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American Purgatorio (Paperback)

by John Haskell (Author)
2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
Price: £7.19 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd; New edition edition (27 April 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1841956988
  • ISBN-13: 978-1841956985
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 84,937 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"'If you don't like it, you may not be alive to the pleasures of reading' Independent 'Haskell's book is a dazzling metaphysical high-wire act - compelling, deeply moving, mordantly funny and disquieting in equal measure' Telegraph 'Wildly original, wonderful, amazing, tender, heart-breaking' Geoff Dyer 'Triumphant' The Nation 'Fresh, light, deep, sad, funny' Tim Pears 'Almost unbearably beautiful... a miracle of a novel' John Burnside 'Hypnotic' Village Voice"


TELEGRAPH

‘Haskell’s book is a dazzling metaphysical high-wire act – compelling, deeply moving, mordantly funny and disquieting in equal measure.’
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American Purgatorio
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
2.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding delight, 31 Mar 2005
This review is from: American Purgatorio (Hardcover)
American Purgatorio is a beautifully written book about a man doing his best to figure out the bigger picture after his wife disappears. It is laden with funny and melancholic moments and has a brilliant ending, not unlike American Beauty. And like good allegorical writing, it is stuffed full of meanings on many levels.

Like a hero in a Vonnegut novel, Haskell's protagonist, Jack, is a little wobbly, and untrustworthy, but the amazing thing about Haskell's prose is how it dramatises the transition Jack undergoes following his loss. He doesn't know quite how much he's lost until the the end. Like Steppenwolf, and American Beauty again, its about the dissolution of one man's comfortable bourgeois world. Suddenly normal doesn't make sense any more and the purgatory of the book's title is the journey that his shattered self must undergo before its release. He has no choice but to 'unattach' himself the further he gets into his road trip. Through a bizarre, supernatural and picaresque quest Haskell shoots off a string of Polaroids of modern American.

It hadn't struck me before, but different as this on many levels from Life of Pi, it is equally about the acceptance of death, mortality and the elusiveness of meaning. And as the book jacket says it really is like a Pilgrim's Progress for a godless world.

With plot elements of the movie Momento or The Vanishing, in tone American Purgatorio comes out of the Hesse, Huxley, Pirsig, Ford stable, and though it's shy of mysticism, it explores the worldly and the supernatural in a unique, fascinating and eerie way.

American Purgatorio was for me outstanding delight, one of the most interesting pieces of fiction I've ever read. Tackling death, grief, loss, love, memory, and how that all fits into a modern gasolene fueled world. It's an all-encompassing 21st century allegory. For it's out-there originality it is a book that may divide people, into those who love it and those who don't, but no one will feel indifferent.

I urge you to try it for yourself.

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4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Death By Road Trip, 5 Sep 2006
By Ichabod J (Farleigh Wallop, Hampshire) - See all my reviews
  
The premise of this novel is enticing; a man's wife disappears at a gas station and he then sets off across America in search of her.
This reads a bit like one of Paul Auster's more metaphysical outings, but lacks Auster's readability. The narrator, Jack, exhaustively evaluates even his most trivial experiences as he bumbles along and this produces far too many passages of dreary existential rambling.
I was somewhat miffed by the ending: this uses a plot idea already worn out by Hollywood in recent years, so its impact was negligible.
Haskell's attempt at a spiritual road trip novel may appeal to some, though I found the tale of rambling Jack dull.

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5 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Drivel, 27 Aug 2006
By K. Harford "kh456" (Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is one of the worst books I have ever read. It has absolutely no redeeming characteristics worth noting. In many ways it reminded me of On the Road by Jack Kerouac, another book I did not really enjoy.
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