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My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist
My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist is a postmodernist/absurdist book composed of 17 loosely-related chapters with no general storyline. It is voiced in first-person by an anonymous narrator often using jargon, broken grammar and punctuation with a poetry-like structure. The narration shifts quickly from random idea to idea with little to no connectivity between them, typically giving vivid descriptions of abstract situations. The narrative styles in the book vary significantly as well, with no apparent solid identity to the narrator itself. Some characters and ideas emerge suddenly and disappear without explanation.
Within this form incorporate elements of science fiction, cyberpunk, tabloid journalism, and advertising slogans. Due to its use of pop-culture references (e.g. to kung-fu films) and literary allusions it requires knowledge of (then) current affairs. Leyner resorts to irony and humor as a means of interplay with traditional realism.
-Wikipedia
Within this form incorporate elements of science fiction, cyberpunk, tabloid journalism, and advertising slogans. Due to its use of pop-culture references (e.g. to kung-fu films) and literary allusions it requires knowledge of (then) current affairs. Leyner resorts to irony and humor as a means of interplay with traditional realism.
-Wikipedia
154 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
40 people are currently reading
2368 people want to read
About the author
Mark Leyner
28 books336 followersMark Leyner is an American postmodernist author known for his surreal, high-energy prose, absurd humor, and densely layered narratives. A graduate of Brandeis University and the University of Colorado, Leyner studied under postmodernist Steve Katz and launched his literary career with the short story collection I Smell Esther Williams (1983). He gained a cult following with My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (1990) and Et Tu, Babe (1992), and continued to experiment with metafiction in novels like The Tetherballs of Bougainville and The Sugar Frosted Nutsack. His writing is characterized by sprawling imagery, extravagant vocabulary, and a wild mix of pop culture, medicine, and satire. Leyner’s nonfiction collaborations with Dr. Billy Goldberg, including Why Do Men Have Nipples?, became bestsellers that blended comedy and real medical facts. He has also worked as a columnist for Esquire and George, written for MTV’s Liquid Television, and co-authored the screenplay for War, Inc.. A lifelong innovator, Leyner has remained a singular voice in American fiction. His more recent books include Gone with the Mind, Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit, and the 2024 retrospective A Shimmering, Serrated Monster!: The Mark Leyner Reader. He lives in New Jersey and continues to influence readers and writers with his singular, genre-defying style.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 199 reviews
February 3, 2021
The funniest fucking thing I have ever read. Almost every page is jammed with absurd details and dark punchlines...prepare to squint in confusion and roll with uproarious laughter and applause! It is sort of like DFW meets William S. Burroughs crossed w/the respective films Schizopolis by Steven Soderbergh and Putney Swope by Robert Downey, Sr. (a man even more talented than his much more well known son from my POV), but throwing around convuluted comparisons doesn't give this sort-of-short-"story"-collection-type-thingy enough credit for its brilliant originality. This is a conventional book by no means, and I mean NO FUCKING MEANS!!! Chances are, however, if you are prepared for a book that evokes the stylistic liberties of something as out there as Naked Lunch (but even funnier and much less disturbing), you will likely have a ball with this saintly book of constant comedy and wacky avant gardism.
April 26, 2014
Mark Leyner is not, according to the latest reports, a fictional character created by DFW parodying the sort of 1990s hipster prose artist that writes books composed entirely of rhythmical free-association surrealism riddled with medical terminology. Apparently, this dude wearing the hilarious red-spotted tie on the cover and sporting shades on the inside pic, lowered so we might peer into the artist’s mesmeric eyes, is in fact a real person who wrote this real book. Strange world. Leyner’s prose seems like an updated (now dated) Sukenick—using the same “techniques” of removing full stops and caps (for no reason I can discern) in stories, and hammering the reader with well-honed waves of language, rambunctious sexist antics, and heaps of hypermodern buzzing references (most of them medical—explains his later collaboration with Dr. Goldberg) in a series of stories with overly zany titles. Peruse any irritating “transgressive” ezine and we have Leyner’s legacy. However, for 150pp (with about 20pp for blank pages and headers), this collection offers a nice burst of energy, and a welcome vocab flex.
September 6, 2016
twee little dessert item. some enjoyably oddball passages keep the interest, much like listening to someone go on and on during their acid trip when you aren't on acid yourself.... irritating and occasionally hilarious. but mainly exhausting.
June 28, 2016
A bit uneven throughout, but probably as good as any introduction to the mind of this demented pervert.
March 3, 2008
I had a crush on this book when I was a kid. The book, not the man behind the book. I remember reading the story, The Suggestiveness of One Stray Hair in an Otherwise Perfect Coiffure, in my head -- in the bookstore before buying it -- and laughing like a friendless madman. And I sort of remember reading it out loud at a party or at several parties and laughing like a drunken, friendless madman. Girls really dig me, I sort of remember thinking. Those were the days.
I still laugh when I bother to reread that story and other stories in My Cousin etc, but my laughter is muffled and restrained, like it's been straitjacketed. I'm a madman with friends, now. And friends want to share a laugh over a joke or about something that happened on tv, not some book that doesn't even make much sense.
Like most cases of puppy love, this one couldn't be sustained. I've read most of his other books and none of them can bring me back to that feeling I had when first I laid eyes on Leyner, on Leyner's work, I mean. I hardly ever even think about his stuff anymore. I've moved on. I'm like, totally over him.
I still laugh when I bother to reread that story and other stories in My Cousin etc, but my laughter is muffled and restrained, like it's been straitjacketed. I'm a madman with friends, now. And friends want to share a laugh over a joke or about something that happened on tv, not some book that doesn't even make much sense.
Like most cases of puppy love, this one couldn't be sustained. I've read most of his other books and none of them can bring me back to that feeling I had when first I laid eyes on Leyner, on Leyner's work, I mean. I hardly ever even think about his stuff anymore. I've moved on. I'm like, totally over him.
January 17, 2019
Just because it's weird doesn't mean it's interesting. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's good.
I keep getting bamboozled into reading Mark Leyner because he's often paired with David Foster Wallace as an influential writer of the 1990s. But while I love Wallace's work, I don't understand Leyner's appeal. Why was he popular? Why was he highly praised? This book was published in 1990 (much of it appeared as short fiction in the late 1980s so it's technically a short story collection, I suppose) so perhaps this kind of bizarre fiction hadn't been widely circulated to a mainstream audience. But it probably should have stayed underground. On an individual, line-by-line basis there is some good writing to be found, some dazzling turns of phrase here and there. But the whole lacks substance. It's intentionally discordant, fragmented and incoherent. Steven Wright makes weird and absurd one-liners work. Mark Leyner does not.
2 stars out of 5. The Discordians did it better, because they didn't take themselves so damn seriously.
I keep getting bamboozled into reading Mark Leyner because he's often paired with David Foster Wallace as an influential writer of the 1990s. But while I love Wallace's work, I don't understand Leyner's appeal. Why was he popular? Why was he highly praised? This book was published in 1990 (much of it appeared as short fiction in the late 1980s so it's technically a short story collection, I suppose) so perhaps this kind of bizarre fiction hadn't been widely circulated to a mainstream audience. But it probably should have stayed underground. On an individual, line-by-line basis there is some good writing to be found, some dazzling turns of phrase here and there. But the whole lacks substance. It's intentionally discordant, fragmented and incoherent. Steven Wright makes weird and absurd one-liners work. Mark Leyner does not.
2 stars out of 5. The Discordians did it better, because they didn't take themselves so damn seriously.
August 28, 2007
It is more fun reading this book than watching Frank Sinatra gently grate cheese over a head of hair before garnishing it with a sprig of parsley. (It's been 12 years since I've picked the book up, but I swear, there is a line somewhere in it referencing such a scene.)
This is one of the few books that was so precious to me that I could not bring myself to recommend to anybody. That, and the fact that any friend of mine who read it would immediately know how much of my conversation was plagiarized from Mr. Leyner.
Now that I'm older and more mature [pronounced mat-oor], I know I'd cringe at the quirkiness-for-quirkiness'-sake that so rampantly runs throughout this book. On this basis, I'm deducting one star from what would have been a perfect 5 star rating, which begs the question, should ratings be based on how we now feel about the book? Or how we felt while -- or shortly after -- reading the book?
This is one of the few books that was so precious to me that I could not bring myself to recommend to anybody. That, and the fact that any friend of mine who read it would immediately know how much of my conversation was plagiarized from Mr. Leyner.
Now that I'm older and more mature [pronounced mat-oor], I know I'd cringe at the quirkiness-for-quirkiness'-sake that so rampantly runs throughout this book. On this basis, I'm deducting one star from what would have been a perfect 5 star rating, which begs the question, should ratings be based on how we now feel about the book? Or how we felt while -- or shortly after -- reading the book?
March 6, 2022
"Mientras plancho unos pantalones de tenis dicto un haiku en el magnetófono y después salgo pitando para arreglar un desagüe atascado en el lavabo del baño y luego hago tres minutos de puching ball antes de hacer el origami de una mantis religiosa y después leo un artículo en la revista High Fidelity mientras remuevo el coq au vin. ¡Estos supositorios de mezedrina son fantásticos! Doy vueltas por todo el apartamento como un derviche revolucionado, terminando cosas que he postergado durante meses, limpiando las persianas venecianas, quitando la escarcha del congelador, traduciendo El Anillo de los Nibelungos al inglés criollo, ensamblando la maqueta de un portaaviones para mi hijo. Le escribo a mi congresista, hago flexiones, cambio una bombilla mientras me paso el hilo dental por los dientes y alimento a mi pez con una mano, punteo mi talonario de cheques con la otra y rasco el sedoso estómago de mi galgo ruso con el dedo gordo del pie."
17 relatos disparatados donde Mark Leyner se despacha a gusto carcajeándose de este mundo mediatico y casi sin sentido en el que vivimos, y digo casi sin sentido porque cuando lees una obra como ésta, de repente se dispara un flash y algo cobra sentido, hubo momentos en que se me escapaba alguna carcajada: bajo la aparente capa de exagerado desparpajo, he reconocido escenas de mi día a día.
"Yo acababa de ser despedido de McDonald's por negarme a llevar falda escocesa durante la semana de lanzamiento de los nuevos sandwiches McHaggis. (El Haggis es un plato tradicional escocés que consiste en el corazón, el hígado y los pulmones de una oveja picados con sebo, cebolla, avena y condimentos y hervidos en el estómago del animal."
Los relatos conforman una especie de monólogo, poemas o viñetas en torno a este mundo de locos en el que estamos sumergidos y algunos de los títulos de los capítulos son arrebatadoramente atractivos como
“yo era un punto infinitamente denso y caliente”,
“la provocación de un pelo suelto en un peinado por lo demás perfecto”,
“en el reino del aburrimiento llevo pantalones de chandal azules”…
... y una vez introducidos por estos titulos irresistibles, Mark Leyner embarca al lector en una sucesión de anécdotas bizarrísimas algunas, alucinanemtente agudas otras, y por supuesto, la mayoría de ellas, muy divertidas en un sentido casi iconoclasta. Leyner tiene un talento especial para inventar/crear/elegir palabras en una verborrea que puede dejar al lector noqueado, pero llegado un punto, aprendes a leer entre lineas, con lo cual la diversión es doble.
"Le informé de que me había alistado en la Academia Militar Wilford de Belleza.
El espiritú, el orgullo, la disciplina que adquirí durante los rigores de la Academia permanecerían conmigo el resto de mi vida. Nunca olvidaría los Cuatro Principios Cardinales: Trabajo en Equipo; Actitud Positiva, Pelo Suelto y Ondulado, Ni Aplastado ni Recogido; y Pelo Limpio, Brillante y Bien Nutrido."
Leyner usa su erudición en un sentido irónico, diría yo, y como es ya habitual en la mayoría de los autores posmodernistas a los que he leído, el despliegue de energia continua, de cambio de estilo narrativo y de referencias puede llegar aturdir al lector y que llegado un momento se pregunte ¿qué estoy leyendo????, pero es imposible explicar lo que ocurre en estos relatos sino que que lo mejor es vivir la experiencia y lanzarse a ellos. Una genialidad que además es muy divertida. La traducción es de José Luís Amores.
“El capó de mi Hyundai está moteado del rocío de la mañana. Una manga diagonal de chocolate cruza mi parabrisas como resultado de un donut arrojado malintencionadamente desde un puente. Una sucesión de rinoplastias me han dejado con poco más que un trozo de prepucio esquelético en mitad de la cara.”
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022...
17 relatos disparatados donde Mark Leyner se despacha a gusto carcajeándose de este mundo mediatico y casi sin sentido en el que vivimos, y digo casi sin sentido porque cuando lees una obra como ésta, de repente se dispara un flash y algo cobra sentido, hubo momentos en que se me escapaba alguna carcajada: bajo la aparente capa de exagerado desparpajo, he reconocido escenas de mi día a día.
"Yo acababa de ser despedido de McDonald's por negarme a llevar falda escocesa durante la semana de lanzamiento de los nuevos sandwiches McHaggis. (El Haggis es un plato tradicional escocés que consiste en el corazón, el hígado y los pulmones de una oveja picados con sebo, cebolla, avena y condimentos y hervidos en el estómago del animal."
Los relatos conforman una especie de monólogo, poemas o viñetas en torno a este mundo de locos en el que estamos sumergidos y algunos de los títulos de los capítulos son arrebatadoramente atractivos como
“yo era un punto infinitamente denso y caliente”,
“la provocación de un pelo suelto en un peinado por lo demás perfecto”,
“en el reino del aburrimiento llevo pantalones de chandal azules”…
... y una vez introducidos por estos titulos irresistibles, Mark Leyner embarca al lector en una sucesión de anécdotas bizarrísimas algunas, alucinanemtente agudas otras, y por supuesto, la mayoría de ellas, muy divertidas en un sentido casi iconoclasta. Leyner tiene un talento especial para inventar/crear/elegir palabras en una verborrea que puede dejar al lector noqueado, pero llegado un punto, aprendes a leer entre lineas, con lo cual la diversión es doble.
"Le informé de que me había alistado en la Academia Militar Wilford de Belleza.
El espiritú, el orgullo, la disciplina que adquirí durante los rigores de la Academia permanecerían conmigo el resto de mi vida. Nunca olvidaría los Cuatro Principios Cardinales: Trabajo en Equipo; Actitud Positiva, Pelo Suelto y Ondulado, Ni Aplastado ni Recogido; y Pelo Limpio, Brillante y Bien Nutrido."
Leyner usa su erudición en un sentido irónico, diría yo, y como es ya habitual en la mayoría de los autores posmodernistas a los que he leído, el despliegue de energia continua, de cambio de estilo narrativo y de referencias puede llegar aturdir al lector y que llegado un momento se pregunte ¿qué estoy leyendo????, pero es imposible explicar lo que ocurre en estos relatos sino que que lo mejor es vivir la experiencia y lanzarse a ellos. Una genialidad que además es muy divertida. La traducción es de José Luís Amores.
“El capó de mi Hyundai está moteado del rocío de la mañana. Una manga diagonal de chocolate cruza mi parabrisas como resultado de un donut arrojado malintencionadamente desde un puente. Una sucesión de rinoplastias me han dejado con poco más que un trozo de prepucio esquelético en mitad de la cara.”
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022...
August 5, 2019
I really like Mark Leyner's books and have read most of them now, none being very long and all being very funny. His humour is like none I've come across before and he seems extremely smart and erudite and employs all this in his books- postmodern, meta, bizarre, surreal and outrageous little literary gems. To explain a Leyner book doesn't really work as they are too outlandish in structure and content to have any normal way of describing them- you either like them or you don't, I suppose...
This is kind of a collection of loose pieces that run into each other sort of, but not always, as Leyner conjures up insane mental pictures for the reader and scatters a myriad of literary and popular culture references hither and thither at will. He also has an amazing vocabulary and isn't afraid to use it, which is no bad thing and its always fun to read one of his works, knowing you have no clue where he's going to take you and not always sure if he knows where its all going himself!
January 20, 2008
Pretty much impossible to read, but I did anyway.
August 10, 2021
My first Leyner, much more than an enjoyable reading experience, I have a MAJOR affinity for his sensibility.
December 16, 2011
I read this book half a lifetime ago, while I was in college. If goodreads had been around then, I would probably have rated it five stars, or at least four. Going through it to prepare for this review, I debated giving it two - I might have if I had re-read the whole thing. This reflects the ways we change as we grow older, as well as how what we want from literature changes. The book hasn't changed, but I sure have. People in their early twenties are often trying to figure out the rules of the game by breaking them, and seeing how far they can run with that. An older person has figured out which rules serve their purposes, and which ones don't, so is unlikely to be as impressed by gratuitous rule-breaking in others.
The back cover calls this a "novel," but each of the "chapters" had been previously published as a short story, and there is no connection between them, except for the writing style, so I'm inclined to call it a collection of stories. Scratch that, it's a collection of stories and poems, although with the way Leyner writes, it is hard to distinguish between the two. Leyner writes in a disjointed stream-of-consciousness fashion that probably owes a lot to William S. Burroughs and his "cut up" technique of writing. He integrates elements of sci fi and hardboiled detective writing, but his essential point is to surprise the reader at least once every couple of lines, and probably to disgust them about once a page.
This is the sort of experimental writing that is "sophomoric" in the truest sense of the word, but it does have a certain merit. If no one experimented, we wouldn't have any room to expand. On the other hand, Leyner is no Joyce, and lacks the sophistication to understand the rules he is breaking, often coming across as childish. Some people will love this book, as I once did, but be warned: you may grow out of it.
The back cover calls this a "novel," but each of the "chapters" had been previously published as a short story, and there is no connection between them, except for the writing style, so I'm inclined to call it a collection of stories. Scratch that, it's a collection of stories and poems, although with the way Leyner writes, it is hard to distinguish between the two. Leyner writes in a disjointed stream-of-consciousness fashion that probably owes a lot to William S. Burroughs and his "cut up" technique of writing. He integrates elements of sci fi and hardboiled detective writing, but his essential point is to surprise the reader at least once every couple of lines, and probably to disgust them about once a page.
This is the sort of experimental writing that is "sophomoric" in the truest sense of the word, but it does have a certain merit. If no one experimented, we wouldn't have any room to expand. On the other hand, Leyner is no Joyce, and lacks the sophistication to understand the rules he is breaking, often coming across as childish. Some people will love this book, as I once did, but be warned: you may grow out of it.
June 6, 2021
6 June 2021
Some of the juxtapositions are funny, but I like plot. Not an author I have wished to pursue. I had a copy that I didn't bother to keep.
Some of the juxtapositions are funny, but I like plot. Not an author I have wished to pursue. I had a copy that I didn't bother to keep.
September 5, 2016
http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/1499749...
Perhaps I should confess how impressed I am with Mark Leyner’s ability to keep his rambling psychotic rants on task and focused enough to the degree he maintained, with skill, the mind trip he wanted us privy to. Problem for me was not one story meant anything. There was no physical emotion anywhere amounting to something exampled. He failed to establish or express any substance. His tightrope act at times did appear astounding, but I kept asking myself why even bother? I know he is revered by many, and I respect that, but he is not adored by me. I will nonetheless still take a look at Et Tu, Babe, but only because I own it.
Perhaps I should confess how impressed I am with Mark Leyner’s ability to keep his rambling psychotic rants on task and focused enough to the degree he maintained, with skill, the mind trip he wanted us privy to. Problem for me was not one story meant anything. There was no physical emotion anywhere amounting to something exampled. He failed to establish or express any substance. His tightrope act at times did appear astounding, but I kept asking myself why even bother? I know he is revered by many, and I respect that, but he is not adored by me. I will nonetheless still take a look at Et Tu, Babe, but only because I own it.
Read
October 22, 2017Part I
Part II
Part II
April 12, 2017
Imagine a hyper-consumer society without any regulations and you have entered Mark Leyner's world. I generally don't enjoy experimental fiction and this continues to hold true after reading My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist. I did find some of his ideas to be interesting (A society segregated not by class or race, but by psychopathology). I also found some sections to be funny (absurdist humor). I can see why some readers would enjoy this kind of fiction. It is entertaining. However, it just didn't fit my particular interests.
July 1, 2014
File under "fnord" and / or "reasons to go Gluten Free" , "foggy notion" .
March 16, 2025
This wasn't my type of book. I was reading it for two reasons, to branch out to new writers and Shana was curious of my thoughts.
The writer knows many words, big and small, and uses a lot of them for a short book. The styles of the writing is where it loses me. I don't know if it's I'm not smart enough or don't love random irrelevant stuff the same way as this guy and his fans? But this was for me a bit of a slog to get through.
A lot happens so it's not boring but it is really hard to explain unless you read it. You may love it and I hope you do but sadly this writer won't be one I pick up again.
The writer knows many words, big and small, and uses a lot of them for a short book. The styles of the writing is where it loses me. I don't know if it's I'm not smart enough or don't love random irrelevant stuff the same way as this guy and his fans? But this was for me a bit of a slog to get through.
A lot happens so it's not boring but it is really hard to explain unless you read it. You may love it and I hope you do but sadly this writer won't be one I pick up again.
July 4, 2022
In these sharp, witty and wacky fictions, Leyner writes of such subjects as methedrine, car problems and hyper-masculinity.
Formally, the stories are experimental as Leyner exploits to humorous (not to say ridiculous) effect such techniques as irony, intrusive narrator, and depictions of unreal situations (re-reading My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist now, in 2019, Leyner's writing still feels very cutting-edge to me).
Leyner also explores different approaches to the text. A few of the fictions are organized in traditional paragraphs while others are broken up in a way that resembles the long line stanzas of Allen Ginsberg's verse, and still others are simply blocks of text with spaces to denote where one sentence ends and another begins. A few stories use quotation marks to distinguish spoken dialogue; others do not.
Some funny writing here, with lots of hip (for the 90's) references.
Acquired Jun 17, 2003
Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR
Formally, the stories are experimental as Leyner exploits to humorous (not to say ridiculous) effect such techniques as irony, intrusive narrator, and depictions of unreal situations (re-reading My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist now, in 2019, Leyner's writing still feels very cutting-edge to me).
Leyner also explores different approaches to the text. A few of the fictions are organized in traditional paragraphs while others are broken up in a way that resembles the long line stanzas of Allen Ginsberg's verse, and still others are simply blocks of text with spaces to denote where one sentence ends and another begins. A few stories use quotation marks to distinguish spoken dialogue; others do not.
Some funny writing here, with lots of hip (for the 90's) references.
Acquired Jun 17, 2003
Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR
July 15, 2010
An awful lot of fun. The first half of the collection is noticeably better than the second. Loved the use of E-13B IDAutomationMICR for the chapter number font, which I (maddeningly!) couldn't place until this morning -- I kept thinking "space invaders" for some stupid reason. The text itself is of course just logorrhea and farrago, but the best of its kind. Found myself laughing so loudly at times that I worried I'd wake my roommate.
----
Discovered in David Foster Wallace's essay "E Unibus Pluram", the opening shot of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Heralded as the apogee of "image-fiction". I intend to pick this up from the GT bookstore this afternoon.
----
Discovered in David Foster Wallace's essay "E Unibus Pluram", the opening shot of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Heralded as the apogee of "image-fiction". I intend to pick this up from the GT bookstore this afternoon.
April 6, 2012
hated it at first and tossed it aside... then came back the next day and DEVOURED it. it's really more poetry than anything else (these definitely aren't stories in any meaningful sense), and i didn't find it funny so much as delightful, just a joyful and unbounded explosion of creative energy... that being said, IT'S CERTAINLY NOT FOR EVERYONE. (and i would never have suspected it'd be for me.)
Tasner stared out the window. From telephone pole to telephone pole, pendulous drops of rainwater dangled from the wires like ornamental money. The meadow was filled with police. Each cop's vaporous breath hovered about his head--a foul nimbus--a nauseating blend of mint mouthwash and rancid coffee--the corners of his mouth glued together with hardened egg yolk. Bored, horny, hung over, underpaid, undereducated, hypoglycemic, the cops ambled through the meadow knocking daffodils off their stems in a black blur of nightsticks.
Tasner stared out the window. From telephone pole to telephone pole, pendulous drops of rainwater dangled from the wires like ornamental money. The meadow was filled with police. Each cop's vaporous breath hovered about his head--a foul nimbus--a nauseating blend of mint mouthwash and rancid coffee--the corners of his mouth glued together with hardened egg yolk. Bored, horny, hung over, underpaid, undereducated, hypoglycemic, the cops ambled through the meadow knocking daffodils off their stems in a black blur of nightsticks.
January 10, 2009
I gave this book four stars because of the sheer fun it is to read. It is like every word is equally important or not important at all, depending on what you are feeling at that particular moment.
It is interesting that this edition of the book actually says "A novel" as the subtitle because I'm not sure it is, more of a group of short stories, only not really. It is true that the gastroenterologist makes more than one appearance.
I feel like this made the most sense when I looked at it sideways, when I read it through the corner of my eye, and now that I'm thinking directly about it of course I can't explain it to you. I loved the little blurb about the car bomb and the section about the jack teagarden pavilion. I feel like there are so many memorable phrases that make just as much sense out of context as in, and I probably will keep it just to read in a weird mood again.
It is interesting that this edition of the book actually says "A novel" as the subtitle because I'm not sure it is, more of a group of short stories, only not really. It is true that the gastroenterologist makes more than one appearance.
I feel like this made the most sense when I looked at it sideways, when I read it through the corner of my eye, and now that I'm thinking directly about it of course I can't explain it to you. I loved the little blurb about the car bomb and the section about the jack teagarden pavilion. I feel like there are so many memorable phrases that make just as much sense out of context as in, and I probably will keep it just to read in a weird mood again.
June 17, 2016
Genius, like plastic vomit, like fingers wearing olives for hats, like olive hats girded in pepperoni for a brim.
Like reaching through a sewer grate for a dollar and coming up with a thorough understanding of thermodynamics instead, and using that knowledge to invent a child-safe flamethrower.
You have a car bomb.
I KNOW!!
Like reaching through a sewer grate for a dollar and coming up with a thorough understanding of thermodynamics instead, and using that knowledge to invent a child-safe flamethrower.
You have a car bomb.
I KNOW!!
July 19, 2007
This feels something like badly done Burroughs.
October 16, 2020
4.5 / 5.0
Incontinent genius, this thing here. A manifesto of high-functioning psychosis. Leyner is a postdoctoral homunculus with rabies trying to invent a contemporary ephemeral cuneiform while undergoing 24/7 electroshock therapy. He has more imagination than he knows what to do with. He makes me happy to be alive.
97% of his sentences are guitar solos of absurdity, inanity, and lexical precision, each one a Technicolor glimpse into a comic multiverse that truly makes me tremble at all of the different ways that reality could be unfolding. The other 3% are just the incontinent dribble and drivel that don't quite rise to the occasion. Jokes are pitched auctioneer-style -- another one comes hurtling forth from the isotopic page before you even know what's hit you. I don't consider these "stories," or even "scenes" in some cases. They're spit-takes and wormholes that lead to further wormholes. You'll either be thrilled with the ride or go full-Karen and ask to speak with Mark Leyner, the manager, about this mess, sir.
It's not quite as spectacular as Et Tu, Babe. I don't think my future exploits in Leynerland will ever top that. But I'll definitely be returning to this as a source of inspiration, to remind me in grey times that dumb drear reality can go any which way.
Incontinent genius, this thing here. A manifesto of high-functioning psychosis. Leyner is a postdoctoral homunculus with rabies trying to invent a contemporary ephemeral cuneiform while undergoing 24/7 electroshock therapy. He has more imagination than he knows what to do with. He makes me happy to be alive.
97% of his sentences are guitar solos of absurdity, inanity, and lexical precision, each one a Technicolor glimpse into a comic multiverse that truly makes me tremble at all of the different ways that reality could be unfolding. The other 3% are just the incontinent dribble and drivel that don't quite rise to the occasion. Jokes are pitched auctioneer-style -- another one comes hurtling forth from the isotopic page before you even know what's hit you. I don't consider these "stories," or even "scenes" in some cases. They're spit-takes and wormholes that lead to further wormholes. You'll either be thrilled with the ride or go full-Karen and ask to speak with Mark Leyner, the manager, about this mess, sir.
It's not quite as spectacular as Et Tu, Babe. I don't think my future exploits in Leynerland will ever top that. But I'll definitely be returning to this as a source of inspiration, to remind me in grey times that dumb drear reality can go any which way.
February 5, 2025
reading this was like experiencing multiple k holes, simultaneously.
August 3, 2008
This is a rare document. An experimental postmodern fiction artist named Mark Leyner makes crazy word collages, byzantine temples of thought in a nihilistically symbolic universe. Be careful not to get your head caught! I read this in brief spurts while I worked in a bookstore and it is a definite headfuck, like an experimental drug. The wordplay is wild and you are definitely going to get some comical and disturbing images. I don't even remember the plot.
Word on the street was that this guy had a mutual disdain with master professor of the English language David Foster Wallace, the man responsible for the 1400 page dossier on the joker in the deck of cards known as the late twentieth century: Infinite Jest, which is like an epic, cleaner, more organized, less ornate Pynchon book with all the genuine poetry and sincere revolutionary spirit tapped out and sifted through for an exalted expertise, precision, witty cleverness laced with aha! and haha!
Both books are worth checking out if you are interested in textual philosophy, semiotics, etc. which help exercise the mind to recognize the "metadata" or perceptual frames that are embedded in the use of the written word and in the communication and organizational schemes of popular culture in civilization in this a time. So, check it.
Lastly I will note I read this in the morning and night in my bed in dreamlike Marin Country California, with the rolling fog and haunting pacific forests always present in the air.
Word on the street was that this guy had a mutual disdain with master professor of the English language David Foster Wallace, the man responsible for the 1400 page dossier on the joker in the deck of cards known as the late twentieth century: Infinite Jest, which is like an epic, cleaner, more organized, less ornate Pynchon book with all the genuine poetry and sincere revolutionary spirit tapped out and sifted through for an exalted expertise, precision, witty cleverness laced with aha! and haha!
Both books are worth checking out if you are interested in textual philosophy, semiotics, etc. which help exercise the mind to recognize the "metadata" or perceptual frames that are embedded in the use of the written word and in the communication and organizational schemes of popular culture in civilization in this a time. So, check it.
Lastly I will note I read this in the morning and night in my bed in dreamlike Marin Country California, with the rolling fog and haunting pacific forests always present in the air.
April 5, 2012
This book gets me high. Honestly. I go into a completely different cerebrospinal temporospatial state of being when faced with the breathless mastery of these stories, as well as hyperventilating from laughing so hard for over a hundred pages. Mark Leyner is one of the greatest national treasures this nation has ever produced, and why he's not ruling over this hemisphere from a 45-foot-tall throne made up of discarded Jacob the Jeweler pimp cups, NuvaRings, frozen Charleston Chews, and gold doubloons, I will never know.
April 9, 2010
I was initially quite skeptical of this collection of short "stories," but Leyner does pomo fiction the right way: with tongue planted firmly in cheek. It's impossible to explain what happens in here, save for the fact that the phrase "my cousin, my gastroenterologist" appears in nearly every piece. A few of Leyner's gags fall flat, but most of his sentences are among the saddest and funniest I've ever read.
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