- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Picador; New edition edition (4 Feb 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 033037267X
- ISBN-13: 978-0330372671
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.4 x 0.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,401,772 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Born in 1968 to impeccably progressive professionals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the identical twins William and Clive are chalk and cheese, nay, Cain and Abel. Despite an educational assessment at the age of three which ranks them both in the upper percentiles, Clive garners all the laurels, while William grows sickly, spotty and socially retarded. Clive gets the gorgeous girl next door and goes to Harvard. William dates drunks and con-artists while taking five years to graduate from a repulsive New York university whose name begins with "R". Clive enters Stanford Law, William gains admission to an exceptionally ridiculous communal cult.
The diary is, of course, William's, triumphing over infantile amnesia to bring us his miserable memories straight from the womb. These are illuminated with Freudian reflections suitable to a Cambridge childhood in which psychotherapy is mandatory, but nothing helps him. William wants to be a loser and he's smart enough to know it. Indeed, he identifies his failure as his deliberate attempt to become the victim his parents' liberal politics idealised. A Genealogy of Morals for Generation X, An Underachiever's Diary is less about sibling conflict than that between '60s parents and their disillusioned offspring, still at odds as the grandchildren grow up to denounce us all.--Mandy Merck --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
William is a dedicated underachiever, an antihero for the 90s who lives by principles such as: rather than saying "yes, yes" to life, the underachiever will say "no thank you", if pressed he will turn belligerent.
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First Sentence
I started strong, the firstborn of identical twin boys, leading my reluctant brother out into the world by seven minutes flat, give or take a moment to suspend my infant's disbelief in the delivery room. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
I started strong, the firstborn of identical twin boys, leading my reluctant brother out into the world by seven minutes flat, give or take a moment to suspend my infant's disbelief in the delivery room. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The most admirable quality of this admirable novel is the sheer dedication of the antihero to his cause, and the utter conviction with which he pursues it. William is an inspired character, obsessive whilst laconic, a walking paradox who draws you in from the first page and holds you, bemused and amused at once, as he explains his 'life goes on elsewhere' attitude to things. Life is partaken in warily, at arms' length, from love to education a journey into the psyche of those who are not interested in being the norm, but watching from the wings at what the norm gets up to.
This would not perhaps be enough in itself were William not underscored by deeply complex psychoanalytical undercurrents. He is the child not only aware of Freud's mirror image, but twinned with it, wandering around life with the flesh and blood incarnation of his own perfect self, faced with it at every mirror stare, the differences brought out over and over again. Yet he is dementedly lazy and agreeable with this: Holden Caulfield without the annoying bits and the anger, a truly believeable creation with iceberg qualities and a voice you love to listen to.
If you expect a resolution from this novel, you won't get it, but you will get a millennial Don tilting towards bed and pointing at things worth thinking about on the way. It's brilliant. Go and read it now.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
30 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
A very entertaining and funny novel.
15 Dec 1998
Format:Hardcover
An Underachiever's Diary was a very good novel. Not since Catcher in the Rye have I had so much fun reading a novel. I never wanted to stop reading it. The book is about a young man named William, who is a complete loser throughout his whole life and trys his best to not be in the shadow of his own younger twin brother Clive, who is a very successful person. The sad thing is that William has had bad luck ever since his birth in the hospital room. It is funny, however, how he never tries to become like his brother even though he idolizes him and just when things start to go right for him, he gets messed up again. He is like a modernized Holden Caulfield. Overall, this is a very good book to read and I highly recommend it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Strangely Amusing
8 April 1998
Format:Hardcover
The cover of this book is what first drew me in to it; so dull to be so full of brilliance. A very easy read, it is a wonderfully compelling book, which managed to make me laugh, then feel sad for poor William, and then turn around and cheer for him in the end, hoping that he really does become the greatest underachiever in the world. I disagree entirely with Kirkus. The story does not need a plot, but stands alone as a simple monologue, reminiscent, perhaps, of Kerouac's free form. The "moral" or the story is what's truly important. I must say, it is one of the most refreshing books i have read in a long while. I look forward to reading more of Mr. Anastas' work.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Self pity cured by humor, Anastas' fiction uses fun language
20 Jun 1998
Format:Hardcover
Benjamin Anastas' story is hysterically witty, and finally somebody as insane as this author can spit out a quality story in modern and uniquely 21st century style of language, with enough philosophy to make reading the book worth it. The book cannot possibly take anybody more than two days to read - unless your sense of humor is as idiotic as television sitcoms, or you're too busy seeking out meaningless goals: the exact type of personalities Anastas rips to shreds with his gift of story telling. There is a certain desire to identify with the main character, yet on the same hand it frieghtens you, because he is flawed to a degree you've never opened your own eyes to. Don't read this book if you can act poised through a bad highschool play performance, if you've ever thanked 'God' in an acceptance speech of any sort, or if you're drawing conclusions about me based on this review. It's for a different 'type' of person! You'll see how Anastas paints these different 'types' of people, and you'll think it's cruel, funny, and very true. Note his keen East Coast attitude, and his recollection of many boyhood experiences familiar to anybody who was raised on that side of the continent. Also, note how the protagonist's journey to adulthood leads him to California, on the other side of the country, yet spiritually and mentally he never grows or matures, taking hedonistic pleasure in obscene mediocrity. The book is so much fun, and look for anything else you can get your hands on by this author. (Then send it to me!)
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