Customer Reviews

The cannibal

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

 

 

John Hawkes is a master of allusion and sordid subtleties. In *The Cannibal*, Hawkes' apocalyptic vision of post-war Germany attacks the reader in the form of an ever-deepening chill. Readers of Gunter Grass's *The Tin Drum* will find an interesting parallel here in Hawkes' sterile world. This man is one of the greatest, most difficult writers of the twentieth century. I also highly recommend *The Lime Twig.*

Three of the reviewers simply don't know what they're talking about. If they were writing about art, they'd probably say that Picasso can't draw.

"The Cannibal" is an engaging, flowing novel that is also completely flat (in character and description) and jumpy, with no emotional involvement and even less dialogue (if that's a gesture of defiance toward literary convention, it certainly doesn't work). Is it possible for a book to be completely incoherent and confusing during and after reading, but still keep your finger on the next page? Apparently so, as this is certainly not the worst book I've read. It's unmemorable, sure, but John Hawkes at least exhibits a style that's free of the outright pretension that befalls authors like Pynchon and DeLillo. Interpret it how you may: "The Cannibal" is a book about nothing (maybe incoherence and WWII), but it is well-written, therefore it avoids a one-star rating.

Hawkes has gained a strange and slobbering coterie within and beyond the academy: hopefully NOT on the basis of this amateurish novel. The characterization is awkwardly composed and just stinks of falsity (attempts at "literariness", rather than life), the diction is mannered, the symbolist gestures obvious and unappealing...well, you get the idea. Read Tin Drum if you're set on postwar Germany: a masterful alternative, light years beyond Mr John Hawkes, Man of Letters.

John "Look At Me, I'm Writing!" Hawkes' tries his best to be "literary." The previous reviewer calls this book difficult. It's difficult because it's unreadable. Hawkes has no idea what he's doing, so he just makes everything as obscure as he possibly can in hopes it will impress somebody. The emperor has no clothes. Don't bother with this pointless tripe.