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12/1/2015BookFilter | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=701c5ba5-bcac-48e8-b2f9-b326e3ca36b0&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/3HomeTop Picks: All BooksBeatlebone
Beatleboneby Kevin BarryPrice: $24.95(Hardcover)Published: November 17, 2015Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)From the Publisher: A searing, surreal novel that bleedsfantasy and reality—and Beatles fandom—from one ofliterature's most striking contemporary voices, author of theinternational sensation City of Bohane. It is 1978, and John Lennon has escaped New York City to try tofind the island off the west coast of Ireland he bought nine yearsprior. Leaving behind domesticity, his approaching forties, hisinability to create, and his memories of his parents, he sets off tofind calm in the comfortable silence of isolation. But when he putshimself in the hands of a shape-shifting driver full of Irish charmand dark whimsy, what ensues can only be termed a magicalmystery tour. Beatlebone is a tour de force of language and literary imaginationthat marries the most improbable element to the most strikingeffect.Rate This Book|Rate/ReviewAdd To BookshelfGet This Book
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Personalize / Add More ChoicesWhat We SayI'm a serious fan of all things Beatles (who isn't?) and was wowed by two short story collections of Kevin Barry. So Iwas warily intrigued by the idea of Barry writing a novel about John Lennon off on a lark in 1978, trying to get to anisland he purchased in Ireland for a little down time. Based on bits and pieces of reality, the novel starts off inmarvelous, word-drunk, Joycean style. Lennon is on his own, trying to remain inconspicuous (ha!) and keeping hishead down while making his solitary way towards a soul-recharging visit to the scrap of rock he bought and hasnever really been on. Barry won me over by capturing Lennon's dry wit -- when a wary hotel manager eyes himdistrustfully saying it's a foxy time of day to be renting a room, Lennon responds deadpan, "And in denim." So yes,Barry captures the spirit of what we imagine Lennon to be. Here he's sidetracked and overwhelmed by the hilariousdriver/jack of all trades Cornelius, who ferries Lennon about, gets the semi-teetotaler drunk in a pub (and singing!),feeds the now-macrobiotic man blood pudding, and talks and talks and talks in vivid, beautiful, endlessly funny style.Toss in a cult that specializes in its own Scream therapy (Lennon is nonplussed, having done it all before), a snipingpress and you have the makings of a rambunctious tale. Instead, we are given a quieter, sadder work, less SpikeMilligan and more Alan Bennett. Out of nowhere, Barry inserts himself in a passage describing his research for thebook, a section that gingerly brings up the ghosts he encountered. (Barry apologizes for this, there's no way to bringup ghosts without seeming daft, but there you are.) And then back into the story proper. It didn't quite reach anepiphany for me, but I was delighted to feel like I'd sort of stumbled across an unguarded Lennon of sorts and thrilledby the rambling Cornelius, as Irish a character as you can get. And that's saying something. -- Michael GiltzLessWhat Others SayPraise for Beatlebone:Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2015"Beatlebone is a novel that takes its reader to the edge—of the Western world, of sanity, of fame, of words. But italso takes us to the very edge of the novel form, where it meets its notorious doppelgänger, autobiography. Itscompulsive narrative of one of the last century’s great musicians and pop icons gradually, and without a hint ofcontrivance, becomes a startling and original meditation on the uncanny relationship of a writer to his character.Intricately weaving and blurring fiction and life, Beatlebone embodies beautifully this prize’s spirit of creative risk.We’re proud to crown it our winner."—Josh Cohen, Chair of Judges, Goldsmiths Prize 2015"There’s music to Barry’s prose: Smart rhythms dart through his sentences; taut bridges join his paragraphs; thetinge of hysteria serves to animate his characters and their surroundings. His dialogue is whimsical, sometimeshilarious, catching the idiom of the local life, and, in Beatlebone, nailing John Lennon, the wittiest and darkest Beatle,spot on."—Fred Kaplan,…More
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=701c5ba5-bcac-48e8-b2f9-b326e3ca36b0&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/3HomeTop Picks: All BooksBeatlebone
Beatleboneby Kevin BarryPrice: $24.95(Hardcover)Published: November 17, 2015Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)From the Publisher: A searing, surreal novel that bleedsfantasy and reality—and Beatles fandom—from one ofliterature's most striking contemporary voices, author of theinternational sensation City of Bohane. It is 1978, and John Lennon has escaped New York City to try tofind the island off the west coast of Ireland he bought nine yearsprior. Leaving behind domesticity, his approaching forties, hisinability to create, and his memories of his parents, he sets off tofind calm in the comfortable silence of isolation. But when he putshimself in the hands of a shape-shifting driver full of Irish charmand dark whimsy, what ensues can only be termed a magicalmystery tour. Beatlebone is a tour de force of language and literary imaginationthat marries the most improbable element to the most strikingeffect.Rate This Book|Rate/ReviewAdd To BookshelfGet This Book
Go to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site whereyou can get this book.BookFilter
12/1/2015BookFilter | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=701c5ba5-bcac-48e8-b2f9-b326e3ca36b0&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/3
Personalize / Add More ChoicesWhat We SayI'm a serious fan of all things Beatles (who isn't?) and was wowed by two short story collections of Kevin Barry. So Iwas warily intrigued by the idea of Barry writing a novel about John Lennon off on a lark in 1978, trying to get to anisland he purchased in Ireland for a little down time. Based on bits and pieces of reality, the novel starts off inmarvelous, word-drunk, Joycean style. Lennon is on his own, trying to remain inconspicuous (ha!) and keeping hishead down while making his solitary way towards a soul-recharging visit to the scrap of rock he bought and hasnever really been on. Barry won me over by capturing Lennon's dry wit -- when a wary hotel manager eyes himdistrustfully saying it's a foxy time of day to be renting a room, Lennon responds deadpan, "And in denim." So yes,Barry captures the spirit of what we imagine Lennon to be. Here he's sidetracked and overwhelmed by the hilariousdriver/jack of all trades Cornelius, who ferries Lennon about, gets the semi-teetotaler drunk in a pub (and singing!),feeds the now-macrobiotic man blood pudding, and talks and talks and talks in vivid, beautiful, endlessly funny style.Toss in a cult that specializes in its own Scream therapy (Lennon is nonplussed, having done it all before), a snipingpress and you have the makings of a rambunctious tale. Instead, we are given a quieter, sadder work, less SpikeMilligan and more Alan Bennett. Out of nowhere, Barry inserts himself in a passage describing his research for thebook, a section that gingerly brings up the ghosts he encountered. (Barry apologizes for this, there's no way to bringup ghosts without seeming daft, but there you are.) And then back into the story proper. It didn't quite reach anepiphany for me, but I was delighted to feel like I'd sort of stumbled across an unguarded Lennon of sorts and thrilledby the rambling Cornelius, as Irish a character as you can get. And that's saying something. -- Michael GiltzLessWhat Others SayPraise for Beatlebone:Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2015"Beatlebone is a novel that takes its reader to the edge—of the Western world, of sanity, of fame, of words. But italso takes us to the very edge of the novel form, where it meets its notorious doppelgänger, autobiography. Itscompulsive narrative of one of the last century’s great musicians and pop icons gradually, and without a hint ofcontrivance, becomes a startling and original meditation on the uncanny relationship of a writer to his character.Intricately weaving and blurring fiction and life, Beatlebone embodies beautifully this prize’s spirit of creative risk.We’re proud to crown it our winner."—Josh Cohen, Chair of Judges, Goldsmiths Prize 2015"There’s music to Barry’s prose: Smart rhythms dart through his sentences; taut bridges join his paragraphs; thetinge of hysteria serves to animate his characters and their surroundings. His dialogue is whimsical, sometimeshilarious, catching the idiom of the local life, and, in Beatlebone, nailing John Lennon, the wittiest and darkest Beatle,spot on."—Fred Kaplan,…More