you are a little bit happier than i am (Farsi and Yiddish Edition) (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Reading Tao Lin's you are a little bit happier than i am (Winner of the 2005 December Prize) is reminiscent of covertly eavesdropping on a private conversation over a cup of hallucinogen-spiked black coffee. The reader cannot help but feel a little like a transfixed interloper. The poems are powered by direct, confessional statements which reveal the interior life of a twenty-something year old who is an alternately suicidal and homicidal, infatuated, self-conscious and self-loathing, ambivalent observer/poet. --Aysha Somasundaram, Bookslut.com

Tao Lin's you are a little bit happier than i am is poetry unadorned, offering a stark portrait of our modern world and its alienation. Pulling no punches, and drawing the reader in with seemingly simple statements, Tao Lin is one of the most inventive and insightful authors I have read this year. --www.largeheartedboy.com

Tao Lin's poetry collection gracefully proves the theorem that nothing can be truly sad if it isn t also funny...Lin's is a harsh, insular world of sadness (the word appears countless times throughout the slim volume), hopelessness and despondency. But for every ounce of drear and self-pity, Lin inserts an arresting aside: this poem has all this between each stanza / ...someone on the largest dose of tylenol cold in the history of the world falling off a sixty-story building at night." --Jeb Gleason-Allured, Timeout Chicago

Product Description

Reading Tao Lin's poetry is like looking the wrong way down Frank O'Hara's ear trumpet at a 21st century Mayakovsky IM-ing Lili Brik. It's fun, smart, manic and ecstatic; it puts on a clean shirt before it loads the gun.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1 pages
• Publisher: Action Books; 1st edition (November 1, 2006)
• Language: Farsi, Yiddish
• ISBN-10: 097656923X
• ISBN-13: 978-0976569237
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #354,332 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars !!!, December 24, 2007

By	L. Frens - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

you can tell when you've been reading tao lin. you look at the world differently, you mood is different. its hard to describe, but its definitely worth reading.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I don't know what poetry is. These are poems I guess. I liked reading this book., March 11, 2008

By	Zachary D. German - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I don't think I usually like poetry. I went to a poetry reading tonight and I did not enjoy it. I liked this book. It was like reading transcripts of my own thoughts. It validated my thoughts somewhat I guess, in letting me know that other people thought similar things, and that other other people were publishing transcripts of them. I think writing like this is positive in that it encourages calm reflection on one's own life through direct analysis of another's. I feel like an idiot right now. I have tried to describe why I like this book. I like this book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uniquely Enjoyable, April 3, 2008

By	Yu-han Chao "www.yuhanchao.com" (Taiwan & USA) - See all my reviews

Motifs in _you are a little happier than i am_ include emails, fruit, hamsters, loneliness, beauty, and sadness--what would have been a difficult and problematic combination of objects and abstract terms in the hands of a less talented poet. Tao Lin, however, links these elements effectively with plain, frank language that conveys immediate feelings and observations, often with sympathetic or humorous results.

The surprising concerns in these poems range from the personal to what many readers may resonate with. For example, in the poem "thanksgiving," Lin writes:

i feel most comfortable around middle-class japanese people
i know they are all thinking the same things as me

WHY ARE THE LINES SO LONG?
WHY AM I IN NEW JERSEY?

though their faces appear calm
their thoughts are exactly like i just put them
(Lin)

It does not seem to matter here whether the people are middle-class Japanese or middle-class any-other-American-or-foreigner. Lin points out how anyone might feel in this situation: the lines are long, and (more philosophically) why New Jersey? The contrast between calm faces, yelling interior monologue, the poet himself and Japanese people proves humorous when one reads Lin's conclusion to the poem "we just want to get our food/ and eat it/...and go to sleep."

An uniquely enjoyable, highly recommended collection. Tao Lin's other books include Bed, Eeeee Eee Eeee, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.