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0fficialj0emama's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
yulelogue's review against another edition
2.0
Meh. I don't buy the "guy pulls shit out of his ass and gets away with it" narrative. Nor do I necessarily think that attractive people just start having sex, although I do think the overnight "we're in love; what do we do now?" thing can happen because every guy falls in love with women that have sex with them.
lisa_quinn's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Murder
fenlla's review against another edition
4.0
I found it a very interesting book, and a change from normal literature, but quite confusing. Sometimes the author will twist reality with the imagination of the main character so that everything blends, which is both a good thing and a bad thing at the same time.
allyssa_r's review against another edition
4.0
SPOILERS AHEAD
Okay I enjoyed reading this and it was pretty entertaining. I liked seeing things play out through the eyes of the criminal but some things were just... off.
The fact that Rojack doesn't even attempt to LOOK like a grieving loved one (despite not being on great terms with Deborah) is so strange for someone who is trying to convince the police and the world he's innocent. After throwing her body out the window, it took him some time to get to the scene, making it seem like he's not that concerned. While talking to the police, it feels as if he is challenging them to prove its him. Right after he leaves the police station, he spends the night at a bar, listening to a young woman he met at the scene and ends up spending the night with her. Not terribly typical of a grieving loved one. and he admits later on that he met her on the night of Deborah's death and is in love with her. He just doesn't act innocent.
Overall, however, I actually enjoyed reading this. It was weird and interesting. Unfortunately, I don't have insight into the true meaning of each character or the overall themes. I might have to read it again to get an understanding of that.
Okay I enjoyed reading this and it was pretty entertaining. I liked seeing things play out through the eyes of the criminal but some things were just... off.
The fact that Rojack doesn't even attempt to LOOK like a grieving loved one (despite not being on great terms with Deborah) is so strange for someone who is trying to convince the police and the world he's innocent. After throwing her body out the window, it took him some time to get to the scene, making it seem like he's not that concerned. While talking to the police, it feels as if he is challenging them to prove its him. Right after he leaves the police station, he spends the night at a bar, listening to a young woman he met at the scene and ends up spending the night with her. Not terribly typical of a grieving loved one. and he admits later on that he met her on the night of Deborah's death and is in love with her. He just doesn't act innocent.
Overall, however, I actually enjoyed reading this. It was weird and interesting. Unfortunately, I don't have insight into the true meaning of each character or the overall themes. I might have to read it again to get an understanding of that.
michaelstearns's review
4.0
An utterly ridiculous, oftentimes despicable novel. Its greatest merit is that it is short. Offensive attitudes toward women (as is true of pretty much all of Mailer), toward the underclass, toward sex and violence, toward everything. Ugh. But compulsively readable. And, if its title is taken to mean anything, this violent, soft-porn soap opera of a novel is intended as a portrait of America's dream of itself in the mid-sixties, and its hero someone males of the time might secretly aspire to be. Though here, of course, Mailer takes every cliche of spy fiction, thrillers, soft-core whatever, and blows it out of proportion to make it all near pornographic. If this is the American dream, we're a pretty sick country.
That's the generous read of this. The less generous read is that Mailer's issues are the same as the novel, and that the title is a way to cloak those issues with a portentousness that will redeem the work. But whether or not Mailer is as guilty as the reader of the book, the title does call into question scores of assumptive behaviors from genre novels of the sixties, things people gobbled up without a thought.
So it's either brilliant or repulsive though likely, being Mailer, a perfect mix of both.
That's the generous read of this. The less generous read is that Mailer's issues are the same as the novel, and that the title is a way to cloak those issues with a portentousness that will redeem the work. But whether or not Mailer is as guilty as the reader of the book, the title does call into question scores of assumptive behaviors from genre novels of the sixties, things people gobbled up without a thought.
So it's either brilliant or repulsive though likely, being Mailer, a perfect mix of both.
muninnherself's review
3.0
Well, it's a book of its time, isn't it, and reading it now (or in the early/mid-noughties when I read it) you're likely to spend a lot of time going 'ah, this is why some people love Mailer, and some people hate him'. It is a bit like a parody of white American male sixties bravura, covering up fear of impotence and such like. I mean it's pretty horrific with its throwaway misogyny and racism. But that's what things were like. Doesn't mean it's OK. I think the late fifties/early sixties is where you really find this feeling, a particular sense of place and time, like the early Bond films, or, from a British, female perspective, Margaret Drabble or Edna O'Brien. To remind you that although everyone looks flipping amazing in the photos, with their frocks and their mohair suits and their narrow shoes tap tap tapping on the sidewalk, it wasn't a great time, really, and you wouldn't want to live there.
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