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S'està carregant… Jude in Londonde Julian Gough
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A COMIC EPIC FOR ANYONE WHO LOVES RODDY DOYLE, P.G. WODEHOUSE, BECKETT AND KAFKA, BUT WISHES THEIR BOOKS HAD MORE EXPLOSIONS... 'The Death of the Author is on your conscience!' It was. 'Sorry,' I said. Jude is a penniless Irish orphan, fighting blizzards, bankers and the laws of physics as he walks the length of England. He has not one, but two Quests: to find his True Love -- last glimpsed in the hairy clutches of a monkey -- and to uncover the Secret of his Origins. Within hours of arriving in London, Jude has floored the monkey, won the Turner Prize, battled The Thing, and killed the Poet Laureate. Before the day is out he will be seduced, shot at, kidnapped, and forced to discuss literature with a crowd of Guinness-guzzling authors. But can he fulfill his destiny in the labyrinth of the city, with its ten million temptations? 'What a day! And I never got my cup of tea.' 'Sheer comic brilliance' The Times 'Julian Gough is a wonderful writer' Sebastian Barry 'Julian Gough gives a new shine to an antique mode, the Quixotic picaresque, as he relates the antic adventures of a Tipperary orphan. It's clever, it's nuts, and there are moments of comic greatness' Kevin Barry, Irish Times, Books of the Year, 2007 'Clever and laugh-out-loud hilarious' Mail on Sunday 'This is funny. It is also, possibly, quite serious. Certainly, it endears' Irish Times 'Gough's novel is like the picaresque bastard love-child of Flann O Brien and Matt Groening, and yet is all Julian Gough. Possibly the finest comic novel to come out of Ireland since At Swim Two Birds, it recounts the story of Jude, an orphan, as he wanders through Ireland in a quest to find his true love and uncover the secret behind his parentage . . . Gough makes it look easy, with an instinctive sense of timing, and a razor sharp and subversive intellect' Sunday Tribune, Books of the Year, 2007 No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — S'està carregant…GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana: (3.25)
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3
This is a novel in the picaresque tradition, which means that it is episodic and digressive and takes aim at the foibles of contemporary life through the eyes of a character whose fate is largely marginal to society as a whole (did I get that right?). It's a comic novel about an Irish orphan who follows his True Love to London while on a search for the Mystery of his Origins (yes, there are a lot of words in this book that are capitalized for supposed humorous effect). There is not much of a plot, which is to be expected, but the humor didn't fully succeed for me.
There are numerous references to Irish writers past and present (Becket, Joyce, Synge, Wilde, Flann O'Brien, Colm Toiban, etc.) as well as the State of the Novel more generally. Most of this I found tiresome and a bit cutesy. However, I did like the section near the end in which Jude inadvertently wins the Turner prize by taking apart the works of the past winners, such as making Tracey Emin's bed, fixing Martin Creed's blinking lights, and cleaning up Damien Hirst's trash.
While there are some amazingly funny set pieces in the novel, from my perspective about 75% of it is total garbage and isn't funny at all. But that might just be me. I don't generally like comic novels that are trying so hard to be funny; I guess I prefer a dry wit. There is nothing dry or subtle about this book. (