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Perfect Lives
Raoul de Noget, an over-the-hill singer, and his younger pal Buddy (“The World’s Greatest Piano Player”), find themselves in a small town in the Midwest. They become friends with the son and daughter of the local sheriff, and the four hatch a plan to do something that, if they are caught, will be seen as a crime, but if they are not, will be art: they will rob the town bank, take the money over the border into Indiana, and then return it all the next day.
With this story at its center, Robert Ashley’s inimitable Perfect Lives goes on to demolish every narrative convention in the book, taking in conflicting perspectives, texts, tones, narrators, and philosophies, roping in Midwestern ennui, pop songs, self-help tapes, heist movies, the lost city of Atlantis, dirty jokes, the history of American immigration, the preternatural flatness of Illinois, boogie-woogie, Giordano Bruno, and, finally, an elegy for thought itself. Perfect Lives is as much a summation of America as All in the Family or Paterson, and is every bit as essential.
With this story at its center, Robert Ashley’s inimitable Perfect Lives goes on to demolish every narrative convention in the book, taking in conflicting perspectives, texts, tones, narrators, and philosophies, roping in Midwestern ennui, pop songs, self-help tapes, heist movies, the lost city of Atlantis, dirty jokes, the history of American immigration, the preternatural flatness of Illinois, boogie-woogie, Giordano Bruno, and, finally, an elegy for thought itself. Perfect Lives is as much a summation of America as All in the Family or Paterson, and is every bit as essential.
240 pages, Paperback
First published November 22, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 30, 2011
Essential text compendium to one of my favorite compositions of all time.
August 16, 2022
I've seen the TV version a few times and have listened to the opera in various forms countless more, but in my opinion, "book-length poem" might be the most immediately effective way to digest the entirety of the project (Private Parts: The Record is my favorite planet of the Perfect Lives galaxy, but that's only two of seven parts, and the complete recording is... well, more than a bit of-a-time with its chintzy keyboard patches and Downtown Music soundscapes). John Cage was right, this is a work to be held on to like a religious text - a pure and brilliant diamond of distinctly American spirituality, strangeness and mundanity. I'm not the same person I used to be, indeed! Long live the Avant!
September 29, 2011
i've never read an opera before. this is a wild imaginative romp into '70's HELL YEAH
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews