- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; First Edition edition (20 Oct 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747546118
- ISBN-13: 978-0747546115
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 14.4 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,387,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Angelica's Grotto
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Harold Klein is a 72-year-old Philadelphia-raised art historian, now living in London. A resolute patient--cholecystectomy, appendectomy, prostate resection, hydrocele operation, triple bypass, cataract surgery, right-lung lobectomy, diabetes, atheroma, ischaemia, myocardial infarcts (two), hiatus hernia, vertigo, broken ribs, broken nose, you name it--Klein finds novel self-concern when one morning, he stops hearing his "inner voice", which has the embarrassing side-effect of causing him to blurt out what he's thinking. This propels him toward a new string of medical experts, psychiatrists and psychotherapists who attempt to find the cause of this new and mysterious affliction. At the same time, surfing the Internet, Klein's interest is caught Ingres' painting Angelica Saved by Ruggiero on the homepage of porn site Angelica's Grotto. His fascination with Angelica and the graphic rape stories detailed on her site leads him--or his alter-ego Ruggiero--into the uncharted waters of his own sexuality.
If that all sounds a bit off-the-wall, it's what readers have come to expect from Russell Hoban, an unpredictable and prolific maverick of a writer, probably best known for his Turtle Diary. Angelica's Grotto is of course a very funny book, its outrageous premise becoming more believable by the minute. But it is also an innately intelligent, highly original pondering of some of today's newly pressing problems of communication and interiority in a world committed to surfing, where "intimacy" means one-on-one-on-line. --Alan Stewart --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Amazon.co.uk Review
Harold Klein is a 72-year-old Philadelphia-raised art historian, now living in London. A resolute patient--cholecystectomy, appendectomy, prostate resection, hydrocele operation, triple bypass, cataract surgery, right-lung lobectomy, diabetes, atheroma, ischaemia, myocardial infarcts (two), hiatus hernia, vertigo, broken ribs, broken nose, you name it--Klein finds novel self-concern when one morning, he stops hearing his "inner voice", which has the embarrassing side-effect of causing him to blurt out what he's thinking. This propels him toward a new string of medical experts, psychiatrists and psychotherapists who attempt to find the cause of this new and mysterious affliction. At the same time, surfing the Internet, Klein's interest is caught Ingres' painting Angelica Saved by Ruggiero on the homepage of porn site Angelica's Grotto. His fascination with Angelica and the graphic rape stories detailed on her site leads him--or his alterego Ruggiero--into the uncharted waters of his own sexuality.
If that all sounds a bit off-the-wall, it's what readers have come to expect from Russell Hoban, an unpredictable and prolific maverick of a writer, probably best known for his Turtle Diary. Angelica's Grotto is of course a very funny book, its outrageous premise becoming more believable by the minute. But it is also an innately intelligent, highly original pondering of some of today's newly pressing problems of communication and interiority in a world committed to surfing, where "intimacy" means one-on-one-on-line. --Alan Stewart
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Russell Hoban has a habit of using style, plot and characterisation in a compulsive and wholly original way. Angelica's Grotto might be about a sad sick old man who falls for a voluptuous and seductive researcher running a pornographic website. It might equally be about the elusiveness of reality and the temptation to settle for the appearances of happiness or satisfaction. Klein's gripping dialogues - with his therapist, his own inner voice, Melissa and his dead ex-wife - alternate between a search for self-knowledge and one for oblivion. As so often with Hoban, the physical world presents nearly as many characters as the human world, not least the No 14 bus. The real structure of this novel seems to spring from Hoban's continuing fascination with Greek tragedy: character is plot and the seeds of destruction are present from the opening words.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
After reading this book, I immediately ordered Hoban's complete works. The cover appears to suggest a bias towards internet subject matter, but although the net does make an important appearance, it is thankfully relatively short. This book is at turns sexually exciting, disturbing and thought provoking. Rather than repeat the previous reviewers thoughts, most of which I agree with, I would add yet more themes that Hoban deals with in this work. The question of honesty being a virtue, the value of money and the exploration of whether our minds and bodies grow old in tandem are all explored. Don't expect the style to be dry, it isn't. The book is short, and the language used modern and simple but the concepts he explores are anything but. Nevertheless this is a book that you can work at as hard as you want to, taking it on face value for a quick read or stopping to think about the ideas that Hoban raises. Hoban makes the book all the more entertaining with a liberal peppering of aphorisms and humour. Top read, highly recommended.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Russell Hoban has been writing books which challenge the norm since his first novel (Mouse and his Child) appeared in 1969. Since then he has continued to question the nature of reality and even every day experiences without a hint of compromise. 30 years later, Hoban is as strange and dark as ever, perhaps more so. Angelica's Grotto is not an easy book to take, its central focus (on a superficial level anyway) being how older members of the population deal with sexuality, especially when these individuals arn't generally thought of as being sexual. Don't mistake Grotto though as a dispassionate essay on the topic though, Hoban manages to use sex in the same way that David Lynch has in many of his films (Wild at Heart, Lost Highway), namely to terrifying effect. Below this layer of sexual deviancy however is an altogether more subtle but no less disturbing plot; namely one of loss--the loss of sexuality being the least of these matters. Harold Klein contemplates more than once that time is a one way arrow and nothing of what he has lost can really be recaptured; nothing is permanent. Grotto is about one man's desperate and unrealistic attempt to try to recapture what he has lost and find meaning in his life. It is a compelling read, and as far as writing goes, there is no author better than Hoban. The story I believe will shock most people, and perhaps some will be dissatisfied as Hoban coughs up no solutions. I have given it 4 out of 5 because I do not think this is the best place to start and ranks among one of Hoban's most difficult reads. Hoban novices may want to dig up...well anything he wrote before the 90's (short of Pilgermann which is also difficult but extremely rewarding and one of my favorite), as the publications of this decade (in this case I am thinking particularly of Fremder) show Hoban sinking into a darker and more personal territory; one I think would be best after meeting the author in relatively more pastoral settings in his earlier works. With all that said though, this is really a great book and like everything else he has done deserves serious contemplation. Thanks Mr. Hoban!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Great Read
This is a highly readable and intelligently written book and is definitely one for men of a certain age. Read more
Published on 21 July 2007 by Mr. J. R. Saker
I could not get past the degrading offensive pornography....
I did not finish this book. I am not saying that it is a bad book, because I did not read enough to be able to judge. Read more
Published on 28 Jan 2001
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