The End of the World Book

by Alistair McCartney

This is no ordinary novel. An encyclopedia of memory—from A to Z—The End of the World Book deftly intertwines fiction, memoir, and cultural history, reimagining the story of the world and one man’s life as they both hurtle toward a frightening future. Alistair McCartney’s alphabetical guide to the apocalypse layers images like a prose poem, building from Aristotle to da Vinci, hip-hop to lederhosen, plagues to zippers, while barreling from antiquity to the present.
    In this profound book about mortality, McCartney composes an irreverent archive of philosophical obsessions and homoerotic fixations, demonstrating the difficulty of separating what is real from what is imagined.

Finalist, Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, The Publishing Triangle

Finalist, PEN USA Literary Award for Fiction

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

306 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Alistair McCartney is the author of The End of the World Book: a Novel (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008). An encyclopedia of memory–from A to Z–The End of the World Book was a finalist for both the PEN USA Fiction Award 2009 and the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Debut Fiction Award 2009, and was in Seattle Times Best Ten Books of 2008. Born in Perth, Western Australia in 1971, McCartney's writing has appeared in Fence, Bloom, Lies/Isles, Crush Fanzine, 1913, James White Review, and other literary journals and anthologies. He is currently at work on The Death Book, the second novel in a projected six book cycle. Based in Los Angeles, he lives with his partner Tim Miller and teaches creative writing and literature in the BA and MFA Programs at Antioch University Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The End of the World Book is both a novel and an encyclopedia (A to Z) of memories, obsessions and philosophical fixations, working in and building upon the same metafictional terrain as Roberto Bolano and W.G. Sebald. Praising this novel, Dennis Cooper, author of Frisk, wrote, “If I’ve read a more deeply impressive, beautiful, sweeping, mindful, and innovative first novel than Alistair McCartney’s The End of the World Book, I have no memory of it. McCartney is a writer of peerless, brilliant originality and pure, giant talent.” Publishers Weekly described it as “. . . a surreal and self-referential encyclopedia for the 21st century… fans of alternative literature and Borges may discover a kindred spirit.” And The Los Angeles Times characterized it as “…a giddy literary jape…’The End of the World Book’ …is an interrogation of literature — how we think about writing, what we choose to write about and why.” The book was recently chosen to be featured on Critical Mass, the blog for the National Book Critics circle."

That is how the book was described on: https://twohawksquarterly.com/2008/05... and is not bad - it expresses the rich variety of its pleasures. I can only continue with more quotes these from the book:

"ENLIGHTENMENT, MEN OF

"When we think about the men of the Enlightenment, we do not think about their faith in objective reason, in the natural goodness of men, and in the value of scientific knowledge; nor do we do we reflect upon their distrust of orthodoxy and intolerance, their hatred of tyranny and social institutions, of their love of skepticism, freedom, satire and wit.

"Whenever our thoughts turn backwards, towards the Enlightenment, we think of Rousseau and his persecution complex. We think of Diderot and his obsession with stains, particularly the grass stains on the knees of his breeches, and his numerous failed attempts to create an entry for stains in his Encyclopedie. Most of all, we think of Voltaire and his chamber pot, his recurring dream that realistic likeness of his face was painted on the side of his chamber pot. We ponder the fact that all his life's work ultimately led to the incident toward the end of his life, during which he ate the contents of his own chamber pot."

Is it half so funny if you don't know that all the second paragraph is an absurdist rant? That nowadays we are more likely to remember Rousseau for abandoning his children in a home for foundlings; Diderot for his porn and sucking up to Catherine the Great and Voltaire for investing in and profiting from slave trading? I've read many reviews and comments about this book and it is clear that most of those who awarded it five stars didn't like it, but were frightened to say so because to do so might brand them as clearly terminally out-of-touch with what was au courant and fashionably trendy. But I read the book nearly twenty years after it was published and its moment in the blazing sun of trendiness had long passed.

But I did find it immensely, seductively, compulsively, indeed addictively readable and enjoyable. It is full of clever clogs showing off - I enjoyed that - maybe because I could recognise rants like the above for how the surreal they are like his imagining Keats the poet as a dead gay porn star. In fact McCartney's brilliant take on AIDS has inspired one of the most absurd comments from a reviewer that I ever read when referring to McCartney as of a generation of gay men who can only divide time into before and after AIDS - Alistair McCartney was born in 1971 so was barely a teenager when AIDS was wiping out a generation of young men - for him there was no pre AIDS except as a history lesson.

This a 'novel' of wit and thoughtfulness:

"EXTINCTION

"Sometimes when I look in the mirror on the medicine cabinet in our bathroom, I am reminded of the time my mother took me to the Museum of Natural History Museum. We saw a tiny fossil of a small, strange, winged creature. The pattern of its wings was so delicate. It was as if the ancient bird was hurtling towards us, flying through the slat grey rock. As I looked, my face pressed up to the glass case, some joy in me snapped.

"Thought took us to the brink of extinction, but on further reflection, we have decided to come back."

or how about:

"EYES, BLOODSHOT

"I like boys with bloodshot eyes. The whites of their eyes are full of red pope's hats, magnificent, violent sunsets. It's like there's a murder going on in their eyes, a tiny murder, done with tiny knives. Boys with bloodshot eyes are royalty, whereas boys with clear eyes are their lowly subjects."

So I adored this book, I thought it clever and funny - maybe because it made me feel clever and funny - but I like to think I am - it is the sort of book you either love or hate and nowadays you can hate it without fear of being thought de trop but you won't be winning any kudos for trendy knowingness either. Why have I not awarded it five stars? Because of what he writes right at the end under "ZERO, PATIENT' about Gaeten Dugas - Alistair McCartney only repeats the lies of Randy Shilts who created the 'Patient Zero' myth (see my review of 'And the Band Played On' at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and Gaeten Dugas's Wikipedia entry at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%A...) but falling on the wrong side of any truth puts you ii with the likes of those who failed to condemn 'Kristallnacht' and similar pogroms because 'well, you know, the Jews. are pushy and have all the money, etc.'

But it is but one page in superb book - but if it hadn't been written so long ago and McCartney been so young at the time I would have much harsher.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

L is for lateness, tardy, not one to be on time. I read this years ago, but was not into reviewing books at the time. T is for Time, a subject covered in a dryly witty manner in the author's encyclopedia of himself. Categories ranging from literature to pop culture to his own life, and each gets eccentric, idiosyncratic explanations that lead to autobiographical entries. They can be read as amusing stand-alone, but the entries cumulatively form a personal narrative. It may seem dryly academic or too 'intellectual' for some, but McCartney infuses a self-revealing voice. He's aware of the clever device while questioning it. In undoing traditional structure, and mastering the deconstructed narrative, he maintains a sense of wit and wonder about life and death, reality and fiction, and the elusive nature of memory.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alternately felt love, exasperation, and then love again for this book. Not perfect but the good parts I loved, the great parts dazzled me and filled me with joy, reminding me how wonderful it is to have creative thoughts about the everyday world we live in that skew it in fantastic ways.

[John Treat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wait for the movie, unless you're obsessed with buttocks as much as the author is and then, well, you will have already read the book.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept is irresistible: an encyclopedia of the self. A childhood obsession with the World Book Encyclopedia is here transformed into a "novel" (which it is only in the loosest sense of the term) filled with whimsical entries which range from autobiographical sketches, memories, musings, odes, conjectures and "histories" all neatly arranged, encyclopedia style, by key terms. Searching for a "hidden" narrative will be in vain (and it doesn't all lead up to an "aha!" moment), but common themes consistently reoccur: Kafka, Anna Karenina, "cholos," the "musty" smell of male assholes. My favorite entries revolved around famous paintings, where the "point" of the painting is jettisoned to wax poetic on the calf muscles of an incidental figure in the background; I found the entry on his long-time boyfriend to be one of the most tender and moving things I've read in a while (describing a small boy's felt hat kept stashed in a closet: "the hat's dusty and slightly battered, as objects salvaged from childhood tend to be. I like the feel of it in my hands. I hold my breath and wait for some deeper secret to pour out of the hat, to fly out"). But it should be mentioned that this is also a tremendously trying read—I nearly gave up halfway through. As would be the case of reading a encyclopedia volume straight through, one must wade through a lot of topics not of immediate interest to arrive at the beautiful moments of poetry.

But then, I suppose that's part of the point—aren't the point of encyclopedias to record everything, making no distinctions between the mundane and the magnificent? Each entry, no matter its importance, striving to build a larger body of knowledge, much larger than any individual contribution? In The End of the World Book, all of the individual fragments add up to an understanding of its creator, revealing everything and nothing about him. The mystery and myth of some kind of total knowledge remains...

"I've known you for how long, fourteen years? Inevitably, there are moments when I don't feel like I know you at all. Normally I rationalize this by reminding myself that there's nothing wrong with living with a handsome stranger; in fact, it's quite nice and has its advantages. But once in a while, I really do want to solve the riddle of who you are."

[MJ Nicholls]

Found in Steven Moore’s The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600.

[Mike Bahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know what to say about this one. I really wanted to love it but a lot of it fell flat for me. It's organized like an encyclopedia of the author. By design that means there's no forward momentum, so I mostly read this before bed, where that lack of momentum should have been a feature. It's a little surrealist, a little self flagellation, a little confessional. I'm describing a book I should really like.

There's a little less doom and gloom than I'd expected from a book titled The End of the World Book. McCartney seems to be a fairly well adjusted dude, which is maybe the crutch of my issues.

Don't get me wrong, when this one hits, it hits hard. Like the entry "Internet,The" is perfect and amazing and everything I'd hoped for. I suppose it'd be difficult to make every entry that good, but I feel like the miss ratio was a little higher than I'd have liked.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book intrigued by the premise and its audacious structure. Yes, it is a memoir/novel arranged alphabetically, with musings on everything from daVinci to Brittney Spears (whose entry is right next to that of Spinoza, probably the only place where those 2 entities could have met), and for the most part, found it funny and informative. But I also admit buying it based on the fact that it had no less than 4 or 5 stars from numerous readers, and didn't really pay attention to the content. Therefore, I skipped or glided over the many descriptions of eroticism which, while not a prude, I found a little overwhelming.

[Yasmin · Rating 2 out of 5]

"This is an inventive and experimental book, and a clever book. But it’s not a compelling book. There are interesting characters and subplots, but none are allowed to develop over and above the narrator’s presence. There’s an entry titled “Stories, Absence of,” under which McCartney writes, “take me seriously when I say I have no stories. I couldn’t tell a story to tell my life…” In a book that mixes fiction and fact, that may be the truest statement of all."
Read the rest of my review here:
http://www.yasminnair.net/content/ali...

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a gorgeous, stream of consciousness writing style, Alistair McCartney's The End of the World Book takes us on an encyclopedic journey through the author's musings and life's experiences, both real and imagined. With wry humor and poetic edge, The End of the World Book combines both reality and daydream into a beautiful exploration of language itself, encouraging readers to explore their own relationship to the words which help shape their daily lives.

[Nikku · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book that is a memoir/essay written as a series of entries in an encyclopedia. Falsities and insights abound, though if you are wary of the beauty of men's thighs and all that entails, this might not be for you.

[Ritsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still reading.
So far, what strikes me the most is the uniqueness: The idea of writing in encyclopedia-styled writing. But after several chapter, I kind of loosing interest... -_-;;