An unforgettably challenging book about power and powerlessness, men and women, masters and servants, small countries and big countries, Alasdair Gray's exploration of the politics of pornography has lost none of its power to shock. This is a searing portrait of male need and inadequacy, as explored via the lonely sexual fantasies of Jock McLeish, failed husband, lover, and businessman.Yet there is hope here, and the humor—if black—and the imaginative and textual energy of the narrative achieves its own kind of redemption in the end.
1982, Janine (Canongate Classics)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
Review
'1982, Janine has a verbal energy, an intensity of vision that has mostly been missing from the English novel since D. H. Lawrence.' New York Times
About the Author
Alasdair Gray is the author of The Book of Prefaces, the dystopian classic Lanark, Old Men in Love, and Poor Things, for which he won the Whitbread Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By D. Mikels
Format:Hardcover
I have a headache. This book was one of the most bittersweet reads I can remember: a page where I'm engrossed, followed by a page where I'm grossed out (by the author's style, not the content). I'm open to all sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle literary devices, and Alasdair Gray's 1982 JANINE embarks on a journey of writing creativity with all the tenderness of a sledgehammer.
The premise of Gray's story is interesting: a burned-out, middle-aged businessman drowning his sorrows in a shabby motel room while concocting a series of farfetched sexual fantasies--all in an effort to smother the overwhelming dreariness of his actual life. A plot dripping with existentialism, to be sure, and Gray's furious (often unreadable) style creates a mood of despair and frustration that conjures up enough alcohol-induced pink elephants to fill the San Diego Zoo. Yet the style also works against the story, as it becomes redundant to the point where its impact is lost. And as an aside, Gray's (through his protagonist) preoccupation with white silk blouses and button-down denim skirts became downright annoying. I would have preferred to have seen a little spandex, myself.
This is no "light" read; the author's style requires the reader to pay close attention. Yet there is a literally unreadable chapter--when Jock, our protagonist, takes a bottle of sleeping pills on top of his fifth of whiskey--where my heart went out to the copy editor who had to tackle all the nonsensical and upside down prose. The author waits until the end of his story to tell us the intimate details of Jock's trials and tribulations, then gives us an anticlimactic ending in the form of a very weak epiphany that doesn't measure up to all of the madness running rampant through the preceding pages. So as I reach for the aspirin, I would like to believe that 1982 JANINE is a metaphorical Mae West: when it's good, it's very, very good--when it's bad, it's blathering nonsense.
--D. Mikels
By "lexo-2"
Format:Paperback
1982 Janine is set in the consciousness of a middle-aged inspector of security systems, holed up in a small Scottish hotel with a bottle of whisky, trying to have sexual fantasies. So far, so unpromising. The trouble is, his memories of his (far from satisfying) life keep getting in the way. And so the book continues, with Jock's baroque and teeth-gratingly embarrassing fantasies (big-breasted women in leather skirts, behaving badly) displaced more and more frequently by the shabby and unflattering truth - Jock is aware that he is a small, not very brave man who has spent his life making bad decision after bad decision. Eventually he swallows a bottle of sleeping pills. And that's not even the third last chapter, so I'm not spoiling anything for you. This is a brilliant novel - Gray's style is (as ever) classical, measured and almost pedantically correct, but it fits Jock as well as the three-piece suits he's worn since his college days. There are some barkingly insane typographical maneuvres in the wake of the pill-swallowing episode, but that's all just to set up what comes next. The comedy is grim and the sadness is awful, but there's real catharsis there for those who can appreciate it. My favourite of Gray's novels - leaner and tougher (if not as wild and ambitious) than Lanark, and less whimsical than much of his later work. The paperback edition is completed with his now-characteristic inclusion of snippets from the book's worst reviews.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars
5 reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonders and terrors
Dec 8 1999
By "lexo-2"
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
1982 Janine is set in the consciousness of a middle-aged inspector of security systems, holed up in a small Scottish hotel with a bottle of whisky, trying to have sexual fantasies. So far, so unpromising. The trouble is, his memories of his (far from satisfying) life keep getting in the way. And so the book continues, with Jock's baroque and teeth-gratingly embarrassing fantasies (big-breasted women in leather skirts, behaving badly) displaced more and more frequently by the shabby and unflattering truth - Jock is aware that he is a small, not very brave man who has spent his life making bad decision after bad decision. Eventually he swallows a bottle of sleeping pills. And that's not even the third last chapter, so I'm not spoiling anything for you. This is a brilliant novel - Gray's style is (as ever) classical, measured and almost pedantically correct, but it fits Jock as well as the three-piece suits he's worn since his college days. There are some barkingly insane typographical maneuvres in the wake of the pill-swallowing episode, but that's all just to set up what comes next. The comedy is grim and the sadness is awful, but there's real catharsis there for those who can appreciate it. My favourite of Gray's novels - leaner and tougher (if not as wild and ambitious) than Lanark, and less whimsical than much of his later work. The paperback edition is completed with his now-characteristic inclusion of snippets from the book's worst reviews.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not for everyone - but good
April 28 2013
By Lance
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this book on the strength of Lanark only to discover that it was very, very different.
First off, this book is heavy on stream-of-consciousness. I find these books are often hard to get into, and this one was no different. The first half of the book follows the narrator (who is but is not Alasdair Gray) as he tries to write a short story involving several female characters. But he never really gets the story together - instead the first half of the book is punctuated with the narrator's drunken ramblings, memories, and (sexual) fantasies. There are quite a few funny moments, sad moments, and exciting moments, but on the whole I found the first half to be a bit inaccessible. Its style reminds me a bit of Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground.
But halfway through the book, after a stream-of-consciousness-exploding-climax, Gray dials it back a bit and embraces a more conventional narrative. The short story with the women begins taking form and making sense, and things get quite enjoyable. There are moments of profundity, sadness, humor - by the end of the book the beginning makes more sense.
Gray considers this his best work. I'd have to disagree. His first novel Lanark was absolutely amazing. But 1982, Janine is a good book - maybe even a great book - by one of our greatest living writers.
First off, this book is heavy on stream-of-consciousness. I find these books are often hard to get into, and this one was no different. The first half of the book follows the narrator (who is but is not Alasdair Gray) as he tries to write a short story involving several female characters. But he never really gets the story together - instead the first half of the book is punctuated with the narrator's drunken ramblings, memories, and (sexual) fantasies. There are quite a few funny moments, sad moments, and exciting moments, but on the whole I found the first half to be a bit inaccessible. Its style reminds me a bit of Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground.
But halfway through the book, after a stream-of-consciousness-exploding-climax, Gray dials it back a bit and embraces a more conventional narrative. The short story with the women begins taking form and making sense, and things get quite enjoyable. There are moments of profundity, sadness, humor - by the end of the book the beginning makes more sense.
Gray considers this his best work. I'd have to disagree. His first novel Lanark was absolutely amazing. But 1982, Janine is a good book - maybe even a great book - by one of our greatest living writers.
4.0 out of 5 stars
I wish...
Dec 31 2012
By Salvador Glenwood
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
...I could write in such strange episodic, schizoid events, falling toward the sexual (non erotic), the political (perhaps personal and still real today) and the imaginatively -- writing in a style that makes me want to take an ice bath and thank the author for having the guts to purge this out in the print world, the word world. Oh well, it's 2013 and they don't make them like they used to.
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 5 reviews
4.2 out of 5 stars
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
