- Hardcover: 236 pages
- Publisher: Overlook Press (Mar 23 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0879519207
- ISBN-13: 978-0879519209
- Product Dimensions: 23.5 x 15.7 x 2.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 508 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,201,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
British cult novelist Nicholson's talent for sheer verbal flash is on display in his sixth novel (Hunters and Gatherers, etc.) to appear in the U.S. The book is laid out like a CD, with the "cuts" being short takes on the life of one Jenny Slade, a legendary electric guitarist. We first glimpse Jenny coming into the Havoc Bar and Grill, where she pulls out a guitar that sprouts hair and appears to be made of some disturbingly human substance, and improvises music of "the sound of planets melting, of death factories imploding, of mythical beasts being slaughtered." Following her exit from the bar is the entrance of Bob Arnold, self-described number one Jenny Slade fan and obsessed editor/writer of the fanzine Journal of Sladean Studies. The book alternates between pieces in Bob Arnold's magazine; stories he tells the Havoc barmaid, Kate; and fragments where Jenny is set loose, like a tough, sexy guardian angel of rock 'n' roll history. She time-travels to give a teenage Frank Zappa some career advice, confronts Jimi Hendrix on the subject of sexism and even helps Kurt Cobain find the right words for his suicide note. The loose structure accommodates Nicholson's taste for parody and pastiche. There are send-ups of Moby Dick, Borges and Kafka, and witty takeoffs on emblematic rock phenomena. A running gag involves Jenny's on-again off-again partnership with composer Tom Scorn, who takes the performative aspects of music to disturbing new heights. Liberally sprinkled with esoteric references and subtext completely comprehensible only to rock 'n' roll cognoscenti, this is a clever montage rife with signature black humor and ultra-hip self-consciousness, further evidence of this writer's zany imagination.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The wildly inventive Nicholson (Bleeding London, 1997, etc.) exuberantly lives up to his reputation with this witty, ingenious fable about a rock-and-roll guitarist. Many writers have come to grief trying to create with words an approximation of music's content and texture. Nicholson wisely sidesteps the issue by concentrating instead on the impact of the young and mysterious Jenny Slade's music on her audiences. Jenny, bright (its rumored she studied at the Sorbonne, or Oxford), a loner, either bored or uninterested by most things not having to do with music, wants to be something other than a mere virtuoso. While she is, by all accounts, a phenomenally gifted guitarist, she's constantly driven to push the boundaries: much of what she creates (performed solo on guitar) sounds more like noise than melody. Yet it has a deep, unsettling, almost addictive effect on her audiences. Part of her ability to mesmerize may come from the peculiar guitar she travels with: its shaped vaguely like a human torso and seems, at the climax of her concerts, to bleed. While the story follows, ironically, the outlines of a quest narrative (with Jenny as a dedicated seeker, searching to unlock the riddles at ``the heart of the universe'' with her music), Nicholson can't resist embroidering the tale with some typically witty and idiosyncratic touches. There is, for instance, Jenny's near-lethal encounter with Freddie Terrano, the legendary one-armed guitarist. And sprinkled throughout are excerpts from articles in the Journal of Sladean Studies, devoted to explicating her life and art, and forming a wonderful parody of academic dissections of pop culture. Then there's the language: Nicholson's characters are invariably gifted with a line of bright, sardonic chat. Jenny's quest leads her eventually to a kind of revelation, and, in an end both droll and moving, to silence. A deft entertainment, bright, surprising, and, in its consideration of the impact of popular music on our imaginations, quite penetrating. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Road To Nowhere,
By
This review is from: Flesh Guitar (Paperback)
Definitely the weakest of the three Nicholson books I've read (the other two being Bleeding London and Still Life With Volkswagen), this novel haphazardly follows the career of Jenny Slade, an avant-garde female guitar player. Other readers have criticized it's lack of narrative framework or traditional plot, but I think it adheres fairly closely to the traditional "quest for knowledge" structure. The problem is that the various incidents and episodes fail to add up to the larger knowledge or truth that is implicit in such a structure. Over the course of the book, Jenny appears as a vision and converses with various guitar gods right before they die, including Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain, and also dispenses advice to a young Frank Zappa. Intermingled are her encounters with fictional musicians, the most captivating of which is the one-armed Freddie Terrano and his band of worshipers. Intermingled are excerpts from the "Journal of Sladean Studies", an uber-fanzine written by her favorite fan. Ultimately, it's a surreal hodgepodge that is intermittently entertaining, but kind of meanders to nowhere. In that sense, I think Nicholson is rather like Jonathan Lethem, who is also capable of great writing and wild ideas, some of which are genius, and some of which flop. For Nicholson, this is a flop.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Directionless and a bit pointless,
By
This review is from: Flesh Guitar (Hardcover)
This is indeed Nicholson's weakest book. A series of vignettes and anecdotes that taken individually would be fun, are presented in the place of a traditional narrative or even an overt message. These tales of the flesh guitar simply don't add up to much.
1.0 out of 5 stars
A big letdown,
By A Customer
This review is from: Flesh Guitar (Hardcover)
As a fan of Nicholson, hands down, this is the weakest of his work. It's a surreal story set in a post-modern guitar rock fantasy world that goes nowhere. (Was he experimenting with a new style?) After all the brilliant plots, characters, and dialogue; this was a huge letdown.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
