- Hardcover: 270 pages
- Publisher: Alma Books Ltd (4 Sep 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1846880718
- ISBN-13: 978-1846880711
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 14 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 408,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Good to be God
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
one of the funniest writers in the business --The Daily Telegraph
This is Fischer at his sharpest - a wildly original feelbad philosophical hayride --The Times
Tibor Fischer's new novel resembles an Evelyn Waugh plot filmed by David Lynch...Fischer's fecund imagination keeps the satire constantly engaging. --The Daily Mail
This is Fischer at his sharpest - a wildly original feelbad philosophical hayride --The Times
Tibor Fischer's new novel resembles an Evelyn Waugh plot filmed by David Lynch...Fischer's fecund imagination keeps the satire constantly engaging. --The Daily Mail
Review
This is Fischer at his sharpest
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good God it's average!,
By
This review is from: Good to be God (Paperback)
The book is something of a mix. It starts out with a guy with no job and no life who's given a chance to go to Miami and while there figures out that he's been aiming low all his life and that's why hes failed - now he wants to aim higher, in fact highest: he will become God. Or at least that's what hes going to tell people and endeavour to become.
So far so good. But the story never really takes off. Initially he tries to figure it out by becoming a sort of assistant preacher (sub-Heirophant is the title) in a church wonderfully titled The Church of the Heavily Armed Christ. Then after the leader of the church goes to take care of his ailing mum, our hero steps in and becomes leader of this church. I'll stop there because the story branches out into too many sub stories and the review'll go on forever. Suffice it to say each aspect of our hero's life is explored fully. He needs a place to sleep, we meet a new character and we meet the others who live there and their stories. He needs some money, we meet a new character and he becomes a drug dealer and we find out about that world. He gets sidetracked by slapstick goons, caricatures of "low lifes", a high class prostitute, a creepy flatmate, a slacker undertaker, some evil old women running a corrupt church, an immigrant with a heart of gold, a millionaire who pretended to be poor, I'm only remembering part of it but there are many more characters here usually with single names like Napalm and Sixto. Hmm. You're probably thinking "what's wrong with that, sounds like a ripping yarn!" and you're sort of right. Only, Fischer's style is skewed. Sometimes its trying too hard to be funny, sometimes its being too preachy for its own good ("life isnt worth trying, doing things is basically waiting speeded up, you never get anywhere planning" - I'm paraphrasing but the repetitiveness of some of our hero's thoughts are a bit dull), sometimes its being too kooky, sometimes its being too "noir". The whole becoming God thing is touched on toward the end but for the most of the book it's about a bloke who knocks around Miami meeting eccentrics and having an alright time of it while commenting heavily on "life". It's an alright book, I enjoyed it, it passes the time, and it's much better written and far more interesting than the average novel available today. But is it a classic or something I'd even remember 10 years, maybe even 1 year from now? Probably not. It had the potential to be more than it ended up being really. "Survivor" by Chuck Palahniuk is a better book if you're looking for a bloke who becomes a messiah story.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Back to Form,
By TN (London UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Good to be God signed and numbered limited edition of 200 copies (Hardcover)
I became a fan of Tibor Fischer after reading The Thought Gang in 1995, then discovered the wonderful Under the Frog shortly afterwards. I was a little disappointed by Collector Collector and Don't Read This Book if Your Stupid, and although I enjoyed Voyage to the End of the Room, it was for me still not a book that would have sent me out on the streets to hunt down his other work.
Good to be God, by contrast, was a joy to read.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good God!,
By Miles Mawbry (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Good to Be God (Hardcover)
This is a superb book. Fischer has transplanted another of his superbly drawn losers from his usual patch (grubby, grimy South London) to sunny, superficial Miami, where he encounters all manner of deranged lowlife. Good to be God is by turns funny (very) and, ultimately, given the subject matter, quite tragic. Fischer writes about America (this is his first book to be set there) with more wit, insight and verve than his winded punchbag, Martin "Dubya" Amis.
Good to be God is redolent of the best Miami noir - Elmore Leonard, Charles Willeford and Nick Stone. In short, a superb book and a sparkling return to form.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
