Q & A: A Novel

Book Description

Vikas Swarup's spectacular debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held after correctly answering all twelve questions on India's biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question.

Ram takes us on an amazing review of his own history -- from the day he was found as a baby in the clothes donation box of a Delhi church to his employment by a faded Bollywood star to his adventure with a security-crazed Australian army colonel to his career as an overly creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal.

Swarup's Q & A is a beguiling blend of high comedy, drama, and romance that reveals how we know what we know -- not just about trivia, but about life itself. Cutting across humanity in all its squalor and glory, Vikas Swarup presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the struggle between good and evil -- and what happens when one boy has no other choice in life but to survive.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting read .......2007-09-07

In his debut novel, Vikas Swarup, an Indian diplomat, tells about life in modern India from the viewpoint of an orphan who changes several places of residence and jobs during his teen years.

The story is not told in a conventional way, however. The presentation is very original - in the beginning we find out that Ram Muhammad Thomas was arrested after having won the biggest television Q & A show in India (and the world), winning 1 billion rupees (24 million US dollars, by today's rate). He was arrested because being just a poor 18-year old orphan working as a waiter who won a difficult quiz show, the show organizers suspected he was cheating.

However, and this is how the plot unfolds, Ram wasn't cheating. Rather, by a sheer coincidence, all the questions touched on topics he knew about from discrete incidents in the past few years of his life. As he sits in the police department with a lawyer, he tells her about each episode, after which they see the recording of the relevant question of the show.

If the original way of presentation was the only good thing about the book, it would only be average. However, the book also provides an exciting and fascinating glimpse into the life in modern India. Well written and full of both common day-life and historical facts about the densely populated peninsula, it is both pleasant to read and provides lots of interesting information. Recommended.

A Great Read.......2007-05-08

Q & A is a very entertaining book on many levels. The view of Indian culture, the inclusion of crimes against humanity we see around the world, and the organizational structure of the novel itself create a fascinating story. You cannot help rooting for the underdog, even with his flaws.

A Delightful Magical Romp and Still Poignant.......2007-01-30

There are a billion people in India, and one wins a billion rupees on "Who Will Win a Billion?", truly a one-in-a-billion shot. The one who wins is asked the only questions he could probably answer in the world, by a coincidence equivalent to his odds. From this timely and gripping premise, Vikas Swarup has crafted a wonderful novel, taking Ram Mohammed Thomas through his entire life in the way he explains how he, a poor 18-year old waiter, was able to answer each of the questions that led to his billion, and also to a stint in a Mumbai jail.

The book unfolds in the order of the questions Ram was asked on the quiz show, with his explanation of how he learned each answer forming the story. The most poignant part covers his period of time in Agra, where he works as a tourist guide at the Taj Mahal, befriends a boy who speaks nonsense, falls in love with a girl forced into prostitution and suddenly realizes that he must get on this quiz show to effect his life's destiny. I cried as that chapter ended.

Swarup is not a polished writer (he's a lawyer turned novelist) and he didn't experience many of the places or events of this book (he is well-educated and lives in England). But the book was clearly written with passion and compassion and a great deal of understanding and love for India and for his characters. His use of coincidence sometimes comes off as heavy-handed, until you realize that the entire story is about that one in a billion chance. Somewhere in heaven, Douglas Adams, inventor of the infinite improbability drive, is smiling reading this book.

Interesting premise, touching characters.......2006-08-28

All in all a worthy effort. The premise is very creative, and on that merit alone it's worth a go at this book. Yes, there are extraordinary coincidences throughout the plot, but that goes with the territory.

The characters are touching, though I did find in many circumstances that they seemed more than a little cliched. I am curious as to Mr. Swarup's research process for this book. Did he merely pass through the shantytowns of India, or did he work hard to understand the people therein? A good interview question for any journalist or fan to ask of him should the chance arise.

The prose is rather basic, but after all it is a first-person account of the main character. While the character does claim to have a working knowledge of the English language, he will never be confused for a highly educated native speaker. Therefore, I can excuse the quality of language, as anything overly florid would have come across as disingenuous.

As for the literary merit of the text: this is nothing more than an imaginative story, well told. Looking for hidden meaning in prose that will never achieve greatness is a wasted effort. You can enjoy this book without dissecting its literary value. The world needs blockbuster entertainment as much as it needs high-falutin' artistry. This book is the former.

This is a good end-of-summer, transit-through-airport read. A fine first effort for Mr. Swarup. Imaginative and touching, if not overly literary.

Bad Story, Poorly written, but an interesting approach/concept.......2006-06-29

The books was written poorly, unrealisitic and shows India in an almost unrealistic manner.

The story is about an orphaned boy who becomes a participant in a game show and eventually goes on to win a billion rupees (by answering 12 questions) as the prize money. The fact that Ram Mohammed Thomas, is an orphaned, uneducated young man and was able to answer all the questions, leads to the producer questioning whether Ram actually is knowledgeable enough to win the money. Thus an inquiry is instigated as to the legitimacy of Ram's win.

The story unfolds as Ram goes through each question, and through his life and experiences illustrates how he was able to answer all 12 questions in an attempt to exonerate himself of the charges.

I always believe that there are two main elements to a book, one is the actual story of the book and the second is whether the story was told in an interesting, well written manner.

This book lacks both components. Not only is the book poorly written, but the story is almost unreal and too coincidental. Everything just seems to work out (even though the protagonist experiences severe hardships throughout his life).

I cannot completely understand as to why this book received so many great reviews. Not only is it poorly written and lacks a great story, it also portrays an image of india that is not "truly India."

There are many great works of fiction out there and this is far from one. My recommendation: stay away and find something else (which should not be too difficult)

Q-Squared (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Average customer rating:

Trelane returns!
Pretty much strictly for Trek nerds
"Tally-Ho!!!"
An Excellent Audio Book
Some fun stuff here, but ultimately fails

Q-Squared (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Peter David
Manufacturer: Star Trek
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Adventure | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books

I, Q (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Q-In-Law (Star Trek The Next Generation, No 18)
Dark Mirror (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Vendetta: The Giant Novel (Star Trek the Next Generation)
The Q Continuum (Star Trek)

ASIN: 0671891510

Book Description

In all of his travels Captain Jean-Luc Picard has never faced an opponent more powerful that Q, a being from another continuum that Picard encountered on his very first mission as Captain of the Starship Enterprise™. In the years since, Q has returned again and again to harass Picard and his crew. Sometimes dangerous, sometimes merely obnoxious, Q has always been mysterious and seemingly all-powerful.

But this time, when Q appears, he comes to Picard for help. Apparently another member of the Q continuum has tapped into an awesome power source that makes this being more powerful than the combined might of the entire Q continuum. This renegade Q is named Trelane -- also known as the Squire of Gothos, who Captain Kirk and his crew first encountered over one hundred years ago. Q explains that, armed with this incredible power, Trelane has become unspeakably dangerous.

Now Picard must get involved in an awesome struggle between super beings. And this time the stakes are not just Picard's ship, or the galaxy, or even the universe -- this time the stakes are all of creation...

Download Description

Captain Picard's powerful opponent Q reappears. But instead of causing trouble, Q asks the captain for help, placing him in the middle of an awesome power struggle between superbeings. At stake is not just the Starship Enterprise, the galaxy, or even the universe--this time the stakes are all of creation.

Customer Reviews:

Trelane returns!.......2007-06-16

Greetings and felectations! It's wonderful to see Trelane back again. The paralles between the Q and Trelane are uncanny. David has done a wonedrful job of bringing together two Trek generations.

Pretty much strictly for Trek nerds.......2005-12-20

But you knew that already, right? It follows three different alternative timelines. One is the "normal" one, one is an alternative where Jack Crusher is alive, and Picard is his first officer on the Enterprise, and one is the alternate from "Yesterday's Enterprise," in a losing war with the Klingon Empire. Along comes Trelane, of an original-series episode, to mess things up. Turns out that Trelane is a young Q, and Q himself is his guardian, trying (with very limited success) to guide Trelane to adult Q-hood. Trelane becomes petulant (as he was with Kirk), and all hell breaks loose as he crashes the timelines together and sends Q into near-oblivion. Sorting it all out is a fun ride, but this is definitely a book I feel no need to keep after reading it.

"Tally-Ho!!!" .......2005-08-13

General Trelane (retired) returns in this book. The former Squire of Gothos is a Q, as it turns out. And Guess who is Trelane's mentor? That's right, that lovable imp known as Q. This is a blending of The Orginal Series and of The Next Generation, as it has James Kirk in it, albeit briefly.
A must for any Star Trek fan.

An Excellent Audio Book.......2005-04-19

This review refers to the audio book version, 3+ hours, two cassettes. John De Lancie does a really great job in reading this book. My one wish is that he had changed his voice so that the various characters would have been easy to pick out. Peter David's story is one of his best, and I really liked how he portrayed the first generation's Trelane, very true to character. Picard, and Q were also very well rendered. The story line bounces around a bit, but is not too distracting (or confusing). Sound effects and music are well done. The audio is quite legible when listening in a car. All-in-all a great audio book. I highly recommend it!

Some fun stuff here, but ultimately fails.......2005-01-15

Trelane (of the TOS episode "Squire of Gothos"), who turns out to be a young member of the Q-Continuum, taps into the ultimate energy source and uses it-or is used by it-to tamper with the nature of reality and the flow of time. Q and the crews of the starship Enterprise from three parallel universes find themselves right in the thick of the action.

Three things seem apparent about this novel. First, author Peter David had fun writing it. It's clever, if a bit too convoluted at times, and has fun making unexpected connections and arcane references to Trek history. He has a firm grip of the characters and writes their dialogue and interactions well. Second, he wrote it fast, much too fast. The prose is very sloppy, becoming at times unreadable. Third, this book is much too long. Most, if not all, of the sequences written from the perspectives of Q and Trelane should have been cut out. That would have improved the novel a great deal, because those scenes are truly awful.

Here's the problem: how can anyone, much less a guy dashing off a Star Trek novel, convincingly inhabit the perspective of an omnipotent, omniscient being? A masterful novelist might pull it off with great thought and effort, but Peter David isn't up to the task. That's not a knock against him, since almost nobody is up to that task, but he should have realized his limitations. He gives us beings who, rather than existing on a plane beyond our understanding, have mothers and fathers just like we do, act from very human motivations, and even derive their names from Latin root words! The TV series managed (just barely at times) to present the character successfully because it was always made clear that the version of Q and his universe that we saw was dumbed down to make human comprehension possible. David mistakes the dumbed down version for the real, unvarnished thing.

Average customer rating:

Land and Love
Master of a Difficult Environment
The strange faces of love...
Quirky, quaint and quite wonderful
Not for the faint of heart.

Q Road : A Novel
Bonnie Jo Campbell
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Women & Other Animals : Stories

ASIN: 0743203658

Book Description

Welcome to Q Road, in Greenland Township, where the old way of life is colliding with the new. On the same acres where farmers once displaced Potawatomi Indians, suburban developers now supplant farmers and Q road (or "Queer Road," as the locals call it) has become home to an unlikely mix of people. The neighbors include a sixth-generation farmer and his rifle-toting child bride, and evangelical bartender, a tabloid-reading agoraphobe, a philandering window salesman, and an asthmatic boy who longs for the love of a good father.These folks all smell the pig manure from the Whitby farm and share the same grand views of the Kalamazoo River and the oldest barn in the township -- until one disastrous October afternoon.

Bonnie Jo Campbell's first novel combines offbeat humor, eccentric characters, and unique insights into modern rural America, where family traditions have flown the coop and only the cycle of the seasons remains. At the heart of this tale are three characters so integrally connected and devoted to the Harland farm that they might not survive anywhere else; their lives, their livelihoods, and their sometimes violent love for one another are all rooted in the soil of this square mile.

As The Village Voice said of Campbell's story collection, she "crystallizes those moments when benumbed everyday routine is briefly jolted by dizzy instants of lucidity." It may take a spring tornado or a lightning bolt in the garden to get the folks of Q Road to pause in their work, but when they lift their gaze collectively, it can be life-altering. Brilliant atumn foliage creates the backdrop for the rich and ragged human landscape of rural southwestern Michigan, a place Campbell has explored in her award-winning short stories. In this passionate and funny novel she digs even deeper, to reveal the beauty and strangeness of her ferocious women, confused men, and hungry children.

Customer Reviews:

Land and Love.......2005-11-07

The pleasurable "Q Road" provides the reader with a genuine experience of rural Michigan coupled with characters who have grown from this place, whose lives are a reflection of their landscape.

The story, centered on an irascible, oft-cussing brute of a girl (Rachel) and her relationship with an ageing farmer (George), allows the reader to become engrossed in a landscape rife with contrast. The primary arc of the novel encompasses a few years from the late 1990's. Aside from the quirky and delightful love story between Rachel and George, as well as a few other minor arcs concerning the loveably flawed residents of Greenland Township in Kalamazoo County, the novel is a study on the friction between people with fundamentally different views on how their landscape should be shaped.

Rachel, along with her mother Margo, live off the land, hunting and skinning their meals with ease, as one with the natural environment as possible. George is caught in between. As a farmer he maintains an intimate relationship with the land while at the same time experiencing the near futility of his occupation with the constant pressures of money and labor. Then, with an assortment of characters, the rural/urban divide is examined through the clashes between wealthy developers, a middle class fleeing the city, and those who (like the Potawatomi in another arc of flashback skillfully threaded through the narrative) are forced to respond to the invasion.
A terrific, fast read. Highly recomended for anyone who loves the beautifully rugged ladscape of the nothern Mid-West.

Master of a Difficult Environment.......2003-07-11

This first novel begins with the image of wooly-bear caterpillars crossing a rural road. If this doesn't seem auspicious, read on. I found Q Road to be a generous surprise and I don't say this easily. The depiction of the extinquishing of a goldfinch's life is beautiful and perfect and right,though I fought it all the way. The depictions of the people and their sudden realizations are equally stunning. What it is to believe in God, what it is to love another person, to gasp even for air: all these are given to us by this young author. This is a monster, a wondrous, beautiful book.

The strange faces of love..........2003-03-07

As carefully stitched together as a patchwork quilt, with colorful squares made of quirky characters, the inhabitants of Greenland Township, Michigan, are bound by the commonality of their daily labor and innate love of their farmland. This is the heartland of America, land that has sustained generation after generation. But as much as a failing farm economy, suburbia encroaches upon this pastoral existence, and city people are willing to tolerate only so much discomfort in their newly constructed rural environment. Once sprawled across the countryside, secure from city confines, the old families are slowly replaced by pre-fab housing developments.

Q Road's three main protagonists are strikingly different people, each with particular idiosyncrasies, forming their own core family: father, child-bride, and son, love filling the solitary loneliness so long entrenched in their hearts. The spirited 17-year-old Rachel, a new bride who has married for the security of owning land, smashes through life with no guidance or socialization, save that of her own invention. George Harland, her middle-age-plus husband, is a sixth-generation farmer who knows only that his days are suddenly more bearable with Rachel sharing their backbreaking work and love-drenched nights. George cannot imagine life without Rachel.

When twelve-year-old David is drawn to the Harlands, it is for George's fatherly protection and Rachel's pure female strength, his own mother ever more distant and self-involved. On a clear day when trouble hovers in the air, David is the catalyst for catastrophe, his one breach of judgment forever changing the landscape of their future. For the three of them, life will never be the same again.

The Darwinian inevitability of nature vs. progress lurks around the perimeter of Greenland Township and Campbell skillfully portrays the hardships and realities of farming, as even the vigorous landscape becomes a vital player in the drama. Campbell's reality is hard-edged and she never shies away from its blunt and often brutal surfaces. Yet the eccentric characters of Q Road fit snugly into the environment, their own edges sharpened early by experience.

Q Road is like an Alice Hoffman novel with sharp teeth and a rapacious appetite. At the same time, the peculiar township inhabitants have many of the intransigent qualities of Carolyn Chute's Beans of Egypt, Maine. Sprinkled with quirky individuals, neighborhood malcontents and busybodies, Q Road is overflowing with the many faces of humanity, as they reach bravely toward their better selves. Luan Gaines/2003.

Quirky, quaint and quite wonderful.......2003-02-12

Campbell's book revolves around a quirky cast of characters in rural Michigan: foul-mouthed, child-bride Rachel, her husband George, and her best friend, asthmatic, 12-year-old David, to name a few. The story itself is not particularly remarkable, but Campbell's writing makes you want to not miss a moment.

Rifle-toting Rachel, abandoned by her distant, fur-trapping mother, marries the much older George Harland, a down-on-his-luck farmer, because she wants his land. She grows to love him in her own weird, tacit way. She also loves David, who becomes even more devoted to the mysterious Rachel after his near-death experience in a burning barn. There are some more neighborhood characters thrown into the mix, but you get to know these three the best. There wasn't so much in the way of a plot, it was really just a simple story, beautifully written, about loving the place you live and the people who live there, about getting lost, even in familiar territory, and finding your way back with the help of family and friends.

Not for the faint of heart........2003-01-13

Q Road is not for the faint of heart. Author Bonnie Jo Campbell takes you down a Michigan side-road to a rough-hewn world of brutally flawed characters. No sparkling wits, no dreamy introverts here; rather these misshapen and misfortuned people struggle through each and every day. Cantankerous and eccentric, they are driven to alienate kin and neighbors alike. Victims of violent acts of their past, broken marriages, rural recession and self-abuse, they gain pleasure from the misery of others.

Around them caterpillars are splattered under the wheels of cars, crows munch the remains of road-kill squirrels and cats devour birds, all in a landscape haunted by the death-march of the indigenous Potawatomi Indians. Out of this harsh reality, Campbell builds a story of grittiness, purpose and great humor that is suddenly jarred by a tragedy. An act of carelessness not malice, it threatens to overwhelm the community and break their spirit.

In Campbell's competent hands, there is no hysterical reaction and no desperation, just people digging deeper and accepting less. Q Road becomes a road to recovery. No giant steps, no minor miracles, just a poignant reminder that the human spirit needs just small kindnesses to prevail.

Book Description

The incandescent African American writer Gary Fisher was completely unpublished when he died of AIDS in 1994 at the age of 32. This volume, which includes all of Fisher’s stories and a generous selection from his journals, notebooks, and poems, will introduce readers to a tender, graphic, extravagant, and unswervingly incisive talent. In Fisher’s writings the razor-sharp rage is equalled only by the enveloping sweetness; the raw eroticism by a dazzling writerly elegance. Evocations of a haunting and mobile childhood are mixed in Fisher’s stories with an X-ray view of the racialized sexual vernaculars of gay San Francisco; while the journals braid together the narratives of sexual exploration and discovery, a joyous and deepening vocation as a writer, a growing intimacy with death, and an engagement with racial problematics that becomes ever more gravely and probingly imaginative.
A uniquely intimate, unflinching testimony of the experience of a young, African American gay man in the AIDS emergency, Gary in Your Pocket includes an introduction by Don Belton that describes Fisher’s achievement in the context of other work by Black gay men such as Marlon Riggs and Essex Hemphill, and a biographical afterword by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.

Customer Reviews:

I knew Gary.......2007-05-25

I knew Gary when we both attended UNC in the early 80's. If you read his journals, you will recognize me as "John" or "Johnny". I am a white gay man. I came out of the closet in 1981 and Gary was one of the first people in the UNC "community" that I met...we had a German class together. We became great friends (platonic) and eventually roommates...for a time he was my best friend. As referenced in his journals, Gary moved to the San Francisco area in 1983, and I moved out there in 1984. We continued our friendship there. I moved back to the south in 1986, but we kept in touch, until I discovered that he was HIV+ in 1989...I tried to contact him with my support but we lost contact after that. Just recently, after a random google I discovered that he had died and that this book had been written. I bought it immediately.

The book, which makes for spicy reading, only presents a small side of the Gary Fisher I knew...although he may have explored the darker sides of his sexuality after we left contact. But I know that the content of his journals was profound and spritual. True, he did not embrace his race...most of his friends were white...he considered himself a gay man, not a black man.

The author of this book chose only to highlight the sexual aspects of Gary's journals...I imagine this was intentional since she is somewhat of an expert on sexuality and most of her work concerns this, but the reader must remember, the content of this book all comes from Gary's journals, and as pornographic as it seems, much of it may only be imaginary. Gary even admitted to me that he didn't mind "enhancing" his stories sometimes.

I had mixed feelings reading this book..in some aspects there was some personal closure as to what had happened to him...I imagined he had passed but now know for sure.

At first I was angry after reading this book. How could such a brilliant person just throw his life way so early, just for the pursuit of sexual fantasy. But then I remembered the Gary I knew...this Gary saw fantasy in everything and he wrote these images down daily for most of his life. I wish the readers of this book could read the full content of his journals because they would be left with a different impression of him. In my opinion, given that this is the only book with Gary's writings, the author has shown Gary only as a sexual being...this is a great disservice to him and to those of us who knew him.

Art is meant to provoke, but this was a brotha's real life?!.......2003-01-02

Gary Fisher was a graduate student, fledgling writer, and Black gay man living in the Bay Area before his death in the mid-1990s. This book consists of two parts: a sample of short stories and poems and an autobiographical sketch based upon his diaries.

I don't know whether to thank the author, editor, and publishing company for challenging me and most other readers or to throw this book into an incinerator. One reviewer in the gay press called this writing "outre" and I wholeheartedly agree. I am thoroughly surprised that this book is available at non-pornographic outlets. Rafael Campo, Don Belton, and Eve Sedgwick all have raved about Fisher or helped this book come into fruition. I admire all three of those writers and enjoy their work, so I have no idea what they were thinking here. E. Lynn Harris' fans would roll over and die if they read this book! It's one thing for art to push the envelope, but an actual Black gay man made all the poor and crazy choices that Gary Fisher made. I had to work hard to keep my eyes in their sockets trying to get through this book.

While the fiction and poetry demonstrate the potential Fisher had, they are worthless. Things don't really get started until the autobiographical portion begins. This book invokes every "disrespectable" aspect of some gay people's lives; the Far Right could have a field day with this text. The shock value and goriness is very reminiscent of David Wojnarowicz's "Postcards from America" and Eve Sedgwick, the editor, basically admits as much in her conclusion. Adding racial matters into the mix only intensifies the uncomfort I felt. Issues such as dangerously unsafe sex practices, size-queeniness, Uncle Tom-ism, coprofilia, anonymous and public sex all come up and readers will be thoroughly shocked at how. The action in this book comes out of nowhere. Fisher never clearly states when he started to identify as gay, when he decided to practice masochism, when he tested positive for HIV, or when he met Eve Sedgwick. They all kinda just happen. Furthermore, he is a closeted gay and a black self-loather. He never once challenges homophobia or racism.

Eve Sedgwick praises Fisher's feelings on race as "complicated." Ha! Fisher makes very clear that he hated being black. Throughout his life he hardly associates with other blacks. He lets white gay men do all kinds of degrading things to him. While he listens to black music, you hardly hear anything about black literature, heroes, or friends. He does have sex with some black men, but he places white men on a pedestal and even enjoys when he is called racist epithets. Not only will straight Black readers be appalled, but gay Blacks will be both appalled and embarrassed. If bell hooks hated "Paris Is Burning," you can just imagine how she and others would trash this book. He is very race-conscious, but this guy didn't have an ounce of Black pride. Additionally, Fisher thinks in strictly black-white terms though he moved to California, a state with many Latinos and Asians. Sedgwick makes clear that Fisher wanted the book's title, but it nevertheless underlines all the ugly issues that his life brings up.

Possibly due to Sedgwick's editing and institutional connections, this book has the format, height, and font of many gay studies texts from Duke University Press. This is odd to see in a non-academic book. Some of the autobiographical part is ramblings of his fiction. I understand that characters sometimes speak to writers when they are creating art, but this made the book even more confusing, capricious, and repetitive. Fisher asks many rhetorical questions that need question marks, yet Sedgwick fails to edit them in. Fisher obviously read much yet music seems to have moved his life far more than literature did.

I do love the fact that Fisher was attracted to heavy guys. There is a lot of prejudice against fat men in the gay community and this one aspect of Fisher was a breath of fresh air. At a time when many coming-out stories are being produced by gay men, few are done by gay Blacks and SM-practitioners. Also, Fisher is an "Army brat" and not enough has been written about their lives. This book adds to the collection of AIDS writings which is formidable. The reader does get to observe how AIDS has robbed us of someone who had talent. And it is provocative in a way.

STILL, LET ME WARN ALL READERS THAT THEY BETTER HAVE A STRONG STOMACH, NO POLITICALLY CORRECT LEANINGS, AND AN INCREDIBLY THICK SKIN IF THEY ARE GOING TO READ THIS BOOK. YOU HAVE BEEN ADVISED!

Dream Story (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)
Average customer rating:

Delightful

Do You See What You Expected When You Look Behind The Mask?

Good writing, but too badly finished off to be worth reading

An outdated novella of Freudian symbolism

Schnitzler at his best

Dream Story (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)
Arthur Schnitzler
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

19th Century | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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The Confusions of Young TÃ¶rless (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

Desire and Delusion: Three Novellas

Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry

Barry Lyndon

ASIN: 0141182245

Book Description

Amidst a short spat between a married couple, the husband, a doctor, is summoned to the bedside of a dying man. So begins a series of involvements throughout the night in increasingly dangerous and deviant sexual adventures for Fridolin, who taken by a friend to a "secret" party, is forced to make choices that seem beyond his control. The dream-like events are made more frighteningly real by Schnitzler's powerfully detailed descriptions, as little by little Fridolin gives in to the demands of the secret celebrants.Order may be restored, but the desperation, the depravity of the human mind remains just below the surface of the conscious willing of good.

A doctor himself and close friend of Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler was one of the most important playwrights and novelists of early 20th-century Austrian literature.

Customer Reviews:

Delightful.......2007-07-12

`Dream Story' is now a famous novella on account of Kubrick's mediocre film `Eyes Wide Shut,' but it remains a fabulous literary exploration of infidelity and the Freudian conceptualization of Eros. After over eighty years, Schnitzler's prose remains fresh and mysterious like a cold, damp Viennese alley. It is the story of a young couple's adventures in infidelity both real and of the unconscious. After a jealous fight, the protagonist leaves his home and wife and wanders the deep recesses of Vienna in search of sexual gratitude and revenge. He encounters a lonely widow, the young promiscuous daughter of a shop owner, and religious orgy. He returns and his wife reveals dreams of infidelity and betrayal. Schnitzler is probing the darker and more painful dimensions of human sexuality, the fact of Eros, the fact of desire, both real and imagined. After a moment of reconciliation the bourgeois home has come full circle; `Dream Story' is brilliant in its ability to be both conventional and provocative. It is a wonderful novella of intrigue, sexuality, and love.

Do You See What You Expected When You Look Behind The Mask?.......2005-11-16

In a short novel of one-hundred pages length set after the turn of the twentieth century Arthur Schnitzler, the contemporary of Sigmund Freud, elegantly poses an implicit question. Are life, intentions and consciousness what they seem and would it matter were one's motives other than their outcome?
Dream Story came to me in the reverse order to what is typical. Having seen the film by Stanley Kubrick the masterful direction and intriguing premise acted as impetus for seeking out the book from which the former was adapted. Never mind that Kubrick is unlikely to be bettered; such was the quality of the film, Eyes Wide Shut. Moreover, it was unlikely that Kubrick would pick anything less than a winning novel as his outline to work on.
In twenty four hours the realities of a physician used to dealing with the corporeal and physical is altered once faced with the surprise, trauma and discovery of puzzling and nefarious happenings not oordinarily out in the open. Apparently, nothing is what it seems and reckoning only yields more questions. Forced to avert his eyes from the facade, the charlatans and the masquerade because of his emotions and coercion from a secret society Fridolin, the protagonist, comes to believe that what is most grounded in reality is something one cannot touch, namely feeling, emotions and intentions. Temptation might carry the battle, but the war is won by honesty, bonds of relationship and trust in the hidden motive.
Ultimately, as Fridolin and his wife Albertine concur, trusting in original intent surmounts momentary lapses or deviations from that essence. It is a lesson worth pondering.

Good writing, but too badly finished off to be worth reading.......2004-05-13

Arthur Schnitzler - "Dream Story" (1926)

A potentially interesting book, about the period of just a day in one man's life - but lacking any sufficient ending to do justice to the material, and ending up as a mere fragment.
At the end, a prostitute is in hospital but we are not told why; a secret meeting took place, but its function is never explained; a woman acting as a saviour at the secret function may have been killed or may not have been, but we are not told more about her fate; an old piano-playing friend goes missing but we are left in the dark as to what happened to him after that. Why raise these questions in the reader's mind, then just drift the plot off into nothing? What was the point of the thing?
The quality of writing, as expression, is good, but the book fails to go anywhere sufficiently significant and conclusive by the end to have justified taking the reader on the journey there. The reader is let down at the end, being given only half a story and a lot of straggly ends that drift off to nothing, creating a feeling of dissatisfaction. The book posed too many questions but then failed to answer them and was only half a book, cheating the reader out of a story worth reading.

1 star out of 5

An outdated novella of Freudian symbolism.......2002-10-18

Published in 1926, Arthur Schnitzler's DREAM STORY ("Traumnovelle") is a novella of dark Freudian images and plays on the merging of the conscious and subconscious in human life. Forgotten for several decades, it has returned to print with Stanley Kubrick's last film EYES WIDE SHUT, which was a somewhat faithful adaptation set in the present day. DREAM STORY tells of a married couple in Vienna, perhaps at the turn of the 20th century though the date is unspecified. While having what begins as a friendly conversation one evening, Albertine confesses to her physician husband Fridolin that during a vacation in Denmark the previous summer she felt she could leave him and their daughter behind for a handsome naval officer who was staying in the same hotel. Fridolin, shocked that his marriage isn't terribly stable and that his wife could maliciously leave him, is then called to visit a patient. From there he encounters several women in his journeys through Vienna and eventually gains entrance to a upper-class orgy (presented somewhat differently than the black mass of Kubrick's film). The action takes place over only two days, and this slim volume can be read in a mere two hours. I can't comment on this translation, having read the translation into Esperanto by Michel Duc Goninaz, but the novel's meaning is based on symbolism that wouldn't lose much in translation, though one must be aware that the German names of the characters (and the Schreyvogelgasse, a Viennese street) are linked. People owning a German dictionary will get a little more out of this novella.

Arthur Schnitzler was quite enamoured by the theories of Sigmund Freud, so much so that Freud joked that he would never meet the novelist because of the belief that one would die upon encountering his double. DREAM STORY is full of allusions to Freudian psychology, and the orgy is both a real event and a representation of Fridolin's subconscious. Albertine's dream recounted to Fridolin afterwards, told in unrealistic detail that shows Schnitzler is trying too hard for a roman a clef, echoes the previous action eerily and hence the title of the novella. It is because of its Freudian basis that DREAM STORY is ultimately disappointing. Freudian psychology has been taken some heavy blows in favour of the theories of Jung and Lacan, so this story shows its age. And while it would seem at first that Schnitzler is being progressive in saying that women do indeed think of sexuality, it is apparent that Schnitzler believes that women unhealthily desire sex only as a tool to hurt and strike out, as Albertine insinuates several times that she would take great pleasure in abandoning Fridolin for a purely physical relationship with a younger man. As a result of this basis, DREAM STORY is quite out of date and misogynist.

I really couldn't recommend DREAM STORY, unless one has an interest in Freudian psychology and its application, in which case this novella is a treasure of the thought of the period. While recommending the movie over the book is a reversal of the usual order of things, I'd recommend simply watching EYES WIDE SHUT. Stanley Kubrick was aware of many of the flaws of the source material and fixed a few of them, and the art direction and cinematography are superb. The novella doesn't have much going for it.

Schnitzler at his best.......2002-03-07

To be quite honest, I had no idea that Dream Story was the inspiration for Eyes Wide Shut. It's quite unfortunate that Schnitzler should finally have garnered the attention of a wider reading audience because of some cheap Hollywood flick.

Since I have no interest in the movie, I have no way of relating the book to it, but I would like to point out the fact that some of the other reviews are unreasonably harsh in their criticism of Schnitzler. He is a superb writer, a keen observer of human emotions and behaviours.

Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that the story was written nearly a century ago (it was published in 1926, but I understand that it was probably written prior to World War One). It is easy then for the modern reader to interpret the story out of context, since much of what made the story so titillating has long since become commonplace.

One thing that I want to point out that was mistakingly claimed in a previous review is that the couple was "happily married." Not so. It is quite evident in the first few pages that Fridolin and Albertine have grown weary of one another. Both are tempted to engage in extramarital relationships, yet are incapable of actually carrying them out. We see this first-hand from Fridolin's perspective as time and again he finds himself in situations where he could easily submit to the temptation.

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An exposé about being black in a white world........1998-10-26

Black Shack Alley is the beautifully presented story of one young boy, José Hassam and his struggles to understand the racially divided world of Martinique. The author Joseph Zobel, through the first person narrative of José, gives us insights into the hard life of the cane plantation where José first lives with his grandmother, the opportunities that schooling provides to a young black boy and the ultimate struggle of giving up one's culture to become alienated but more successful in society. That is the choice for Martiniquans who desire to succeed, they must become alienated from their creole beginnings to fit into the only acceptable society, which is white and French. Zobel presents this as the only real option for José which concurs with the social feeling at that time. This book is a reminder of the struggle for identity that has occurred in the past of Martinique. It is a long way from the more contemporary work of Patrick Chamoiseau and his book Texaco which heralds a new era that applauds the creole beginnings and rejects accepting all white ways. This is a very moving story which can teach us a lot about Martiniquan traditions as well as being valuable in the time honoured tradition of storytelling. Necessary reading for understanding the depths of Martiniquan society.

Never Say I: Sexuality and the First Person in Colette, Gide, and Proust (Series Q)

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Never Say I: Sexuality and the First Person in Colette, Gide, and Proust (Series Q)
Michael Lucey
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Misfit of the Family: Balzac and the Social Forms of Sexuality (Series Q)

ASIN: 0822338971

Book Description

Never Say I reveals the centrality of representations of sexuality, and particularly same-sex sexual relations, to the evolution of literary prose forms in twentieth-century France. Rethinking the social and literary innovation of works by Marcel Proust, André Gide, and Colette, Michael Lucey considers these writers’ production of a first-person voice in which matters related to same-sex sexuality could be spoken of. He shows how their writings and careers took on political and social import in part through the contribution they made to the representation of social groups that were only slowly coming to be publicly recognized. Proust, Gide, and Colette helped create persons and characters, points of view, and narrative practices from which to speak and write about, for, or as people attracted to those of the same sex.

Considering novels along with journalism, theatrical performances, correspondences, and face-to-face encounters, Lucey focuses on the interlocking social and formal dimensions of using the first person. He argues for understanding the first person not just as a grammatical category but also as a collectively produced social artifact, demonstrating that Proust’s, Gide’s, and Colette’s use of the first person involved a social process of assuming the authority to speak about certain issues, or on behalf of certain people. Lucey reveals these three writers as both practitioners and theorists of the first person; he traces how, when they figured themselves or other first persons in certain statements regarding same-sex identity, they self-consciously called attention to the creative effort involved in doing so.

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Mystery wrapped in a Robe
Such a mess...
A Tale of Two Books
Thoughtful, Provocative, and Entertaining
Good Solid Mediocre

The Book of Q: A Novel
Jonathan Rabb
Manufacturer: Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

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The Overseer
Rosa: A Novel
The Genesis Code: A Thriller
The Messianic Legacy
The Amber Room: A Novel

ASIN: 060960483X
Release Date: 2001-05-08

Amazon.com

Father Ian Pearse leads a scholar's life within the Vatican walls, intent on ferreting out the textual complexities of Saint Ambrose's letters. But when a fellow priest gives him an ancient prayer that seems to hint at unspeakable heresy, and then mysteriously disappears, Pearse is forced from contemplation into action. The prayer is a fuse that will ignite a centuries-old conspiracy to establish a radical new church on the ruins of Catholicism, leading back to the ancient sect of Manichaeism, which held that man is equal to God and questioned the validity of Catholicism's central tenet: the Divine Resurrection. The Manichaeans are alive and well, as Pearse discovers, and have a disturbing tendency to turn up in the most unexpected of places--including the papal throne. And they have much, much bigger plans. It's up to Pearse to decipher the scroll and to follow its trail to the fountainhead of Manichaean truth. His journey will take him from an ancient Greek monastery to the scarred and bloody landscape of Bosnia, where a secret from his own past threatens to undermine his quest and his struggle to stay one step ahead of the Manichaean conspirators.

Unfortunately, so clumsily and pedantically does Rabb introduce the history behind the scroll, and so completely does he shortchange the reader when it comes to deciphering its secrets, that only the most patient and forgiving of fans will arrive at the novel's end without the sneaking sensation that this has all been a tempest in a teacup. Abstruseness is no crime, as any Umberto Eco fan will tell you. Dullness, however, is.

If you're looking for a rollickingly clever thriller that combines ancient religious politics, a mysterious power that threatens the stability of the Catholic church, and a tour of a vibrantly detailed Rome, The Story of Q isn't it. If you're looking for a thoughtful exploration of the soul-searing paradox that arises when a priest is forced to doubt the authenticity of the Resurrection, The Story of Q isn't it, either. For the former, you can't go wrong with Dan Brown's gloriously over-the-top Angels & Demons; for the latter, check out The Gospel of Judas, Simon Mawer's quietly powerful take on ancient history and contemporary mores. --Kelly Flynn

Book Description

In his national bestseller The Overseer, Jonathan Rabb demonstrated his imaginative power and keen understanding of history with a superb thriller that dazzled critics and fans alike. The Book of Q now brings his gifts to full, stunning fruition.

Asia Minor, sixth century: After several centuries of conflict with the early Christian church, the Manichaeans, a heretical sect, vanish from the historical record.

Bosnia, 1992: Ian Pearse, a young American relief worker destined for the priesthood, has his faith tested by the horrors of war, but is jolted from his despair by a passionate affair with a Croatian woman named Petra.

Rome, present day: Father Pearse, now a researcher at the Vatican Library, comes into possession of an ancient scroll after the mysterious death of one Vatican priest and the disappearance of another. His scholar's curiosity aroused, he has the document translated by an old friend in Rome. He is stunned to learn that the scroll contains ingeniously coded letters and the text of the "Perfect Light," a Manichaean prayer that has never been found in its written form.

In the early days of the Christian church the Manichaeans had been an overly zealous, highly organized secret society, scorned by the church and seemingly driven out of existence. But these newly discovered documents indicate an earth-shattering alternate history, a long-dormant, highly evolved conspiracy carefully nurtured for centuries, and an even more important scroll hinted at in the letters that will facilitate "the great awakening."
When the pope dies of a sudden illness, Pearse is roughed up by Vatican security, who want the scroll, and when the woman who translated the prayer for him is kidnapped, he realizes that "the great awakening" is not an academic concept but something very real and dangerous. With his friend's life at stake, Pearse must find the document that holds the key to this Manichaean conspiracy.

Racing from the Vatican to Greece and back to Bosnia, Pearse has to decipher the cryptograms and codes that have been passed down for centuries from one Manichaean sect to another in the documents he finds. He is also reunited with Petra, the passionate, determined Croatian woman who has lingered in his mind since their time together in Bosnia years earlier. Together they must face a heresy that has been vigilantly guarded and cared for throughout the centuries until the time is right to unleash it on the world. And the time is now. . . .

Customer Reviews:

Mystery wrapped in a Robe.......2006-08-02

Although this does not approach the fabulous GOSPEL by Wilton Barnhardt (in which a fifth Gospel is uncovered and searched for by a priest and a woman) it is still a good read. It certainly does not merit the a * meted out by some reviewers - considering the praise for such mixed-up runarounds as The DaVinci Code. It dragged at times and some is outlandish but that's true of Clancy and (especially) Dale Brown. One problem was that it tried to be a religious mystery, spy tale and biography rolled in one. As a restul, each of the three suffered a bit.

Pearce, an American priest-to-be works in Bosnia during the war. His closest companions are a Croat man (Mendravic) and woman (Petra). He and the woman fall in love and before he returns make love in old church. They then narrowly escape a murder attempt. Fast Forward 8 years and the priest is in Rome as a Pope nears death. The reader learns that a crafty Manichaean is scheduled to be the next Pope. Pearce learns of a plot to replace Catholicism with Manichaeanism, historically Christianity's greatest rival. These believers have infiltrated all areas of the Church.

He obtains an ancient scroll that is actually a map with puzzles, a speciality of his. It leads to the Balkans - this time Kosovo - where he meets the Croats again. He discovers that he sired a son, Ivo, and the rest of the tale is a long search for the mythical "Hodoporia", the document that will usher in a religion for all. What it turns out to be, though, is the alleged "Q", a saying of the words of Jesus roughly used by the Gospel writers.

The new Manichean Pope carries out a grand scheme that unites Christendom against Islamic terrorists . In an avalanche of events all is finally reconciled. There is a satisfying personal ending - Pearce, Petra and Ivo unite and move to Boston. The story ending is less satisfactory. The Church uses the Q document but omits parts revealing that there was no Resurrection. So the Church endures but yet it is based on a lie.

Such a mess..........2005-05-10

The author is totally ignorant of majority of the things he writes about. His view of war in Bosnia is so one-sided and really insulting for the people who lived that war in real life. His research for the book is really minor, because his Croats bear Muslim and Serb names (and vice versa). Other thing, the Kosovo crisis - why did he put it in there, wasn't the war in Bosnia enough?? (I guess he needed 40-something pages to fill). I live on the territory of former Yugoslavia, and I was disgusted that once again the miseries of Balkan people are used as a backdrop for some wannabe priest-soldier-Indiana Jones escapades.

A Tale of Two Books.......2003-01-06

I have to give this book 1 star for the first 170 pages and 5 for the next 200 and average them together to get 3. This really is the tale of two books. The first part moves along at a very slow and plodding pace with a prose that makes you ask yourself whether it is worth it to keep on reading. Somewhere around page 170 the pace really picks up and your sticking around for the ending really pays off.

Basically the book is about an american priest in the Vatican who comes across a conspiracy to destroy the Papal Office and change the whole landscape of Christianity in the process. The way the organization plans to change Christianity is through mass bombings of churches (with the blame being put on Muslim terrorists) and the search for the Book of Q, which is the autobiographical account of Jesus' life. The priest rushes from the Vatican to Greece to Bosnia and back to the Vatican in search of the legendary book and a way to save the Catholic Church.

Thoughtful, Provocative, and Entertaining.......2002-08-13

Jonathan Rabb's The Book of Q is a thoughtful, provocative, and entertaining book. Thoughtful in it's description of early Christianity, the Maniccheans, Gnosticism, and a raging Serbian war. Provocative in it's attempt make the reader question the spoon fed history of the church, and entertaining in it's ability to do the above under the guise of one long chase scene that incorporates murder(s), terrorism, sex, and religion. The book was well researched and made this writer research further the Maniccheans, Gnosticism, and the gospel according to Timothy.

Good Solid Mediocre.......2002-01-30

This really is not that good of a book. It starts out slow, speeds up very well about mid way through, then hits a serious wall when it should be climaxing. We run into old tired wishful thinking that some manuscript is going to bring down the Catholic church. (I am not a Catholic) The amount of time spent on a totally fictitious parchment that the author evidently desperately wishes existed really made finishing the book hard work for me. Jonathan Rabb is not Clancy or Grisham. The good news is that his books are only about half as long as theirs are.

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Willa Cather and Others (Series Q)
Jonathan Goldberg
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

After many years as one of the premier scholars of English Renaissance literature, Jonathan Goldberg turns his attention to the work of American novelist Willa Cather. With a focus on Cather’s artistic principle of âthe thing not named,â Willa Cather and Others illuminates the contradictions and complexities inherent in notions of identity and shows how her fiction transforms the very categoriesâregarding gender, sexuality, race, and classâaround which most recent Cather scholarship has focused.
The âothersâ referred to in the title are women, for the most part Cather’s contemporaries, whose artistic projects allow for points of comparison with Cather. They include the Wagnerian diva Olive Fremstad, renowned for her category-defying voice; Blair Niles, an ethnographer and novelist of jazz-age Harlem and the prisons of New Guinea; Laura Gilpin, photographer of the American Southwest; and Pat Barker, whose Regeneration trilogy places World War I writersâand questions of sexuality and genderâat its center. In the process of studying these women and their work, Goldberg forms innovative new insights into a wide range of Cather’s celebrated works, from O Pioneers! and My Ãntonia to her later books The Song of the Lark, One of Ours, The Professor’s House, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and Sapphira and the Slave Girl.
By applying his unique talent to the study of Cather’s literary genius, Jonathan Goldberg makes a significant and new contribution to the study of American literature and queer studies.

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How Good It Is

Q-Ko-Chan 2: The Earth Invader Girl
Ueda Hajime
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0345492099
Release Date: 2006-09-26

Book Description

THE EARTH-INVADER GIRL!

Kirio Muji has been adopted by an adorable robot named Q•ko-chan and is taking part in a battle against octopus—like creatures, mind-controlled aliens, and his own government. But now a whole hoard of robots like Q•ko-chan has shown up–and when his hated sister Furiko is adopted by the most powerful robot, the battle reaches a shattering climax.

With a mix of thrilling adventure and ultra-cute robots, Q•ko-chan is a manga event not to be missed!

Customer Reviews:

How Good It Is.......2006-11-13

If you aren't familiar with Hajime Ueda's trippy two-volume FLCL, get ready, cuz the similarities are many. Both FLCL and Q-Ko-Chan have cute girls, giant robot battles, jaded protagonists... and the most confusing story ever told. Some may say "How can you get confused if the book's nothing but pictures?" Oh trust me, it happens continuously. At times it's utterly bewildering; you just have to accept it and move on. But Ueda's high-contrast, edgy art saves the day. So in the end I had everything to like and nothing to hate about Q-Ko-Chan, the Earth Invader Girl (Four stars is still good stuff, donchaknow).

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