After Wellington Stout is shot in the head in Milan, he finds himself dealing with a world turned upside down, encountering an ancient conspiracy of dentists, an extraterrestrial shoe salesman, and pieces of his own past.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
From Amazon
The former editor of Orbit, the influential series of hard-cover anthologies of science fiction that flourished from 1966 to 1980, Damon Knight is a distinguished writer, editor, and critic of science fiction. In his latest work the hero, Wellington Stout, wakes up with a bullet in his head and a distorted perception of the world. Strangely, others seem to think he holds the answers to the questions that confound him. With Stout threatened by forces he only dimly understands, Knight offers an inspired and fast-paced race towards enlightenment.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Writing in a less linear fashion than usual, Knight (Why Do Birds?) plunges into the surreal in this novel replete with alien shoe salesmen, a deeply underground society of dentists, mafiosi and sly observations about appearances and reality on this planet. Wellington Stout, a sales manager specializing in ladies' undergarments, awakens in an Italian hospital to discover a bullet lodged in his skull. As a previously unknown planet appears near Earth, and craters open across North America, Stout's new third eye makes him the monkey-in-the-middle of a multidimensional contest for dominance of Earth, catapulting him from subterranean radioactive chambers to museums filled with hollow men, to the heart of an alien future. Anchoring the madcap plot is Stout's bedrock integrity, as the salesman stoically faces indignities ranging from suffering the banality of hospital bedpans to being force-fed hash brownies. Knight's observations about the human condition?which dwell at length on the sociological and sartorial consequences of our sex organs?are frequently dead-on, and the narrative abounds in wry moments. The chaotic nature of the plot and the emphasis on description over action may confuse some fans of old-style SF (including of Knight's own work), but others will find it happy evidence that, 41 years after the publication of his first novel, Knight can still surprise and delight.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By A Customer
In my opinion this book was generally good. The only reason I gave it 3 stars is because the first third of the book was excrutiating to get through. After that It was an easy read though there is alot going on in the book and many charecters that although briefly mentioned play big parts in the book. It is defiantly a book you'll have to read at least twice to catch all the little details of the book. But it did well in capturing the insanity that would be reality falling apart. and I did enjoy it. It (in my opinion) would have been best to stay to the short story format Knight is popularly known for.
By Frieda Hyde
This is some book but it you prefer reading books that stay on the surface of the story and don't ask the reader to fill in the blanks you might miss out on some of its more cryptic features.
What is consciousness and what is reality? I've seen a lot of explanations before reading Humpty Dumpty by Damon Knight. This may be the best fictional examination of what it means to live inside the frail shells we've been given.
If you want a simple book that doesn't ask you to work for or think about the words, you'd be better off with something action-adventure, which is not to denigrate action/adventure, just to say that different books will appeal to different readers, and judging from some of the reader comments, this book obviously won't work for everyone. If you want a complex literary work, and the last novel written by one of America's masters, give Humpty Dumpty a chance.
By Dave Deubler
Wellington Stout, an unassuming salesman who "travels in women's undergarments", finds himself embroiled in a sequence of bizarre events in this madcap sci-fi novel by Damon Knight. The story opens as Stout wakes up in a hospital after being shot in the head in a Milanese restaurant (or was he?) having just delivered (or not) a "sensitive" parcel to an agent (of whom?) named Roger Wort. Confusion is the standard motif of this incomprehensible book, as Stout continues to undergo an endless array of hallucinatory (or are they?) experiences, from encounters with underground organizations of Dentists and Podiatrists (one of too few truly humorous touches) all the way out to alien invaders. Unfortunately, there's no attempt to wrap up all the twists and turns the story appears to take, and some may feel that the resolution offered in the book's final pages is really no resolution at all. The circumstances don't allow for anything like characterization, as people change identities right before our eyes, and no one's motivation is ever certain. By letting us see the world through Stout's eyes, Knight convincingly portrays a man who has absolutely no idea what's going on, but gives us very little reason to care. As a comedy the book falls rather distinctly short, and in the absence of any moral or philosophical direction, one wonders why this book was even written at all.
Want to see more reviews on this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 10 reviews
3.1 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Love Child Novel of James Joyce, Vonnegut, and PKD
In this technically brilliant piece of writing, Damon Knight tells the story of an ordinary man experiencing an extraordinary twist of fate. Read more
Published on April 16 2002 by Rosa Lina
1.0 out of 5 stars
did I miss something?
I must have either missed a whole bunch of allusions and metaphors in this book, otherwise I simply can't understand what the previous reviewers were thinking. Read more
Published on July 19 2000 by Alan Brown
4.0 out of 5 stars
A must have.....
This book is a must have for anyone who is into the "question reality" type books.It started off kind of slow and I didnt think i would like it,but by the end i looked... Read more
Published on Jun 17 2000 by ArSnIk
4.0 out of 5 stars
if you like Philip K Dick
It's been tough to find a book in the "mind" of Philip K Dick since his death, except for Michael Bishop's ".. Read more
Published on Aug 14 1999
2.0 out of 5 stars
ODD!
Easy to read...very odd! The author has quite an imagination! (At least I hope it's just his imagination! haha!)
Published on Oct 7 1998
2.0 out of 5 stars
I will never finish this
All the reviews say that the parts of this book are better than the whole. To me, the parts are mildly amusing and quite disjointed. Read more
Published on May 1 1998
4.0 out of 5 stars
I LOVED "why I don't want to be a woman" paraaagrah
I don't remember much about the book except that one paragraph detailing "why I don't want to be a woman. Read more
Published on April 19 1998
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
