A novel without a plot, starring characters which aren't fully formed. So why does it work?

Sorrentino is using this flimsiest of frameworks to attack the false, the exploitative, and the undeserving of the Art World. He names no names, which adds a sort of timelessness to the mockery: if you don't know specifically who Sorrentino is referring to, you certainly know of somebody like them.

The approach wears a bit thin at times, but Sorrentino's wearily-amused tone keeps the book palatable. The only real downside is that it's too meta to recommend to some readers who might otherwise appreciate its humor. ( )

Every time you read a Sorrentino, a week is added to MJ's life. ( )

Viciously funny. You have to close the book every few pages sometimes, look up with a sigh, and say a long reverent "Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn."

Sorrentino takes a sardonic look at society in the 1950s and 1960s. Not just the grey flannel suit types, but also the beatniks and the hipsters which latched on to any developing counterculture - those who embraced the appearances of a counterculture, but were never able to shake an inner core of mediocrity. Comically shitty poetry, vicious and bitter minor magazine editors, women who want to screw Ho Chi Minh, and so forth. It reminds me of parts of [b:The Recognitions|395058|The Recognitions|William Gaddis|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309209622s/395058.jpg|1299804], with the man who pretended to be Hemingway, the art critic who gives good reviews for pay, the entire party scene of Greenwich Village, and so forth.

Sorrentino plays a bit with meta-fiction tricks too, with his narrator (a character with his own pungent flaws) offering criticisms, or frank admissions of the vein of "I don't know and I don't care about this part", "This part will be boring, let's skip it".

Maybe if you've ever prided yourself on being different from the masses you might see a bit of yourself in here. There's the spooky part about it. ( )

Hilarious and searing satire of New York's literary world in the 50s and 60s. Beautifully written, the only drawback being a streak of misogyny that I'm blaming on the time it was written. ( )

Unbelievable writing talent, lavishly displayed. not an emotion revealed, but intellectually gripping and taking you this way and that, suddenly turning around to show yet another possibility. the master of what ifs, without a why. Because he could. ( )