- Hardcover: 148 pages
- Publisher: E P Dutton (May 1979)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0525070206
- ISBN-13: 978-0525070207
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 12.7 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 318 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
George Guidall provides a perfectly timed performance of author Elkin's comic vision of the afterlife. It chronicles the hapless adventures of several human souls as they make their way through the underworld and paradise. God is portrayed as a vain, childish dilettante unhappily seeking appreciation for and from his creation. The various suffering humans are portrayed with wry sympathy, but none of the souls are particularly memorable. The ironies are obvious?a decent hardworking character is damned while an amoral schemer is accidentally sent to heaven. The scenes of hell are horrific, but Dante's Inferno (Audio Reviews, LJ 10/15/97) is more so, and it is hard to see what new insights Elkin brings to his subject. Guidall's reading is full of dry and melancholy wit, but the book itself consistently falls short. Not recommended.?John Owen, Advanced Micro Devices, Santa Clara, CA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From AudioFile
This short novel exhibits the author's sardonic fatalism, a kind of humor so dark that, before the work closes, it's more sad--or angry--than funny. A basically good man dies in a stickup, finds himself in hell, whence proceed comic misadventures. Elkin gives his dramatis personae an endearing quality--except for God, who is a petulant, willful despot. George Guidall, one of the best audiobook narrators, misses none of the beats. Wisely, he reads with a comic tone, but without the comic timing of gags that would turn satire into the Three Stooges. He stints on none of the drama, yet pulls back on the bigger moments to keep them from turning bathetic. His interpretation conjures up a phantasmagoria by Hieronymus Bosch in a prankish mood. If he errs, it's in his inability to give Joseph, a minor character here as in the New Testament, the Yiddish inflections the author wrote for him. There is something of Dostoyevsky as much as of Elkin in Guidall's horrifically funny afterlife, something bigger than the text he reads from. Y.R. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Disturbing but nevertheless fun to read,
By Steven Q. Dump (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Living End (Paperback)
Stanley Elkin is one of the masters of twentieth century prose. His dialogue is completely believable and the language never comes across as pretentious. The characters in "The Living End" are both realistic and humorous, while the novel explores dark themes. Elkin's vision is a pessimistic one but he never comes across as too "preachy." All in all, an enjoyable read.
5.0 out of 5 stars
BETTER THAN THE BIBLE AND TWICE AS ACCURATE.,
By
This review is from: The Living End (Paperback)
This is one of the best books ever written. Elkin hilariously dissects and explodes every tenant of Christianity by slamming the contradictions into one another with perfect timing and accuracy. He paints the dilemmas faced by all believers through the incredibly credible characters he creates : Ellerbee is a good man who didn't believe and so goes to hell, for that and some other petty omissions and indiscretions, while God, thoroughly imperfect as well as a pompous egotist, is a supreme being who likes to be idolized and entertained certain he does not have to defend his inhumanity to man. In Heaven, Joseph does not believe his son, the cripple, is the messiah. This and so many other contradictions and paradoxes roll lightly across the eyes in this little book leaving you to believe you just read a book bigger than any bible. It is a book that you can read in a sitting, but I guarantee you will sit again and again as you reread it finding something new and delightful every time you turn a page.
4.0 out of 5 stars
You'll never read another book like this...,
By John O'Hara (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Living End (Paperback)
Wait, is that a compliment or a putdown?Stanley Elkin's deceivingly short novel is not a quick read. I made the mistake of reading it to and fro my train rides to work and at lunch, and, I must say, the life around me was something of a distraction from Elkin's humurous and terrifying depiction of the afterlife. Imagine reading run-on sentences like the above over and over again, thinking to yourself, "It's short... it's short... just finish reading out of respect and move on to the next book." And then imagine sentences, unlike the aboves, fill'd with wacky words that make you wish you spent more time doing crossword puzzles and that little Quiz at the end of Reader's Digest. I'm not saying that Elkin was laboriously thesauring away, trying hard to impress the reader with his vocabulary, or syntax, or ideas, but I am saying that this book requires something of a commitment. So I gave it one. I reread the novel, and I picked up on some of what I was missing before. "Oh, THAT'S who Lesefario was...". And I looked down upon my finish'd book. And it was good. My advice follows: keep reading 'till the end. The last few lines are killer. If you feel disheartened, imagine C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" and what a bore that was. Then imagine Woody Allen writing it, without slapstick, and get back to the novel at hand, my boy... And if you want to feel good about yourself for reading a book of some substance, remember that Oprah will never, EVER, recommend this one...
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