'You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.'--Franz Kafka
Frenchman Says, 'Hell is Other Frenchmen'--headline from The Onion, bless 'em
Favorite Movies: 'Monty Python and the … Read more
'You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.'--Franz Kafka
Frenchman Says, 'Hell is Other Frenchmen'--headline from The Onion, bless 'em
Favorite Movies: 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail','Lawrence of Arabia','Dr. Stangelove'
Favorite Novels: 'All the King's Men', by Robert Penn Warren; 'Immortality', by Milan Kundera
Favorite Currrent TV Shows: 'The Simpsons', 'Gilmore Girls', "Veronica Mars", "South Park"
Favorite Musicians: Randy Newman, Mark Knopfler, Warren Zevon, The Beatles, Glenn Gould, Stevie Wonder, Liz Phair
Favorite Classical Pieces: 'Messiah' by G.F. Handel; Violin Concerto No.2 by J.S. Bach; 'Appalachian Spring' by Aaron Copland; Symphony No. 7 by Beethoven
Magazine I Wish Were Still Around: 'Spy'
Favorite Movie Actresses: Cate Blanchett, Naomi Watts
Favorite TV Actresses: Alyson Hannigan, Lauren Graham
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program(What's this?)
I'm a big fan of Klosterman's journalism, so I was looking forward to his first novel, "Downtown Owl." But if his message is that life in rural North Dakota is dull and empty, he didn't find a way to dramatize this in an interesting way. It probably isn't fair to compare this novel to Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon. But Klosterman and Keillor both cover the same ground, and Klosterman doesn't yet have the knack of making his story as lively as Keillor's. Maybe Klosterman's next novel should be about his adventures as a rock critic. He made a start with "Killing Yourself To Live", which he admits is at least 15% fiction. It pains me to dismiss "Downtown Owl" but I think Klosterman is… Read more
"Await Your Reply" is that wonderful thing: an exciting mystery that also has literary quality. It reminds me of the glory days of William Goldman (Marathon Man and Magic). The novel tells the story of three young people in way over their heads: a young man searching for his father, a young girl searching for a lover and a better future, and a man searching for his lost, possibly criminally insane twin brother. These parallel plots move forward until they merge at the very end with a twist that would make that old master Cornell… Read more
I was somewhat intimidated before reading "The Master And Margarita" because I haven't had much luck with finishing long Russian novels. "Master", however, is extremely readable and surprisingly contemporary. It feels like it could have been written in the 1960's, when it was actually published, instead of the 1930's when it was written at the height of Stalin's Great Terror. It brilliantly anticipates the black comedy of the 60's like Catch-22; the characters Koroniev and Behemoth could be a couple of Kesey's Merry Pranksters in The… Read more
