david_agranoff's review
4.0
This is a weird book, but you knew that going in right? It's a bizarro novel by Garrett Cook who won the first ever bizarro showdown at the first bizarrocon so I knew it would be weird. In a way I would say this novel is a mix of dark city and Adaptation. Bernard the main character is being used in an experiment, the world seems to be trying to convince him that he is a hat. Sometimes other objects, all the while he is being shot with hallucinogenic mud.
The point is not that he is an object, as in a hat, or a dresser drawer. As he goes to greater levels he loses more of his sanity, and it's up to his brother Clyde to save him. Clyde is an interesting character,and he knows it. I mean literally he knws he is a character, he is aware that Garrett Cook is writing the book. It seems he has read a lot Garrett's work, and is fairly critical.
So if you have not figured it out it gets a little weird from there. There is a religion that believes in following the word of our author, and Clyde is trying to save Bernard from all the cruel intentions of the author putting him through the experiments.
Is this a horror novel, well I can't say it is not, but I was expecting something a little more horrific. That being said it is a great dip in to meta-fiction. IF anything was missing, was a feeling that Garrett Cook as a author, and creator of this work was out of his mind. He wrote a brilliant piece of meta-fiction but because it was so well written I felt he was solid and in control of the work. That is impressive, but the novel lacked the bat-shit crazy-ness of say Phil K Dick in Three stigmata, where it was so crazy I had no idea where it was going. That is not an insult, Cook is just to good to be that out of control.
The point is not that he is an object, as in a hat, or a dresser drawer. As he goes to greater levels he loses more of his sanity, and it's up to his brother Clyde to save him. Clyde is an interesting character,and he knows it. I mean literally he knws he is a character, he is aware that Garrett Cook is writing the book. It seems he has read a lot Garrett's work, and is fairly critical.
So if you have not figured it out it gets a little weird from there. There is a religion that believes in following the word of our author, and Clyde is trying to save Bernard from all the cruel intentions of the author putting him through the experiments.
Is this a horror novel, well I can't say it is not, but I was expecting something a little more horrific. That being said it is a great dip in to meta-fiction. IF anything was missing, was a feeling that Garrett Cook as a author, and creator of this work was out of his mind. He wrote a brilliant piece of meta-fiction but because it was so well written I felt he was solid and in control of the work. That is impressive, but the novel lacked the bat-shit crazy-ness of say Phil K Dick in Three stigmata, where it was so crazy I had no idea where it was going. That is not an insult, Cook is just to good to be that out of control.
sarahconnor89757's review
5.0
This book is one of those things that has me fondly reminiscing. Not that it is intentional by the author, or that any other reader will experience the same thing.
One thing in specific that I was reminiscing about (in the blood-in-your-feces-tonight kind of way) was grade school lessons of what a story should and should not be, and the many times I was corrected on the fact I didn't get it. This book is like a drama of those textbook rules personified and working out the ridiculousness of themselves in a story in and of itself. I wish I had had this to read when I was 8.
The characters discussing the author himself was so funny and so smart and seems so impossible. I wouldn't be able to do it myself, it would end up being a mess of terribly self-defecating (and deprecating) jokes. It works so well that I think the story would just be 'cute' without that aspect tied in. It makes the book personal and personable, instead of just satirical.
Despite the experimental style, the story was good, as were the characters. In the end, that’s what really matters.
My favorite part of the whole book is the "I'm going to tear out your eyes and ejaculate into the sockets" Replace ejaculate with 'ejaculate blood' and I've said that myself to a friend or two.
One thing in specific that I was reminiscing about (in the blood-in-your-feces-tonight kind of way) was grade school lessons of what a story should and should not be, and the many times I was corrected on the fact I didn't get it. This book is like a drama of those textbook rules personified and working out the ridiculousness of themselves in a story in and of itself. I wish I had had this to read when I was 8.
The characters discussing the author himself was so funny and so smart and seems so impossible. I wouldn't be able to do it myself, it would end up being a mess of terribly self-defecating (and deprecating) jokes. It works so well that I think the story would just be 'cute' without that aspect tied in. It makes the book personal and personable, instead of just satirical.
Despite the experimental style, the story was good, as were the characters. In the end, that’s what really matters.
My favorite part of the whole book is the "I'm going to tear out your eyes and ejaculate into the sockets" Replace ejaculate with 'ejaculate blood' and I've said that myself to a friend or two.
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