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Sto caricando le informazioni... Processed Cheese: A Noveldi Stephen Wright
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 Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro.  zmagic69 | Mar 31, 2023 |   Stephen Wright proves, if nothing else in this rollicking novel about greed, capitalism gone wild, self-indulgence, and general American nuttiness, that too much does exist. Moving at hyper speed, packed with coined words that give new meaning to naming people, places, and interjections, the novel blasts off with excitement, and then proceeds to hollow that thrill into a friable word heap. This novel might have worked at half its near 400 pages, but at its current length you leave numbed and begging for the gunfire to end. Yes, different it is, but sometimes different just isn’t enough, or maybe too much, in this case. Still, some readers out there may be in the mood for something completely different, and if you are among them, have at it. The story here is quite simple. Main protagonist Graveyard, one of the tamer names in a collection that includes MisterMenu, Blisterpac, SideEffects, and the like, is strolling down a street in the tonier section of Mammoth City when a giant bag falls from the sky and nearly sends him into the ethereal land of endless mammon. When he gathers his senses, he opens the bag to discover it is filled with literal American style mammon, bundles of crisp one-hundred dollar bills. Seems aforementioned MisterMenu loves his money so much he likes to keep big bags of it in his penthouse, a bag in each room, as a sort of superrich guy pacifier. Graveyard spirits it home to his tiny apartment in the not tony part of town, surprises Ambience, his wife, with it, upon which they proceed to have sex, buy everything in sight, consume copious amounts of drugs, have more and more sex, and generally live the American dream of unbridled avarice. Naturally, MisterMenu wants his cash back, because if there is one thing rich folks prize above all else it is their money, of which, as we all know and see on display in our non fiction society, is a fact in a America fast having a hard time distinguishing fact from fake. MisterMenu and his hired henchmen are relentless in their pursuit of his bag, and, as you can easily guess, things don’t end well for Graveyard, who gets to live up to his name. But until then, well, there is the sex, drugs, and general madcap of too much of everything. You do have to wonder, and you probably have: what would I do if I came into a vast sum of money, like improbably winning a state lottery? Your choices certainly, you’d like to believe, would be more sensible than those of Graveyard and Ambience. But, then, sensible is in the eye of the beholder, and that big new house, that super expensive car (though definitely not of the caliber of Graveyard’s HomoDebonaire), that bass fishing boat, that flashy wardrobe of NBA togs, and whatever else tickled your imagination, those might strike the poorer among us as a total waste of good money that we know we could spend better. But enough of this rambling. Let’s leave it to a master rambler with a much more expansive mind. Processed Cheese is a huge, brightly word-colored comic rendition of America gone wild, and a real hoot for a while, until the ennui sets in, as it always seems to in life. (  ) write-review | Nov 4, 2021 | Stephen Wright proves, if nothing else in this rollicking novel about greed, capitalism gone wild, self-indulgence, and general American nuttiness, that too much does exist. Moving at hyper speed, packed with coined words that give new meaning to naming people, places, and interjections, the novel blasts off with excitement, and then proceeds to hollow that thrill into a friable word heap. This novel might have worked at half its near 400 pages, but at its current length you leave numbed and begging for the gunfire to end. Yes, different it is, but sometimes different just isn’t enough, or maybe too much, in this case. Still, some readers out there may be in the mood for something completely different, and if you are among them, have at it. The story here is quite simple. Main protagonist Graveyard, one of the tamer names in a collection that includes MisterMenu, Blisterpac, SideEffects, and the like, is strolling down a street in the tonier section of Mammoth City when a giant bag falls from the sky and nearly sends him into the ethereal land of endless mammon. When he gathers his senses, he opens the bag to discover it is filled with literal American style mammon, bundles of crisp one-hundred dollar bills. Seems aforementioned MisterMenu loves his money so much he likes to keep big bags of it in his penthouse, a bag in each room, as a sort of superrich guy pacifier. Graveyard spirits it home to his tiny apartment in the not tony part of town, surprises Ambience, his wife, with it, upon which they proceed to have sex, buy everything in sight, consume copious amounts of drugs, have more and more sex, and generally live the American dream of unbridled avarice. Naturally, MisterMenu wants his cash back, because if there is one thing rich folks prize above all else it is their money, of which, as we all know and see on display in our non fiction society, is a fact in a America fast having a hard time distinguishing fact from fake. MisterMenu and his hired henchmen are relentless in their pursuit of his bag, and, as you can easily guess, things don’t end well for Graveyard, who gets to live up to his name. But until then, well, there is the sex, drugs, and general madcap of too much of everything. You do have to wonder, and you probably have: what would I do if I came into a vast sum of money, like improbably winning a state lottery? Your choices certainly, you’d like to believe, would be more sensible than those of Graveyard and Ambience. But, then, sensible is in the eye of the beholder, and that big new house, that super expensive car (though definitely not of the caliber of Graveyard’s HomoDebonaire), that bass fishing boat, that flashy wardrobe of NBA togs, and whatever else tickled your imagination, those might strike the poorer among us as a total waste of good money that we know we could spend better. But enough of this rambling. Let’s leave it to a master rambler with a much more expansive mind. Processed Cheese is a huge, brightly word-colored comic rendition of America gone wild, and a real hoot for a while, until the ennui sets in, as it always seems to in life. ( ) write-review | Nov 4, 2021 |
In a fairer — or at least weirder — literary world, Stephen Wright would be as famous as Thomas Pynchon or Don DeLillo.... Wright is an unpredictable author with an unwavering commitment to the surreal; you get the feeling he couldn't write a straight story even if he wanted to. And it's pretty clear he's never wanted to.... The world that Wright creates in Processed Cheese is a tremendously unsettling one, largely because it's essentially indistinguishable from our own....Processed Cheese is brilliant, but it's at times difficult to read, and that's almost certainly by design. The world, in Wright's eyes, is fluorescent and lurid, with no easy escape from people desperate to cater to others' most base instincts. The novel, at times, is exhausting in its loudness — just like real life. Wright proves to be an eloquent and angry voice against the likely irreversible excesses of capitalism....An excoriating critique of what America has become, Processed Cheese is an exhausting, maddening and unforgettable book about how far we're willing to go to satisfy our greed. Everyone in this book is damaged, desperate and unhappy — but as Graveyard tells Ambience, "Happiness can't buy you money." The trouble is Tom Wolfe died too soon. Had he lived longer, the irrepressible New Journalist and omnivorous novelist might have written the ultimate burlesque about the presidency of Donald Trump. Something between a parody and a cultural history, Wolfe’s Trump book would have glistened with the country’s rabid fury and the president’s sweaty narcissism. Alas, we get the presidents we deserve, but not the novels.... Here, one is tempted to believe, is a writer crazy enough, crude enough and gluttonous enough to swallow the whole Trump era and then belch out its poisonous comedy.... the novel is a broiling parody of American excess, fermented with wild violence and crazy sex acts.... Like President Trump, this absurdity can be grotesquely funny. But like the Trump presidency, it runs on way too long. That, I suspect is the point. Nothing else I’ve read is as faithful to the obscenity of these latter days, the consummation of vacuous pop culture and complete social bankruptcy. For readers who can stomach it, “Processed Cheese” is jolting enough to reveal what degradation we’ve become inured to. “Processed Cheese,” Wright’s fifth novel, opens with that magical bag of money falling from the sky, and its first pages are absolutely brilliant, a frenetic, hilarious rush of pure feeling that ends with “the best orgasm” that Graveyard and Ambience have ever experienced. And over the next 40 pages, the pacing is a thrill.... as the brand names and celebrity names pile up, along with a few bodies, it’s hard for the reader to hold onto the manic energy in Wright’s prose. He’s a masterly writer, with a wild sense of humor that he pushes as far as he can, but this fairy tale about our wealth-obsessed culture starts to drag. The disappointing latest from Wright (Going Native) takes place in an alternate reality much like the current world, except that every place, every brand name, almost every proper noun has morphed into something bizarre. The “Eyedropper” building provides a view of “ReadyToWear” river; all the characters have outlandish names like BlisterPac, DelicateSear, and Graveyard....this hypersexualized, hypercommercialized surreal world never feels consequential or any less absurd than the characters’ names or circumstances. Wright’s goofy postmodern tale of money, sex, and guns is imaginative but trivial. Wright (The Amalgamation Polka, 2006, etc.) holds up a fun-house mirror to our money-obsessed society—and, after a while, the distorted reflection grows uncomfortably close to real life.... The book’s unending stream of uproarious faux brand names—such as StandUpAndCheer, DominationDonuts, the Gibe & Cloister 418 firearm, and WalleyedMonks Champagne—doesn’t distract from the ferocious and mostly effective assault on our own world’s obsession with getting, spending, and having, whether it’s sex, drugs, guns, cars, clothes, appliances, or shelter. This dark, harrowing, and wildly funny novel somehow both challenges and affirms that tried-and-true adage: Money isn’t everything.
"A bag of money drops out of the sky, literally, into the path of a cash-starved citizen named Graveyard. He carries it home to his wife, Ambience, and they embark on the adventure of their lives, finally able to have everything they've always thought they deserved: cars, guns, games, jewels, clothes - and of course sex, travel, and time with friends and family. There is no limit except their imagination and the hours in the day, and even those seem to be subject to their control.Of course, the owner of the bag is searching for it, and will do whatever is necessary to get it back. And, of course, these new riches change everything -- and nothing at all."--Publisher. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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 Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni...GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Classificazione LCVotoMedia: (3.07)
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1
Stupid words, and stupid names for everything.
Quit after 40 pages.
Easily the worst book I have read in years.
Plus it has the kiss of death on the cover- an endorsement from mister out of touch with reality Stephen King. (