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Title: My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey, Susan Lyons ISBN: 1-4025-5600-4 Publisher: Recorded Books Unabridged Pub. Date: October, 2003 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 6 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.09 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Murder, Mayhem and a Literary Hoax!
Comment: Mr. Carey spins quite a yarn here. Sarah Wode-Douglas, the editor of a poetry magazine in London, travels to Malaysia with one John Slater a writer a little like Truman Capote without the mincing-- that is, he is more famous for being a famous writer than for writing--a man she thinks had an affair with her mother and is responsible for her death. There they meet a Christopher Chubb, an aging Australian. Chubb tells a story that has shades of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Joseph's HEART OF DARKNESS, Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and is as convoluted as The DA VINCI CODE.
Central to the story is a literary hoax based on an incident that actually took place in Australia, according to the Author's Note at the end of this fairly short novel. (266 pages)You may not care a whit about poetry, pretentious intellectuals or literary hoaxes; on the other hand, you will race through this novel with the speed you read any first rate mystery. I had no abiding love for any of these characters but was fascinated by this great tale.
Mr. Carey is nothing is not a master of the language, should I say Australian. There are nice Australian touches: "he said he would give me a hiding if I did not get off his irises straight away" and "I therefore was forced to take shank's pony to the city but I am used to walking. . ."
Surely Carey is saying something about literary criticism, which can be one of the world's most pretentious endeavors. There is the question of what is real and what isn't and how significant is poetry after all? Sarah, the first person narrator, opines that there is no value that can be put on fine poetry: ". . . but what price would I put on a Shakespeare sonnet? How much for Milton, Donne, Coleridge, Yeats?" W. H. Auden, whom Slater knew, is quoted in the novel. I remember, however, that Auden said that "poetry makes nothing happen."
Hey, I don't believe you have to be an English major to like this novel. Query: since Mr. Carey now lives in New York City, do we get to claim him as an American writer? I recall that he wrote a very beautiful and moving piece after September 11, 2001 about "feeling" like an American.
Rating: 4
Summary: Poetry and Monsters
Comment: The spirit of Mary Shelleys "Frankenstein" hovers over this story of poets, poetry, and deceit, all set in the sweating cities and jungles of southeast Asia. "My Life as a Fake" is the story of a hoaxer whose prank gives birth to a monstrous truth. Like Victor Frankenstein, the perpetrator of the fraud is then hounded relentlessly by his own creation. Along the way, Carey flirts at times with penetration; at others, far more superficially with questions of genius, intention, and the elusive search for authenticity. Very entertaining and a teriffic read.
Rating: 2
Summary: Really Tried
Comment: I really tried to like this book better, but I simply couldn't get past the excruciating tediousness of the first 200 pages. I couldn't connect with any of the characters, and the theme of author as creator has been done much better, especially by Paul Auster. Furthermore, Mr. Carey seems to be fixated on reviving fictional/non-fictional people as characters, and after three books, this approach becomes boring.
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Title: Vernon God Little: A 21st Century Comedy in the Presence of Death by D. B. C. Pierre ISBN: 1841954608 Publisher: Canongate Books Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: The Great Fire: A Novel by Shirley Hazzard ISBN: 0374166447 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: True History of the Kelly Gang : A Novel by Peter Carey ISBN: 0375724672 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 02 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee ISBN: 0670031305 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 09 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Yellow Dog by Martin Amis ISBN: 1401352030 Publisher: Hyperion Pub. Date: 05 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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