Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The scary side of life, 15 Jun 2004
By A Customer
Jonathan Asser couples an intense observation of life with a profound dislike for it. Or, at least, that is what comes across at first, for one is inundated with Asser's observations of soggy chips, fake tans, empty chicken boxes etc. However, then one starts to get the feeling he likes this side of life - the side of life most of us do not like to face. Indeed, many of his poems also tackle a subject dear to his heart: social justice question, and just how to treat England's prisoners. He shows they may be ugly and violent, but so can the rest of the world, and that they also have a softer side.
Perhaps, however, the most disturbing thing about Asser's work is not the freaky observation, or the hard to face facts about his childhood/the world, but his seeming hatred of women. There is an undercurrent in many of his poems that seems to regard them as only good for one thing. In fact, in "Something To Do", his apparent hatred is taken to extremes - when read carefully it is a profoundly disturbing poem on many levels.
That said his style is relatively unique, and certainly not shy of being strong, urban, and ultra contemporary. A worthwhile read.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outside The All Stars, 17 April 2005
The moment I reluctantly finished 'Outside The All Stars', I wanted to sit down in one of the book's locations, a London 'caff', and devour it from beginning to end, all over again. According to Jonathan Asser's bio notes, he 'facilitates experiential education groups for non-compliant, violent prisoners'; provocative material for the urban and insular world his world weary personalities inhabit. Asser is a beautiful writer whose realistic poetry impresses and stuns you in every rhythemitic and compelling line. 'It was raining fish in Spearmint Rhino' opens his poem, 'Downpour'. His pounding poetry is original and has a unique kick in its nihilistic tail. At the end of each unconsciously clever sentence, I was compelled to go back and re-read it, just to make sure the hilarious lingo was dynamic and unique as I initially thought. The downbeat existence in 'Outside The All Stars' is on the bleak side, but is unconventionally funny too. 'He was tracked by his cleaner for days, through the bowels of Camden, Kings Cross, Isle of Dogs, Barking Creek Barrier and the Rotherhithe Tunnel,' is the startling opening of his long poem, 'No Mercy'. But, readers searching for orthodox love might be perplexed in 'Outside The All Stars'. For, the love affairs aren't romantic in the conventional sense: 'if the cuffs weren't so tight, he'd probably smile at the way she'd coshed him while he'd trimmed her toe nails.' Jonathan Asser's impressive poetry sustains the narrative's mood in such an even tempo that Miles Davis, the text's taste-bud, would have thought that the modern day poems were coooool. Highly recommended for fanatics of clssical poetry.
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1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Horrific, 25 Jan 2005
By A Customer
I wish I'd never opened this book, with its cold detached view point, total disregard to any warm human feeling; the unfortunate females who are unlucky enough to stray into his path; the violence. There's a hard stark evilness and an almost perverse delight in conjuring the worst side and sorts of 'humanity'. Here the good are crushed without a flicker of remorse, with scorn even and the evil are elevated onto pedestals. Better to not enter the world in this book, unless you have an interest in the nebulus mind of potential serial killer or similar. Steer clear or proceeed at your own risk; it infects. Asser's world is one better left to him.
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