Cad: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor: Amazon.ca: Rick Marin: Books

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Descriptions du produit

From Amazon.com

In the mildly entertaining memoir Cad: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor, former New York Times reporter and pop-culture critic Rick Marin chronicles the years of marathon dating and shallow living that followed in the wake of his failed "starter marriage." Marin moves through a series of urbane exploits and short-lived affairs, perfecting his trademark move of whipping off his horn-rims midconversation in a "myopic gaze," holding court with his wingman Tad over the hot buffet at Billy's Topless, and regurgitating wisdom gleaned from The Godfather. Like the similarly self-indulgent How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, Cad has its memorable moments--Marin comparing his wedding video to the Zapruder film and hitting on actress Moira Kelly when she was still an ingénue living with her mom on Long Island--but the book's swinging, ring-a-ding-ding Rat Pack attitude feels noticeably forced and uninspired, leaving a flat aftertaste to the whole affair. --Brad Thomas Parsons

From Publishers Weekly

In this withering account of one man's travels in dateland, journalist Marin visits an insane asylum, spends a year as a gourmand yuppie, woos a recent college graduate with Pop-Tarts and comes on to a teenage celebrity. And those are his tamer anecdotes. Marin, who starts his tear in the early 1990s after separating from his wife, also pursues a writing career that has him interviewing B-list celebrities like Vanilla Ice. As he cruises through his 20- and 30-something years (and most of the single women) in New York, Marin tells an episodic tale that's more than the sum of its hilarious parts-he also evokes a male psyche that's pulsating with provocative nuggets. (On honesty: "Women blame men for acting fake.... But women are the ones speeding from zero to intimacy like a Ferrari. Which is more artificial?") In the hands of a lesser writer, the book could have been merely a self-indulgent series of diary entries. But Marin's comic timing, insight and self-deprecation vault it to something greater. Marin has achieved the most elusive of literature's paradoxes: a deep and complicated exploration of the superficial. Men and women should be equally enthralled by the portrait of someone torn between finding the right woman and finding the right-now woman. That there's a happy-but not Nutrasweet-ending only reinforces the image of a real person in all his messy and comic humanity.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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43 �valuations

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3.5�toiles sur 5 (43 �valuations de client)

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Commentaires client les plus utiles

1.0�toiles sur 5 Zero stars, Ao� 27 2005

Par	city girl (Manhattan) - Voir tous mes commentaires

This review is from: Cad (Paperback)

Rick Marin tells Elisabeth, his girlfriend of three months, that his visa is about to expire and that, unless he gets a green card, he will have to go back to Canada. She offers to marry him, an action that most decent people would consider an extremely generous gesture. As a thank you to the woman who allowed him to stay -and have a career- in the US, Marin bashes her and tries to portray her as a raving lunatic. Exhibit A of her insanity: She is not happy to have to relocate to Washington, DC, after he gets a job there. Exhibit B: She wants to move back home, to Oklahoma. Oh, yes, she's also moody and seems unhappy to be married to him - a balding guy who looks like Millhouse from the Simpsons, has a series of sad jobs and still depends on financial support from mommy and daddy. Please, someone get a straight jacket for this woman!

Despite all this "insanity," Marin doesn't leave Elisabeth. It is she who dumps him for another guy (which, in my opinion, shows she's about the smartest person in the book.)

He then uses his failed marriage as "material" to get women's sympathy and get them into bed. As pathetic as this is, I can't say I blame him. After all, you've got to use what you have and Marin - well, he's got nothing.

So here comes the long, and very dull, list of his encounters with women. There is Kim, a girl he meets in Halifax who takes him up on his invitation and travels to New York. When she tells him she likes being close to him, he assumes she wants to marry him: "She was already on our honeymoon," he writes. (Why is it that the men with the tiniest lives and fewest accomplishments tend to have the biggest egos?) When the same girl, who has crossed the Ocean to visit him, is hurt that he's dating other people, he accuses her "of speeding from zero to intimacy like a Ferrari," but when a guy calls a woman he's been out with on three dates, he acts all offended.

There is Tiina, a girl he compares to Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction." (No, she hasn't boiled any rabbits or done pretty much anything else, except get upset when he breaks-up with her over the phone). Kay, a beautiful and rich girl he ends up dumping for being "too normal." Tabitha, an intern who becomes his SOG (Sort-of Girlfriend), since she is too young to be the real thing. (There are others, but it's all too boring to recount.) And Ilene, the woman he finally falls for, who spent $100,000 in therapy trying to get over a boyfriend she broke up with three years before, and whose main virtue seems to be that she sees right through Marin's lame lines.

In the whole book, there is just one (unintentionally) funny line: "My issue was that I had no issues," Marin writes. Right. And you also look like Brad Pitt.

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4.0�toiles sur 5 A Jolly Ride., Mai 26 2004

Par	Bernard Chapin "Ora Et Labora!" (CHICAGO! USA) - Voir tous mes commentaires (REAL NAME)

First off, the title for the book is potentially misleading. Mr. Marin is not a cad as he is neither unprincipled nor ungentlemanly throughout the majority of his interactions. At one point a woman he works with wants to set him up on a blind date and he says "I have a girlfriend. I can't take her number." This is not the response of a cad. In the eyes of this reviewer, it appears that Mr. Marin is well within the range of average behavior for a man or woman in America throughout the 284 pages in which he describes himself. He is not a saint or a demon. At one point he even recites the motto of all anti-cads by saying that "sex is not enough."
Marin's is a story with great universality. His work will resonate with many unmarried straight people and there is much truth in it. His observation that "I'd spent so much time 'pouring my heart and soul into being insincere,' I'd forgotten how to act with a girl I actually liked" is an unhappy predicament that affects countless single adults. Re-igniting lost idealism and optimism is a highly daunting task and a foremost reason as to why finding love later in life is such a struggle. Those of us in our thirties all have emotional baggage and it invariably means that sometimes one has been brutalized in the past and can now be brutalizing in the future. This is true regardless of one's sex as we inflict pain but also have it inflicted upon us. Mr. Marin is far from an exception to this rule.
Much of Marin's status seeking in the memoir can be attributed to the old Orson Welles quote about men making civilization to impress their girlfriends but the narrator amends the saying it by changing it "to get girlfriends." He spends tremendous mental capital in the pursuit of making his career as a journalist a success but often finds that he needs monthly subsidies from his parents just to get by. Work is as chancy a venture as love is for Mr. Marin. It seems that his internal makeup and character are nearly insurmountable obstacles to Marin getting what he wants and needs out of life as he lacks the quality of 'decisiveness', which is one of the worlds greatest virtues, and his indecisiveness in all things sabotages his numerous opportunities.
What drives the action in Cad... is the author's attempt to recover and stabilize his life after the debacle of his divorce. This traumatizing event is key to any understanding of our aging anti-hero. In his three year marriage, Marin was flayed and flamb�ed by his ex-wife severely. By any configuration, his was an awful marriage. His narration humorously documented: "...even our goldfish were committing suicide. I found them on the floor halfway between the door and the window. Making a break for it, maybe. I didn't blame them." Marin had met a girl who cuckolded him and he ignored every portend of their relationship's doom ("after we were married, she was still introducing me as her 'friend'").
This book is a jolly good ride and, therefore, easy to recommend. Unlike other tell-alls, Marin never takes himself too seriously and shows that he can laugh at himself. One of my favorites lines is illustrative: "She called me an 'opportunist,' because I went to publicity events for the free booze. I'm a journalist!' I protested." Cad is a major surprise as the misandry embossed onto the back cover gave this reviewer a bad case of the heebie-jeebies, but, in the end, it is a far more valid description of the single life today than what one finds in practically every other memoir or publication.

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3.0�toiles sur 5 Lighthearted and fun, Mai 14 2004

Par	Matthew Krichman (Durango, CO) - Voir tous mes commentaires (REAL NAME)

This review is from: CAD: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor (Paperback)

There's nothing profound or meaningful about this book, but it sure is a good read. All guys will surely nod their heads in sympathy as they read each episode in this guy's landmine-filled love life. And I think most women would find it insightful, in a lighthearted sort of way. Rick Marin really does get right to the heart of what it means to be a single guy - not that we are all that complicated, mind you, so I'm not saying his achievement is worthy of any kind of prize, be it literary or sociological. But this book could have easily been written badly by a lesser author or lesser human being. Marin, I think, demonstrates quality in both categories.

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Commentaires client les plus r�cents

1.0�toiles sur 5 Male answer to Sex and the City?
This might be Rick Marin's male answer to "Sex and the City." I think what Marin is trying to do with this book is show that men can be the flighty, fickle, and fake ones in the... Read more

Publi� le Mai 11 2004 par Beth Ringsmuth

4.0�toiles sur 5 A Great One Night Stand
RICK MARIN's "CAD" is pointless and meandering...and that's why it is entertaining. You probably won't reread it when you're done but you'll have fun reading it the... Read more

Publi� le Avril 7 2004 par Diane Lohman

4.0�toiles sur 5 Thoughtful and entertaining
Although he does not appear to be a natural Cad, as other reviewers have said, intellect, wit and strategy can be much stronger and more effective forces. Read more

Publi� le Mars 29 2004 par julesantalis

1.0�toiles sur 5 Memoir or Fiction?
I noticed that Amazon has paired this book with How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. I hope this author is married by now because no one who has read this book would ever... Read more

Publi� le Mars 14 2004