robshpprd's review against another edition
2.0
I like postmodernism. In fact, most of my favorite writers are considered postmodernists. So when I found out about tis Leyner guy who has been grouped with the likes of Pynchon, Franzen, Wallace, etc., I had to check him out. I was disappointed, to say the least. Imagine all the worst aspects of the postmodern novel, the disjointedness, the flaunted erudition, the arbitrary shifts in frame, drain them to the dregs of their content, and you've got The Tetherballs of Bougainville. Every sentence is masturbatory. Every plot point is absurd. Leyner is clearly an intelligent guy, but if he can't turn that into something readable, then I'm not interested (I've taken issue with Umberto Eco for similar reasons, but he never gets even remotely this far from narrative).
At first I thought this was at least funny, but I soon realized that Leyner has only one joke that he tells again and again and again. It goes something like this:
—What are your thoughts on [absurd combination of 3-5 references to pop culture and esoterica]?
—Oh that? I find it [banal, hackneyed, trite, played out, etc.]
It's genuinely funny the first few times. It's painful soon thereafter.
I'm not surprised that Wallace and Franzen are still touted as literary giants, and Mark Leyner is now occupied with the (apparently 3-volume?) Why Do Men Have Nipples? series.
At first I thought this was at least funny, but I soon realized that Leyner has only one joke that he tells again and again and again. It goes something like this:
—What are your thoughts on [absurd combination of 3-5 references to pop culture and esoterica]?
—Oh that? I find it [banal, hackneyed, trite, played out, etc.]
It's genuinely funny the first few times. It's painful soon thereafter.
I'm not surprised that Wallace and Franzen are still touted as literary giants, and Mark Leyner is now occupied with the (apparently 3-volume?) Why Do Men Have Nipples? series.
schwimfan's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
spotnoelle's review against another edition
not funny. author tries too hard to be “out there” and falls flat. yuck!
left_coast_justin's review against another edition
4.0
If you are curious about Mark Leyner's inimitable style, or have tried one of his other books and found it not to your liking, you might try reading this one. Unlike his earlier efforts, this one actually has a plot, such as it is, or at least some sort of narrative coherence, which to me made it more rewarding than his others. All of it is readable, and parts of it are extremely funny, albeit cruelly so.
I have seen books described as "a shattering odyssey of self-discovery." This book is the opposite.
I have seen books described as "a shattering odyssey of self-discovery." This book is the opposite.
mirandawerts's review against another edition
1.0
Not my kind of book at all. I guess going in not really knowing the author's style was not the best idea, the title and back intrigued me but it was not what I expected at all, making it hard to read. Extremely weird so if that's what he's going for then good on him.
hahildebrand's review
5.0
This may be my favourite book. I first picked it up because I’d been looking for recommendations of genuinely funny contemporary novels, and found this mentioned in a list, so I tracked down a copy. I’d never heard of Mark Leyner, but the title appealed, because we used to live on the island of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, in the second half of the 1980s, and I’d very rarely seen it referenced in a novel before. Tetherballs, the book, was published in the US in 1997. I didn’t read it until almost a decade later.
So what’s it about? Well. A preface suggests it’s some kind of ludicrous memoir:
Except it’s not, really, at all. It’s a faux-memoir/impossible semi-pornographic screenplay/talismanic review of a non-existent film. It’s about 13-year-old Mark Leyner who is playing a video game in prison while awaiting the execution of his father Joel by lethal injection – except the execution fails and Mark’s father finds himself subject to New Jersey State Discretionary Execution (NJDSE). This allows the state to assassinate him at any point following his release using any means they desire. As the prison superintendent describes it, 'The feature we like to stress to releasees is the indeterminacy':
If this sounds even vaguely like your sort of thing, then it probably is. I loved it immediately: the wild momentum and sheer density of ideas, the relentless comic invention, the idiotic grandiosity of the self-important teenager, the fact that there’s a passing mention of someone called Sheri Hildebrand early on…
I found this quote about the novel which sums it up nicely: ‘Not only is the basic plot utterly improbable, if not simply impossible, the text is filled with digressions, satirical attacks on mass culture, corrosively self-reflexive statements, absurd dialogue, and temporal incongruities.’ (The quote is from, magnificently, [b:The Passing of Postmodernism: A Spectroanalysis of the Contemporary|14611572|The Passing of Postmodernism A Spectroanalysis of the Contemporary|Josh Toth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387752770l/14611572._SX50_.jpg|20254343] by Josh Toth.)
The Tetherballs of Bougainville co-opts and ridiculously subverts all kinds of language, particularly medical terminology, and it does so in such a way that I find it almost addictive. There’s a sneaky, underlying generosity and affection for the father-son relationship amidst the high wire entertainment of the sentences, with allusions to all kinds of pop and high culture figures which work whether you’re familiar with them or not. I think.
The second part of the book is a screenplay about Mark’s drugs and booze fuelled liaison with the evening dress-wearing prison warden; the final part is a fake scathingly critical review of a non-existent film about- among other things – tetherball (like totem tennis or swingball, but with a larger ball than the tennis ball units I used as a kid) players on an imagined version of Bougainville. As you might imagine, verisimilitude is not one of the goals – as the film review itself says:
I suppose what draws me back to it so often is the way it combines almost everything I love in writing: an uninhibited playfulness, a devotion to subversion (including of itself and the author’s reflexive self-important pomposity) and a delight in the comic possibilities of any given medium; a refusal to accept its own limitations, and a glorying in the adrenalized joy of cascading language; an ingenious, complex and fully intentioned structure disguised as free-associative anarchy.
Leyner is a divisive writer, and I do understand why, but if you find his work is on your wavelength then there’s not much better out there. I re-read Tetherballs this week and it’s still, for me, this utterly compulsive rollercoaster of prose that makes me very, very happy indeed.
So what’s it about? Well. A preface suggests it’s some kind of ludicrous memoir:
What I really want is for you to actually inhabit my body, to get into my musculature and fascia, my limbs and trunk and head, to envelop your brain with my brain. I want you to wear my parka of viscera, to string yourself with my organs like a suicide bomber festooned with explosives. I want you to know what it feels like to walk through a Foodtown encumbered by the twitching heft of my 140 pounds and then to try to read a USDA nutrition label on a can of kipper snacks as your mind thrashes against the vortical undertow of my ghastly memories.
Except it’s not, really, at all. It’s a faux-memoir/impossible semi-pornographic screenplay/talismanic review of a non-existent film. It’s about 13-year-old Mark Leyner who is playing a video game in prison while awaiting the execution of his father Joel by lethal injection – except the execution fails and Mark’s father finds himself subject to New Jersey State Discretionary Execution (NJDSE). This allows the state to assassinate him at any point following his release using any means they desire. As the prison superintendent describes it, 'The feature we like to stress to releasees is the indeterminacy':
“You're living your life, rowing merrily along, and suddenly one morning you wake up and there's a dwarf ninja crouched on your chest who deftly severs your carotid arteries with two honed throwing stars. Or you're on a flight to Orlando, Florida, giggling as you read the Confessions' of Saint Augustine, and meanwhile, 35,000 feet below, a New Jersey state trooper steps out of his car, kneels alongside the shoulder of I-95, aims a shoulder-held antiaircraft missile launcher, and blows your 727 into friggin' curds and whey."
“They’d do that?” I ask excitedly. “They’d sacrifice all those people just to kill my dad?”
“NJSDE gives us a lot of leeway. We’re no longer encumbered by the federal government, by the FDA, the FAA, the Justice Department… it really unties the hands of the state. I think it’s an extremely innovative piece of statutory legislation. And you have to give the Governor the bulk of the credit. She takes a lot of flak for the narcolepsy and the lathery horse posters, but she was committed to this and very savvy about the politics.”
“How do you feel about it?” my father asks, turning to the rabbi.
“It’s a very postmodern sentencing structure—random and capricious, the free-floating dread, each ensuing day as gaping abyss, the signifier hovering over the signified like the sword of Damocles. To have appropriated a pop-noir aesthetic and recontextualized it within the realm of jurisprudence is breathtakingly audacious. I think you’re going to find it a very disturbing, but a very fascinating and transformative way to live, Joel.”
If this sounds even vaguely like your sort of thing, then it probably is. I loved it immediately: the wild momentum and sheer density of ideas, the relentless comic invention, the idiotic grandiosity of the self-important teenager, the fact that there’s a passing mention of someone called Sheri Hildebrand early on…
I found this quote about the novel which sums it up nicely: ‘Not only is the basic plot utterly improbable, if not simply impossible, the text is filled with digressions, satirical attacks on mass culture, corrosively self-reflexive statements, absurd dialogue, and temporal incongruities.’ (The quote is from, magnificently, [b:The Passing of Postmodernism: A Spectroanalysis of the Contemporary|14611572|The Passing of Postmodernism A Spectroanalysis of the Contemporary|Josh Toth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387752770l/14611572._SX50_.jpg|20254343] by Josh Toth.)
The Tetherballs of Bougainville co-opts and ridiculously subverts all kinds of language, particularly medical terminology, and it does so in such a way that I find it almost addictive. There’s a sneaky, underlying generosity and affection for the father-son relationship amidst the high wire entertainment of the sentences, with allusions to all kinds of pop and high culture figures which work whether you’re familiar with them or not. I think.
The second part of the book is a screenplay about Mark’s drugs and booze fuelled liaison with the evening dress-wearing prison warden; the final part is a fake scathingly critical review of a non-existent film about- among other things – tetherball (like totem tennis or swingball, but with a larger ball than the tennis ball units I used as a kid) players on an imagined version of Bougainville. As you might imagine, verisimilitude is not one of the goals – as the film review itself says:
The fact that khat, a shrub cultivated exclusively in the Middle East and Africa, appears to be widely available in Bougainville, is one of several ethnobotanical incongruities in this movie. This is either a deliberate allusion to an active, multilateral global marketplace in indigenous intoxicants or simply the result of lazy fact-checking. I suspect the latter.
I suppose what draws me back to it so often is the way it combines almost everything I love in writing: an uninhibited playfulness, a devotion to subversion (including of itself and the author’s reflexive self-important pomposity) and a delight in the comic possibilities of any given medium; a refusal to accept its own limitations, and a glorying in the adrenalized joy of cascading language; an ingenious, complex and fully intentioned structure disguised as free-associative anarchy.
Leyner is a divisive writer, and I do understand why, but if you find his work is on your wavelength then there’s not much better out there. I re-read Tetherballs this week and it’s still, for me, this utterly compulsive rollercoaster of prose that makes me very, very happy indeed.
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