Kornwolf: A Novel
and over one million 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? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I say *almost* a masterpiece because the damn thing's so frenetic it occasionally reads like a verbal jet crash, swapping tone and mood every chapter or so.
Tristan Egolf's appallingly early death in 2005 robbed the world of one of its most fearsome and unique writing talents, comparable to George Saunders and Sam Lipsyte and other American satirists - Bill Hicks' children, tearing Uncle Sam a new one and pouring bleach into the wound. His first book, "Lord Of The Barnyard", was a colossal ranting epic with a daring lack of any spoken dialogue whatsoever. His second, "Skirt And The Fiddle", one of the funniest I have ever read, experimented with the opposite extreme, being very short and consisting of almost nothing EXCEPT dialogue. "Kornwolf" lies somewhere in the middle.
Just the premise of this book - that it's hard enough being Amish in the first place, never mind also being a werewolf - is enough to get you sniggering. In the heart of Pennsylvania, something demonic is cutting a swathe of chaos and panic through both the religious community and the urban folk, typically characterised by Egolf as a bunch of loathesome, loutish redneck morons (the corrupt local cop Rudolf Beaumont is wonderfully appalling). A mute Dutch farm boy, Ephraim, may or may not be the monster's daytime alter ego.
Egolf absorbs and spits out arcane facts with the ferocious obsessive-compulsive drive of Thomas Pynchon - entire family trees of local Amish sectors, a fascinating history of lycanthropy - and somehow merges this with a serrated black comedy. Just one example of many: the locals' varying (often drunken) descriptions of the beast are priceless. 'A mud-thrown kangeroo with a scorched pompadour', 'one of them toxic avengers'.
Towards the end he plunges into insane, frenzied gothic gore as befits a tale of the supernatural. The scene where Ephraim's scheming aunt triggers his final transformation into the werewolf in a particularly sadistic fashion will have male readers screaming in complete horror (I'll spare you the excruciating details...)!
I heartily recommend this, as indeed I do Tristan Egolf's previous two books. As Tool said of Bill Hicks, here we have an unfortunate case of Another Dead Hero.
Tristan Egolf's appallingly early death in 2005 robbed the world of one of its most fearsome and unique writing talents, comparable to George Saunders and Sam Lipsyte and other American satirists - Bill Hicks' children, tearing Uncle Sam a new one and pouring bleach into the wound. His first book, "Lord Of The Barnyard", was a colossal ranting epic with a daring lack of any spoken dialogue whatsoever. His second, "Skirt And The Fiddle", one of the funniest I have ever read, experimented with the opposite extreme, being very short and consisting of almost nothing EXCEPT dialogue. "Kornwolf" lies somewhere in the middle.
Just the premise of this book - that it's hard enough being Amish in the first place, never mind also being a werewolf - is enough to get you sniggering. In the heart of Pennsylvania, something demonic is cutting a swathe of chaos and panic through both the religious community and the urban folk, typically characterised by Egolf as a bunch of loathesome, loutish redneck morons (the corrupt local cop Rudolf Beaumont is wonderfully appalling). A mute Dutch farm boy, Ephraim, may or may not be the monster's daytime alter ego.
Egolf absorbs and spits out arcane facts with the ferocious obsessive-compulsive drive of Thomas Pynchon - entire family trees of local Amish sectors, a fascinating history of lycanthropy - and somehow merges this with a serrated black comedy. Just one example of many: the locals' varying (often drunken) descriptions of the beast are priceless. 'A mud-thrown kangeroo with a scorched pompadour', 'one of them toxic avengers'.
Towards the end he plunges into insane, frenzied gothic gore as befits a tale of the supernatural. The scene where Ephraim's scheming aunt triggers his final transformation into the werewolf in a particularly sadistic fashion will have male readers screaming in complete horror (I'll spare you the excruciating details...)!
I heartily recommend this, as indeed I do Tristan Egolf's previous two books. As Tool said of Bill Hicks, here we have an unfortunate case of Another Dead Hero.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Funny, entertaining, fun
29 Dec 2005
Format:Paperback
This book is great from the beginning, introducing characters and situations, gradually revealing more and more. It would be a disservice to any potential reader to touch upon any plot points, because the thrill of discovering them while reading the book is so great.
It is exciting and funny. There are loose ties at the end, and the last bit of the book seems to have been rushed a bit more than the rest. I wish the author had explored the aftermath of the last events. It would have added to the fun immensely.
If you're interested in either werewolves or in having a fun read, this is highly recommended.
I will definitely read Egolf's other two books.
It is exciting and funny. There are loose ties at the end, and the last bit of the book seems to have been rushed a bit more than the rest. I wish the author had explored the aftermath of the last events. It would have added to the fun immensely.
If you're interested in either werewolves or in having a fun read, this is highly recommended.
I will definitely read Egolf's other two books.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Note to Author: Don't die before finishing a great novel.
14 Sep 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Legend has it that Tristan Egolf shut himself away in some Pennsyltucky shack to pound out this glorious hunk of potential. When he considered the draft finished, he ended his own life.
And, not to sound cold, this is why Kornwolf suffers. It feels unfinished, and the knowledge of suicide after completion leaves me feeling like I'm minding after his dumbfounded child. Ideas are half realized and fizzle out. Characters warp in and out of focus. The humor of earlier works is weakened here and overcome with too much spite. You always feel like you're going somewhere but never arrive. And the ending seems forced out at the last second.
This book desperately needed its author to stick around just a little longer to work with an editor and bring it up to "Lord of the Barnyard" and "Skirt and the Fiddle" status.
I really don't know whether to be mad or sad. It's an artifact of a writer rather than a piece of his literature. Kornwolf is like reading a Faulkner's or a Hemmingway's first drafts. You see the story peeking out at you, and you know there's greatness there. But it needs shape and definition.
But alas, in this case, it will never come. Ever.
And, not to sound cold, this is why Kornwolf suffers. It feels unfinished, and the knowledge of suicide after completion leaves me feeling like I'm minding after his dumbfounded child. Ideas are half realized and fizzle out. Characters warp in and out of focus. The humor of earlier works is weakened here and overcome with too much spite. You always feel like you're going somewhere but never arrive. And the ending seems forced out at the last second.
This book desperately needed its author to stick around just a little longer to work with an editor and bring it up to "Lord of the Barnyard" and "Skirt and the Fiddle" status.
I really don't know whether to be mad or sad. It's an artifact of a writer rather than a piece of his literature. Kornwolf is like reading a Faulkner's or a Hemmingway's first drafts. You see the story peeking out at you, and you know there's greatness there. But it needs shape and definition.
But alas, in this case, it will never come. Ever.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
It looks like Richard Nixon
2 Sep 2010
Format:Paperback
I finished this book a couple of days ago, and I have been sitting on this review for a couple of days. You see, I am torn. I read and enjoyed his Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Cornbelt on a random recommendation from a bookstore clerk. I only heard about Egolf's second book in a capsule review in the New Yorker, and I think they only included it because it was hot on the heels of his suicide. I didn't even know this book existed until I ran across it at a bookfair and I grabbed it up at a reduced price.
I'm torn because Egolf wrote this right before his suicide, and just knowing that tints the process of reading and enjoying and evaluating it as a text. Early on, a forlorn character is saying forlorn things, and part of my brain asked of this book was just an extended suicide note. It's not though, it is an interesting narrative that brings together an intersection of boxing, Amish folk in Eastern Pennsylvania, and warewolves. Even though I normally wouldn't be drawn to a book covering the supernatural element, Egolf lets the situation develop and come together very well.
There are some minor problems with the work, and it comes from what seems to be idiosyncrasies that may have been pulled out in further drafts. For example, the place names referred to in the book have real analogues in the world and if you're familiar with eastern PA you'll know what is being referred to but otherwise you might not know the geography of the world. There is also a lack of exposition in places that could have made the ending tighter, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed the work.
I'm torn because Egolf wrote this right before his suicide, and just knowing that tints the process of reading and enjoying and evaluating it as a text. Early on, a forlorn character is saying forlorn things, and part of my brain asked of this book was just an extended suicide note. It's not though, it is an interesting narrative that brings together an intersection of boxing, Amish folk in Eastern Pennsylvania, and warewolves. Even though I normally wouldn't be drawn to a book covering the supernatural element, Egolf lets the situation develop and come together very well.
There are some minor problems with the work, and it comes from what seems to be idiosyncrasies that may have been pulled out in further drafts. For example, the place names referred to in the book have real analogues in the world and if you're familiar with eastern PA you'll know what is being referred to but otherwise you might not know the geography of the world. There is also a lack of exposition in places that could have made the ending tighter, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed the work.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fantasy > Contemporary
- Books > Fiction > Contemporary Fiction
- Books > Fiction > Humour
- Books > Fiction > Literary Fiction
- Books > Humour > Fiction
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.
|
