, but SO rewarding as well. It does help to have some interest in the history of theology/heresy and Grimm's fairytales, not to mention Nietzsche.