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Leaving the Atocha Station by [Ben Lerner]

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Ben Lerner

Leaving the Atocha Station Kindle Edition

by Ben Lerner (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. What is actual when our experiences are mediated by language, technology, medication, and the arts? Is poetry an essential art form, or merely a screen for the reader's projections? Instead of following the dictates of his fellowship, Adam's "research" becomes a meditation on the possibility of the genuine in the arts and beyond: are his relationships with the people he meets in Spain as fraudulent as he fears his poems are? A witness to the 2004 Madrid train bombings and their aftermath, does he participate in historic events or merely watch them pass him by?

In prose that veers between the comic and tragic, the self-contemptuous and the inspired, Leaving the Atocha Station is a portrait of the artist as a young man in an age of Google searches, pharmaceuticals, and spectacle.

Born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1979, Ben Lerner is the author of three books of poetry The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw, and Mean Free Path. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award, a Fulbright Scholar in Spain, and the recipient of a 2010-2011 Howard Foundation Fellowship. In 2011 he became the first American to win the Preis der Stadt Münster für Internationale Poesie. Leaving the Atocha Station is his first novel.

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177 pages
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English
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Coffee House Press
Publication date

August 23, 2011
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2648 KB
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

An excerpt from Leaving the Atocha Station

The first phase of my research involved waking up weekday mornings in a barely furnished attic apartment on Calle de las Huertas, the first apartment I’d looked at after arriving in Madrid, or letting myself be woken by the noise from La Plaza Santa Ana, failing to assimilate that noise fully into my dream, then putting on the rusty stovetop espresso machine and rolling a spliff while I waited for the coffee. When the coffee was ready I opened the skylight, which was just big enough for me to crawl through if I stood on the bed, and drank my espresso and smoked on the roof overlooking the plaza where tourists were congregating with their guide books on the metal tables and the accordion player was plying his trade. In the distance: the palace and long lines of cloud. Next my project required dropping myself back through the skylight, shitting, taking a shower, my white pills, and getting dressed. Then I took my bag, which contained a bilingual edition of Lorca’s Collected Poems, my two notebooks, pocket dictionary, John Ashbery’s Selected Poems, drugs, and left for the Prado.

From my apartment I walked down Huertas, nodding to the street cleaners in their lime green jumpsuits, crossed El Paseo del Prado, entered the museum, which was only a couple of Euros with my international scholar ID, and proceeded directly to room 58, where I positioned myself in front of Roger Van der Weyden’s Descent from the Cross. I was usually standing before the painting within forty-five minutes of waking and so the hash and caffeine and sleep were still competing in my system as I faced the nearly life-sized figures and awaited equilibrium. Mary is forever falling to the ground in a faint; the blues of her robes are unsurpassed in Flemish painting. Her posture is almost an exact echo of Jesus’; Nicodemus and a helper hold his apparently weightless body in the air. C.1435; 220 x 262 cm. Oil on oak paneling.

A turning point in my project: I arrived one morning at the Van der Weyden to find someone had taken my place. He was standing exactly where I normally stood and for a moment I was startled, as if beholding myself beholding the painting, although he was thinner and darker than I. I waited for him to move on, but he didn’t. I wondered if he had observed me in front of the Descent and if he was now standing before the painting hoping to see whatever it was I must have been seeing. I was irritated and tried to find another canvas for my morning ritual, but I was too accustomed to the dimensions and blues of the Descent to accept a substitute. I was about to abandon room 58 when the man broke suddenly into tears, convulsively catching his breath. Was he, I wondered, just facing the wall to hide his face as he dealt with whatever grief he’d brought into the museum? Or was he having a profound experience of art?

I had long worried that I was incapable of having a profound experience of art and I had trouble believing that anyone had, at least anyone I knew. I was intensely suspicious of people who claimed a poem or painting or piece of music “changed their life,” especially since I had often known these people before and after their experience and could register no change. Although I claimed to be a poet, although my supposed talent as a writer had earned me my fellowship in Spain, I tended to find lines of poetry beautiful only when I encountered them quoted in prose, in the essays my professors had assigned in college, where the line breaks were replaced with slashes, so that what was communicated was less a particular poem than the echo of poetic possibility. Insofar as I was interested in the arts, I was interested in the disconnect between my experience of actual artworks and the claims made on their behalf; the closest I’d come to having a profound experience of art was probably the experience of this distance, a profound experience of the absence of profundity.

Once the man calmed down, which took at least two minutes, he wiped his face and blew his nose with a handkerchief he then returned to his pocket. On entering room 57 which was empty except for a lanky and sleepy guard, the man walked immediately up to the small votive image of Christ attributed to San Leocadio; green tunic, red robes, expression of deep sorrow. I pretended to take in other paintings while looking sidelong at the man as he considered the little canvas. For a long minute he was quiet and then he again released a sob. This startled the guard into alertness and our eyes met, mine saying that this had happened in the other gallery, the guard’s communicating his struggle to determine whether the man was crazy—perhaps the kind of man who would damage a painting, spit on it or tear it from the wall or scratch it with a key—or if the man was having a profound experience of art. Out came the handkerchief and the man walked calmly into 56, stood before The Garden of Earthly Delights, considered it calmly, then totally lost his shit. Now there were three guards in the room, the lanky guard from 57, the short woman who always guarded 56, and an older guard with improbably long silver hair who must have heard the most recent outburst from the hall. The one or two other museum-goers in 56 were deep in their audio tours and oblivious to the scene unfolding before the Bosch.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

One of the best books of 2011. - Jonathan Franzen
One of the best books of 2011. "...intensely and unusually brilliant." - The Guardian (UK)
One of the best books of 2011. - iTunes
One of the best books from indie publishers in 2011. "[Leaving the Atocha Station] is remarkable for its ability to be simultaneously warm, ruminative, heart-breaking, and funny. Which is all to say that this book is suddenly one of my very favorites and I have a serious crush on Ben Lerner's brain." - Shelf Unbound
One of the Best Fiction Books of 2011. "[Lerner] writes so candidly and exquisitely...a marvelous novel...fully dimensional and compelling..." - The Wall Street Journal
"[A] noteworthy debut...Lerner has fun with the interplay between the unreliable spoken word and subtleties in speech and body language, capturing the struggle of a young artist unsure of the meaning or value of his art...[and] succeeds in drawing out the problems inherent in art, expectation, and communication. And his Adam is a complex creation, relatable but unreliable, humorous but sad, at once a young man adrift and an artist intensely invested in his surroundings." - Publishers Weekly
"Well written and full of captivating ideas..." - Library Journal
"...profoundly evocative...[Lerner] cleverly, seductively, and hilariously investigates the nature of language and storytelling, veracity and fraud..." - Booklist
"...subtle, sinuous, and very funny...beguiling..." - New Yorker
"...explores with humor and depth what everyone assumes is OK to overlook...incredible..." - Star Tribune
"Leaving the Atocha Station proves [Lerner is] a droll and perceptive observer, and a first-rate novelist." - New York Journal of Books
"...one of the most compelling books...flip, hip, smart, and very funny...unlike any other novel-reading experience..." - NPR
"...seductively intelligent and stylish writing, mercilessly comic in the ways it strips the creative ego bare. It will be fascinating to see where Lerner goes with his talent next." - The Independent (UK)
Winner of the Believer Book Award. "...hilarious and sensitive novel...dense and full of life and feeling." - The Believer
"Lerner's prose, at once precise and swerving, propels the book..." - The Daily Beast
"...darkly hilarious...a quintessential modernist expat novel...fiercely contemporary...beautiful, funny, and revelatory." - Book Forum
"This is far from the first novel about a young American finding himself in Europe or a young writer grappling with the problem of authenticity, but Leaving the Atocha Station transcends these tropes when Adam Gordon witnesses the Madrid train bombings of 2004, brutal reminders that the digital age is not defined only by problems of authenticity and language but also by mass violence and terror. Lerner's novel is timely and relevant and, most importantly, a damn good book." - Hey Small Press
"...a hilarious and insightful account of an artist's development in the digital age." - The Outlet
"I enjoyed it so much I read it twice (and laughed out loud both times)." - Lorin Stein, The Paris Review --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00BVTUYXW
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Coffee House Press (August 23, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 23, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2648 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 177 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #534,444 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #429 in Humorous American Literature
- #765 in Humorous Literary Fiction
- #3,546 in General Humorous Fiction

Customer Reviews:
4.1 1,236 ratings

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Ben Lerner

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Ben Lerner is the author of three books of poetry (The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw, and Mean Free Path), three novels (Leaving the Atocha Station, 10:04, and The Topeka School) and a work of criticism (The Hatred of Poetry). His collaborations with artists include Blossom (with Thomas Demand), The Polish Rider (with Anna Ostoya), and The Snows of Venice (with Alexander Kluge). Lerner has been a a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations. In 2011 he won the "Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie", making him the first American to receive this honor. Lerner teaches at Brooklyn College, where he was named a Distinguished Professor of English in 2016.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5

1,236 global ratings

5 star		41%
4 star		36%
3 star		16%
2 star		4%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Roger Brunyate

Translating the Damaged Life

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 9, 2011

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Reading the first section of this novel on line, I immediately wanted to buy it. Adam Gordon is a young poet living in Madrid on a postgraduate fellowship. He describes his morning routine of staggering out of bed, taking his pills, smoking a joint, and then going to the Prado Museum to stand before the Rogier van der Weyden "Descent from the Cross." On this occasion, though, there is a strange man in his accustomed place, a man who suddenly bursts into copious tears. Is he personally troubled, or is he having a Profound Experience of Art?

For Adam feels himself incapable of profound experiences, whether of art of of life. He portrays himself as a layabout and a liar, spending most of his time self-medicated or high; if I see the word "spliff" one more time, I'll scream! He claims that his own poetry is a con, created by taking a line from Lorca, for instance, mistranslating it, then braiding it together with scraps from his journal. He even claims to be indifferent to poetry as an art form, and yet his disclaimer says something quite profound: "Poetry actively repelled my attention, it was opaque and thingly and refused to absorb me; its articles and conjunctions and prepositions failed to dissolve into a feeling and a speed; you could fall into the spaces between words as you tried to link them up; and yet by refusing to absorb me the poem held out the possibility of a higher form of absorption of which I was unworthy, a profound experience unavailable from within the damaged life."

Translate that last sentence to everyday life, especially to that curious stage in life that you can experience as a young man, when you feel outside the world rather than part of it, and strive in vain to connect. Looking up at a passing plane, Adam has a nice image for his detachment: "I imagined the passengers could see me, imagined I was a passenger that could see me looking up at myself looking down." There is a story here of sorts -- Adam shuttles for a while between two girlfriends, one of whom becomes his translator and proxy muse -- but the two big events take place offstage. One is an accident that a friend witnesses by a river in Mexico, superbly evoked in a late-night computer chat with questions and answers overlapping. The other is the 2004 train bombing in Madrid's Atocha Station, which Adam hears from a distance but does not see. The two events seem placed there as examples of the real life that passes Adam by; indeed he later appropriates his friend's Mexico story as his own.

It can be tough getting through Adam's self-deprecation and denials, but there is real quality there. Ben Lerner, after all, is a poet himself, and judging by the title of one of his poems, "Mad Lib Elegy," he adopts similar quasi-random methods, although with more significant results than his character in the book. And Adam too makes an impression; people are eager to translate and publish him, and invite him to speak at conferences. Despite his attempts to persuade us to the contrary, we see him changing and growing nonetheless, absorbing the language and the culture, no longer working in mistranslation, but becoming himself translated. The opening scene in the Prado was no fluke, although alas the author only lets us glimpse such talent in snatches.

14 people found this helpful

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JW, Ph.D.

What it's like to be a young person living in today's world

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 20, 2014

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This book evokes lots of mixed emotions in me.

Adam strikes me as both appalling and strangely laudable. While Adam is unmistakeably unlikable-- he is the epitome of the privileged, self-pitying man-child-- he is also surprisingly perceptive and self-aware. Although I am downright disgusted by his manipulative nature and suffocating neediness (I feel rage throughout many parts of the book when he basically uses Isabel and Teresa as props to reassure his own self-importance-- WOMEN DO NOT EXIST SIMPLY TO REAFFIRM YOU OF YOUR OWN INFLATED EGO, STUPID BOY >=[!!!), I find myself frequently agreeing with his random observations about humanity. Take the idea of feeling like a fraud, for example. I think we can all relate to this feeling of "faking it"; it often feels like it is only a matter of time before other people find out how utterly clueless we really are. Adam's frank descriptions of his own insecurities and self-doubts really articulate this feeling of "faking it" for me; they somehow make me feel less alone about basically being a fraud.

Along similar lines, Adam's thoughts and ruminations about pretentiousness also resonate well with me. In wondering about what it means to have a "profound experience of art," Adam forces pretentiousness to look at its naked self in the mirror. Most people are put-off by pretentiousness; we don't like to think of ourselves or our tastes in "art" and "culture" as pretentious. We prefer to think of ourselves as "discerning"; our tastes as "refined" and "skillfully curated." Yet we forget that in forcefully insisting on meaning in the meaningless, we ignore the reality that many things in life really are just their physical manifestations, that not everything has an underlying Deep and Profound Reason for Existing. There really isn't an absolute ruler to measure the merit of any "artistic experiences."

Despite being an Asian female who doesn't speak a word of Spanish, many of Adam's emotions also feel disturbingly familiar to me. I can identify with the fleeting feelings of jealousy and rage, the feelings of being detached from your own bodily experiences, the overwhelming feelings of anxiety and numbness. The whole notion of feeling nervous because one is not nervous even though, given the circumstances, one probably **should** feel nervous (as described toward the end of the book) feels particularly true and familiar to me.

I can see why some people may find the novel self-indulgent or pointless. I can see why many people may find Adam's voice disjointed and trite. The thought that there may very well be actual people like Adam walking around in this world is downright frightening and disgusting (WOMEN EVERYWHERE: MUST WATCH OUT FOR IMMATURE MAN-CHILD DISGUISED AS DEEP AND INSIGHTFUL WRITERS/POETS!!!). Nevertheless, I really enjoyed reading this book. The rawness and unflinching honesty of Adam's voice is often ugly and insufferable-- his thoughts and actions reek of privilege and self-pity-- yet it also poignantly reflects the beauty and vulnerability that underlie humanity. In skillfully articulating the tricky space between the literal and the abstract, the real and the imagined, I think "Leaving the Atocha Station" perfectly embodies what it's like to be a young person living in today's complicated world.

4 people found this helpful

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Bartolo

Self-deprecatory Adventures from an Almost-Millennial

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 28, 2021

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On a list of recent best recent novels, "Leaving Atocha Station" was described as “subtly hilarious.” Always on the prowl for literary humor, particularly in our era of (justifiable) gloom and doom, I tried it. Lerner’s style is elegant and efficient, allowing Jamesian psychological probings of his protagonist’s human relationships, particularly with two women he meets on his fellowship year in Spain. The machinations of his male ego as he deals with both, who are each impressed with his status as poet via the mythology that vocation invokes, and whom he eventually realizes are not quite as impressed as he thinks they are, or in the way he’d like, produce many laugh-out-loud moments. And Adam’s not-quite-proficient mastery of Spanish allow for dozens of misprisions that recall Mark Twain’s travels in Europe. But the novel is not wholly comical by any means: there are observations on cultural and national identity, the relation of art and politics, and, especially toward the end, some poetic flights that demonstrate another side of the author’s considerable gifts. This is a capacious envelope for digressions that includes (always in the guise of the author's alter-ego protagonist) a brief study of John Ashbery, but never does the rhythm or momentum of the book get disturbed. After the surfeit of Millennial novels inspired by Pynchon and David Foster Wallace, this was a welcome, mature relief. I’ll be reading another of his novels, "10:04," soon enough.

5 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Ian Caughlin

Thought Adventure

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 20, 2017

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Left to its own devices, Lerner’s elegantly spun prose might purr on ceaselessly; calmly taking the measure of one-after-another labyrinthine thought-adventure. But, there could be no better metaphor for the shifting, porous nature of Lerner’s deconstructed world than the masterly metaphor that this novel itself embodies overall. As played out over the space of so many pages, however, this important sub-text might, indeed, remain hidden from view.

What Lerner’s novel more obviously takes stock of are the blandest aspects of the poet-narrator’s day-to-day life in Madrid, including his skittish encounters with that capital’s younger, more progressive, literary set. Hailing from Providence USA, Adam, the novel’s main protagonist (and First Person narrator) has appeared in the foreign capital as a young American poet of some reputation and still greater promise. While in Madrid he must be seen to make plausible use of the generous research funding that his track-record and research proposal have earned him. Thanks to this fellowship he is free, for a certain period, to advance his poetry within a setting conducive to bi-lingual research and cultural exchange. Aware, however, that he may be unable to deliver the project he had over-ambitiously proposed, Adam studiously avoids foundation personnel and peer fellows; ignoring even their e-mails. He nevertheless manages (if reinforced by tranquillisers, drink, dope, and prodigious intakes of nicotine and caffeine) to weave his way into the capital’s contemporary art and poetry scene. As the days go by he gathers a widening acquaintance, and even entertains potential love interests (as though, for once, he were oblivious to the risks of mistranslation).

As to the smooth-running word-stream that embodies Lerner’s tale, could this betray a certain emotional detachment? For, notwithstanding actual content, what one notices most is the unmistakable whiff of First-Person-singular self-absorption. Whereas detachment would doubtless be routine in the case of a young, averagely amoral male let loose in a foreign capital, detachment is no less a trait of the post-modern poet who scarcely acknowledges his own creative process or product. These he regards as mere outliers; less answerable to themselves than to a far-reaching constellation of super-ordinate structures wherein material and social conditions are conjoined with linguistic practices and forms. How, then, could such a poet view the ‘autonomous creative persona’ as anything but the outmoded obsession of a bygone era?

In truth, apart from his diet of reading, and certain other reflective rituals that he schedules into each day, Adam’s accustomed routine is largely a round of banalities and bouts of free-floating anxiety. Indeed, courting the attention of peer-literati is not the least banal aspect of his sojourn in Madrid. To hype his literary persona in likely venues around town might strike even him as hollow; but the availability of beautiful, highly articulate young women somehow aids his concentration. Nevertheless, conceding power - even to this extent - causes misgivings that lead to episodes of crushing self-doubt.

Will breaking-news of a major terrorist atrocity (and its city-wide aftermath) jolt our hero out of his cycle of appetite, anxiety, doubt and defeat? Might headlong conviction (even engagement) now issue forth, phoenix-like, from the ashes of emotional incompetence? - Possibly so; - possibly not. Poems themselves might sometimes arrive in moments of doubt - and, indeed, serve as its legitimate expression. But how might ‘salvaging doubt from doubt’ seem to square with the poet’s own longing for validation; and how might this meet the expectations of sponsors? Meanwhile, the self-congratulatory fervour of a satisfied translator might upstage the poet’s own wavering belief in his original-if-provisional offering. Perhaps terms like ‘original’ and ‘translation’ cease to have meaning. Especially in this social media era, can anyone truly be anyone - or anywhere truly anywhere - given the perverse pre-eminence of language itself; - its infamously hazardous transmissions, uncertain locus and provenance, un-policed borders, unforeseeable trajectories and incalculable reach?

Perhaps it is the sheer theatricality of his privileged set-up in Madrid that emboldens Adam (on more than one occasion) to lie to his new acquaintances about his home life in the USA. When (possibly due to his own carelessness) these deceptions are exposed Adam promptly apologises, only to spin some mendacious yarn by way of explanation. Perhaps these false trails are a way of milking sympathy. Or might a total nervous breakdown be in prospect?

Yet, Adam’s penchant for lying serves to remind the reader that absolutely nothing he narrates should be taken on trust. Indeed, why might we expect the characters of a novel to be more reliable, understandable or predictable than randomness itself; - or more worthy of respect than false memories or mere hallucinations? No less remarkable is the author’s tendency to toy with passing descriptions in a way that deliberately fudges the matter, or leaves it just as vague as if it had been left alone in the first place. This slovenly effect is the more distancing for being consciously counter-descriptive.

If knowing what we expect from a novel might be a key to self-knowledge, less certain are our chances of understanding others. Some protagonists do understand, however, - even from the very outset - that the poet’s deceptions are just that: outright lies. But their rare perspicacity is revealed to the reader only at a later stage and (so to speak) long after the fact. Might this suggest that, not only the reader, but also the narrator (indeed, author) had been doubly hoodwinked at the time?! – Moreover, in the course of time, it may seem that Adam himself has been subtly misled in a manner that quite outclasses his own poor attempts at deception.

If the scheme of this novel comes down to the age-old axiom that ‘experience will teach us what we need to learn’ readers might not be surprised to discover that this regimen entails raw disappointments and bitter truths. Might some species of mellow optimism emerge as the end-product of this objectifying process? - Perhaps so. But, only by submitting to this curriculum can we ever hope to find out!

7 people found this helpful

S1 Class 2012

Pretentious, but he knows it

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 2, 2020

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This novel is not for everyone; you need to be tolerant of self-indulgent, over-privileged intellectuals, but if you can get past that, then it is funny. Narrator gets into several humiliating situations, mostly his own fault, which suggests we are being invited into the writer's in-joke about how people like this narrator (who is clearly based on the writer) are ridiculous. And that self-awareness rescues the novel from being utterly pretentious. Not sure I would read another by this author, but maybe one Ben Lerner book might be enough in anyone's life.

2 people found this helpful

Charlie B

A fascinating and interesting read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 13, 2018

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I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel. It provides much cause for reflection on the self, the power of art in a political context and on the integrity of the artist. I enjoyed the dynamics of the relationships between the central character and his Spanish friends, lovers and associates. His insecurities can prove frustrating but the journey he undertakes during the course of the novel resulted in me feeling more sympathy with his inner thoughts than I did when he first introduced himself. The Spanish context adds greatly to the novel, as does his gradual integration with the locals. A very worthwhile read.

3 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

The performance of a profound experience

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 1, 2016

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A story about not art itself but of how we relate to it, as the opening chapter cleverly foreshadows. I normally struggle with postmodern gimmicks - I barely finished Sophie's World, and hated Foucault's Pendulum - but here I found the conceit somehow less pretentious, and was able to enjoy the novel as it is.

Rather than exulting writing, as too many books about writing do, Leaving the Atocha Station is almost disdainful of it. Certainly our narrator-writer cuts a truly pathetic figure - a mooching stoner who's found a way to put off getting a job a little longer, who lies to get women into bed and struggles even then. On one level this story can be read as the uplifting coming of age of the stereotypical millennial man-child, as our lead gradually realises his genuine talent for poetry and accept that it might be a legitimate way for him to live. Alternately one can see this as a Lolita-style case of sympathy for the devil.

But the point that occupies most of the book is whether such ambiguity is itself fakery, pretending profundity by saying nothing. It's a trick I find all too common in literary novels - the unwillingness to essay a concrete position, especially on moral questions - but here I find it forgivable, because the novel itself is the answer - not in a self-impressed, clever-clever way, but in a simple and powerful demonstration that this stuff does, ultimately, mean something, even if we feel like we brought the meaning ourselves. Or so it felt to me.

5 people found this helpful

Hoppy

Pretentious tosh.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 27, 2020

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Extraordinarily self-indulgent pretentious tosh which could only appeal to fashionable Americans who admire a fellow countryman with the courage to go abroad and even learn a foreign language. Tedious in the extreme. Funny? You must be joking!

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Leaving the Atocha Station Kindle Edition

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