- Hardcover
- Publisher: Fazi (Aug 2010)
- Language Italian
- ISBN-10: 8864111867
- ISBN-13: 978-8864111865
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.8 x 2.8 cm
Slumberland: A Novel
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Product Description
Review
`Pitch-black humour abounds...twisted, brilliant and, at times, hilarious' --Dazed and Confused
`Paul Beatty is a very clever man... Slumberland crackles with innovation, humour and insight' --The Times --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
`Paul Beatty is a very clever man... Slumberland crackles with innovation, humour and insight' --The Times --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Review
`whips by on prose that snides like a guttersnipe and zings like a bee'
--This text refers to the
Paperback
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Amazon.com:
16 reviews
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Simply amazing
19 Sep 2008
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
As a German living in Los Angeles (well Pasadena, but you know what I am saying) I just couldn't put down Slumberland. There were a couple of unfortunate mistakes in the German expressions used in the book but I have rarely seen any American, or any writer at all, display a better insight into the schizophrenia of a person's struggle between identity, purpose, and projection. We all are constantly trying to define our identity between our own delusion, heteronomy, and reality. As this might be read as a text on racism, I would argue it simply addresses identity issues at large. That racism, "white man's burden", colonialism, and slavery still linger through the ages, is a given, but it is the individual's struggle to find his or her place in the world tat really matters. Funny enough white man travel to Asia and indulge into the illusion of "yellow fever" while white women seek the holy grail of sexual nirvana in Africa - but what does it really say about human nature? It is the other, eternally defined as something unattainable, the promise of a better tomorrow that, let's be honest, will never come. But that is not the point of this novel that deals with a fish-out-of-water turning from a seeker to a seer: It is the jazzy and irreverent prose that takes us down the rabbit hole of a "former" fascist society struggling with the contradiction of its failure to implement the bizarre nightmares of racism and its inability to make amends that transcend the narrow horizon of its overcast sky, while seeking definite absolution for the holocaust - but it does not matter if the final solution is worse than slavery - in the end it is that we are all human besides our divisive, and absurd, ideas about what constitute the other and ourselves. Music will slave us to a common beat with all our foibles and fears... I was blown away by this work and its style. I like to see this adopted into a movie. Paul let me know if you are interested...
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Hilarious social criticism and music snobbery
3 Sep 2009
Format:Paperback
Paul Beatty has written a really scathing and hilarious tale about a Black guy, who goes by DJ Darky, on his journey of creating the perfect beat. The most significant part of this journey involves him going to Berlin to get validation from his musical hero, jazz musician Charles Stone, who he and his friends- The Beard Scratchers- have affectionately dubbed "The Schwa". This novel presents ideas of race, culture, and music with language that's lyrical and cheeky. From the opening page, DJ Darky declares that Blackness is over and while reflecting on years of tanning says: "My complexion has darkened somewhat; it's still a nice nonthreatening sitcom Negro brown, but now there's a pomegranate-purple undertone that in certain light gives me a more villainous sheen." Brilliant!
I was laughing out loud from just the first few pages. This is rare that a book invokes emotion in me that's evident. This has to be my favorite book thus far for the year. That this book's focal point is music and the level of music snobbery by the host of such thoughtful characters was so on point for me as I can be quite a music snob. Slumberland is like your favorite movie from which you love to quote every other line. Yes, this book has too many lines I want to quote. I'm glad I held on to Beatty's White Boy Shuffle even though I couldn't get into it on my first attempt many years ago. I think I have more appreciative eyes towards his writing now.
I was laughing out loud from just the first few pages. This is rare that a book invokes emotion in me that's evident. This has to be my favorite book thus far for the year. That this book's focal point is music and the level of music snobbery by the host of such thoughtful characters was so on point for me as I can be quite a music snob. Slumberland is like your favorite movie from which you love to quote every other line. Yes, this book has too many lines I want to quote. I'm glad I held on to Beatty's White Boy Shuffle even though I couldn't get into it on my first attempt many years ago. I think I have more appreciative eyes towards his writing now.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Who's your audience?
1 Sep 2009
Format:Paperback
Paul Beatty's novel Slumberland may leave you with more questions than answers, but somehow, that's just fine. Set in Berlin just as the Wall was coming down, Slumberland explores race, bigotry, music, fame, obscurity and about a dozen other topics through DJ Darky, Schallplattenunterhalter extraordinaire. DJ Darky, a young Los Angelino, heads to Berlin to locate a mysterious jazz musician who has been somehow forgotten behind the Iron Curtain, because only he- Charles Stone, AKA the Schwa- can complete Darky's "perfect beat," a groove so amazing, it can breaks hearts and mend them, make a man see God and simultaneously question His existence.
Equal parts Confederacy of Dunces, High Fidelity, Big Fish, and some other stuff I haven't read yet, Slumberland is funny, irreverent and substantive.
Equal parts Confederacy of Dunces, High Fidelity, Big Fish, and some other stuff I haven't read yet, Slumberland is funny, irreverent and substantive.
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