NWR: T C Boyle

M

MLipton

Mark Lipton
So I've known if him since the publication of World's End and the subsequent ballyhoo in the Paper of Record. Despite this, I have somehow gone the next 3 decades without reading anything he's written... Until now. I just ripped through a collection of his short stories and I'm hell of impressed. Irony and black humor abound along with the occasional brilliant turn of phrase. He has a Protean voice and takes you willy-nilly through time and space in these tales. Of possible interest to this bored is a 1995 story Rapture of the Deep that imagines a mutiny aboard the Calypso led by the disgruntled chef Bernard who, deprived of all cooking essentials but fish, yearns to return to shore. I haven't laughed so hard at fiction in many years.

So, is this just my warped sensibility or have others also enjoyed his writing? And does anyone have opinions re his long fiction?

Mark Lipton
 
I loved World's End and really liked his kellogs cornflakes novel (and something else i read eons ago) but couldn't finish his F.L. Wright novel.
 
I read a huge volume of his short stories 10 years ago or so and can't remember one thing about them. I vaguely recall liking the book but it did not make a lasting impression.
 
Speaking of powerful prose, I can't recall when I've seen 'protean' and 'willy-nilly' used in the same sentence before.

Second career Mark?
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
Speaking of powerful prose, I can't recall when I've seen 'protean' and 'willy-nilly' used in the same sentence before.

Second career Mark?
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First career (publish or perish, right?)
 
i love the guy's writing.

books: 'drop city' about a bunch of california hippies that go to the wilds of alaska to start a commune on the banks of the yukon (or tanana?) river a couple hundred miles outside faibanks, circa 1980. i've been to tanana and he nails it.

'friend of the earth?'. autobigrahpical account of a california eco-terroriest written in his golden years. set in 2030 or there-abouts. un-nerving.

short stories:

many over the years in new yorker. best of all: 'chicxulub'. 4 pages that will work you like no other 4 pages ever have. runner up: 'tooth and claw'.

the guy took kodachrome and turned it into 3-d fuji velvia.

oh by the way, the newest new yorker (with the ministry of silly walks on the cover) has a t. coraghessan boyle short story. i just saw it this afternoon and haven't started reading it.
 
I followed him for many years, beginning with the first book of short stories, but after Drop City I felt that his dark humor/irony was getting monotonous and predictable, so I haven't read subsequent novels. The NYer story was ok.
 
I too read him from fairly early days (a SF neighbor was part of his circle) and enjoyed finding the easter eggs (the use of the verb micturate in every novel) but got worn down as he moved from exotic locales (Greasy Lake/Pot farming/African exploration/Kellogg's clinic) to southern California.
 
Thanks for the input, folks. I've got a much better sense of what I'm dealing with. I wonder if the irony and black humor might play better in short story form where it he story ends before you tire of it. Dunno. I have When the Killing's Done, a novel set in one of my favorite places (Pt Reyes),* but it'll have to wait until I finish The Bone Clocks.

Mark Lipton

* That same line of reasoning didn't work with Chabon's Telegraph Ave, which I simply couldn't finish.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
Thanks for the input, folks. I've got a much better sense of what I'm dealing with. I wonder if the irony and black humor might play better in short story form where it he story ends before you tire of it. Dunno. I have When the Killing's Done, a novel set in one of my favorite places (Pt Reyes),* but it'll have to wait until I finish The Bone Clocks.

Mark Lipton

* That same line of reasoning didn't work with Chabon's Telegraph Ave, which I simply couldn't finish.
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Don't apply that reasonimg to Jonathan Franzen because St Louis is a bitch in summer!
 
oh yes, i also really enjoyed 'the tortilla curtain'. very much california--maybe that is what y'all are tired of. i don't live there so i can read about it as i chose. it's about all those people that trump is going to build a wall against.
 
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