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Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit
A "shamelessly funny" ( Kirkus ) and utterly original new novel from Mark Leyner about a father and his intense and devout relationship with his daughter and with alcohol.
An anthropologist and his daughter travel to Kermunkachunk, the capitol of Chalazia, to conduct research for an ethnography on the Chalazian Mafia Faction (a splinter group of the Chalazian Children's Theater).
The book takes place over the course of a night at the Bar Pulpo, Kermunkachunk's #1 spoken-word karaoke bar, where conversations are actually being read from multiple karaoke screens arrayed around the barroom. Moreover, it's Thursday, "Father/Daughter Nite," when the bar is frequented by actual fathers and daughters as well as couples cosplaying fathers and daughters.
Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit is a book about the deep pleasures of reading and drinking, the tumultuous reign of a cabal of mystic mobsters, and, of course, the transcendent love of a father for his daughter.
An anthropologist and his daughter travel to Kermunkachunk, the capitol of Chalazia, to conduct research for an ethnography on the Chalazian Mafia Faction (a splinter group of the Chalazian Children's Theater).
The book takes place over the course of a night at the Bar Pulpo, Kermunkachunk's #1 spoken-word karaoke bar, where conversations are actually being read from multiple karaoke screens arrayed around the barroom. Moreover, it's Thursday, "Father/Daughter Nite," when the bar is frequented by actual fathers and daughters as well as couples cosplaying fathers and daughters.
Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit is a book about the deep pleasures of reading and drinking, the tumultuous reign of a cabal of mystic mobsters, and, of course, the transcendent love of a father for his daughter.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 19, 2021
26 people are currently reading
2170 people want to read
About the author
Mark Leyner
28 books337 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 53 reviews
May 11, 2021
The Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit is a kaleidoscopic orgy of words and fractal plot devices. It's hardly worth bothering to explain it other than to say it's a convention-shattering post-modern absurdist delight. Another great, weird work from Leyner.
April 20, 2021
'In fact, he writes, it is a love that will be endlessly multiplied (he uses the word xyhpeqz, meaning “mutated”) by death itself, a mutating love whose meanings and articulations will proliferate infinitely in an infinity of proliferating universes, while simultaneously its massive gravity will pitilessly devour time and space until everything in existence re-collapses into a dimensionless singularity (i.e., “the last orgy”).'
Officially one of the most gonzo, brain-fried, batshit-crazy books I have ever read.
Officially one of the most gonzo, brain-fried, batshit-crazy books I have ever read.
March 30, 2022
Simply brilliant. Like any book by Leyner, this one might leave you scratching your head a bit at points, but despite all the chaotic elements and seemingly random shit, he really does tie it all together quite nicely and beautifully by the end. On some level, it almost reads like a love letter to his real-life daughter, who is also a character in the book, which is sure to tug at the heartstrings of any fathers out there. True to form, it is also quite hilarious as well. Leyner has more humor in his left pinky than David Foster Wallace had in his whole entire body. COME AT ME BROS
February 26, 2021
You always expect Mark Leyner's books to be a little bonkers but this one is kind of extra, almost to the point of testing the elasticity of your logic. Well, okay--it actually breaks that elasticity. And then stretches the broken parts enough to break those. This is a multi-structural meta mindf*ck and by the end of it, I wasn't entirely sure what the meaning of it all was. And yet, it's still hilarious, dazzling, and unlike anything you'll experience in a novel this decade, with references to Kenneth Anger, Euripides, Snellen charts, spoken word karaoke, ultra-violence, musical theater students, father/daughter cosplay, and a hundred other things. If you haven't read Leyner before, this may not be the one to start with. I'd actually recommend his last book, Gone With the Mind (which, according to this novel, sold disappointingly) or The Tetherballs Of Bougainville (the funniest book ever).
December 12, 2022
Mark Leyner fans that miss his most absurd and experimental works (My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist and The Tetherballs of Bougainville) will like this return to form, but those that have come to love his recent more sentimental work in Gone with the Mind, will also be satisfied.
Leyner's newest novel melds his hilarious meta-fictional beginnings with his heartfelt but still hilarious newer work. The new novel's frame story is a patient at an optometrist's office reading "The Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit." This chuckleworthy meta-fictional and ergodic element (the novel does not depend immensely on ergodics like theMystery.doc or House of Leaves , it is just a fun-maybe even parodical- jab at lit bro novels that use ergodics as a sort of crutch) is just the beginning of the literary post-mo hilarity that ensues. There is a made up language based on a made up place in the novel, musings on the nature of folklore, and plenty of pop-and not-so-pop culture references that are very Leyner.
Under all the wacky, experimental humor and shenanigans, the novel is about a man's love for his daughter and fear of death. The fear that he has for her (both the quotidian danger that a young woman faces in a patriarchal society, and the fear of the pain she will feel when he dies).
"If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full [read]. That's a heck of a [read]."-kinda Jim Valvano.
December 23, 2020
Tender Bizarro; Metabsurd (my newly invented word)
I think you have to experience Mark Leyner on your own; no one can really capture one of his books in a review. But I'm willing to take a shot.
Think of an author like William S. Burroughs, but make him more coherent, funnier, kinder, more erudite, and less drug addled. Add a metafictional style and an absurd buffet of ideas, images, references, literary sparks, and throwaway lines and odd bits of business. Slip in a setup rather than an actual plot. That's more or less what you get here.
But here's the neat part. The book isn't just random, showy, writerly fun and games, although that's how it looks at first. Hidden behind all the fun and games is an earnest and rather tender and insightful celebration of the love of a daughter for her father, and his love of her. You have to tease that bit out because it hides behind all of the absurdity and sprawling storytelling, but there it is. It's funny, it's exhilarating, it's true.
So, leave postmodernist in the rearview mirror. This is the real stuff.
(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
I think you have to experience Mark Leyner on your own; no one can really capture one of his books in a review. But I'm willing to take a shot.
Think of an author like William S. Burroughs, but make him more coherent, funnier, kinder, more erudite, and less drug addled. Add a metafictional style and an absurd buffet of ideas, images, references, literary sparks, and throwaway lines and odd bits of business. Slip in a setup rather than an actual plot. That's more or less what you get here.
But here's the neat part. The book isn't just random, showy, writerly fun and games, although that's how it looks at first. Hidden behind all the fun and games is an earnest and rather tender and insightful celebration of the love of a daughter for her father, and his love of her. You have to tease that bit out because it hides behind all of the absurdity and sprawling storytelling, but there it is. It's funny, it's exhilarating, it's true.
So, leave postmodernist in the rearview mirror. This is the real stuff.
(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
January 30, 2021
Lots of fun, I wish mark leyner was my dad
December 12, 2022
Mark Leyner fans that miss his most absurd and experimental works (My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist and The Tetherballs of Bougainville) will like this return to form, but those that have come to love his recent more sentimental work in Gone with the Mind, will also be satisfied.
Leyner's newest novel melds his hilarious meta-fictional beginnings with his heartfelt but still hilarious newer work. The new novel's frame story is a patient at an optometrist's office reading "The Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit." This chuckleworthy meta-fictional and ergodic element (the novel does not depend immensely on ergodics like theMystery.doc or House of Leaves , it is just a fun-maybe even parodical- jab at lit bro novels that use ergodics as a sort of crutch) is just the beginning of the literary post-mo hilarity that ensues. There is a made up language based on a made up place in the novel, musings on the nature of folklore, and plenty of pop-and not-so-pop culture references that are very Leyner.
Under all the wacky, experimental humor and shenanigans, the novel is about a man's love for his daughter and fear of death. The fear that he has for her (both the quotidian danger that a young woman faces in a patriarchal society, and the fear of the pain she will feel when he dies).
"If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full [read]. That's a heck of a [read]."-kinda Jim Valvano.
Read the hardcover version, Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit
February 22, 2021
Oh lordy, what to say about this book? Well, it's not for everyone, that's for sure! Call it weird, call it experimental, call it whatever--I liked it!
If you've read Leyner before, you know he's a little... different. Special. Here, as he has done in the past, the author himself is one of the characters. And let me tell you, he takes some abuse at the hands of the author! But his daughter comes off well. And it is that father/daughter relationship that is at the heart of this novel. That bond is the only reality anchoring anything here.
The narrative is in the form of a play being read by a patient off of an optometrist's eye chart. Does that sound insane? I promise you, that barely brushes the surface of the absurdism here. It's fairly pointless to try to wrestle a coherent plot synopsis into being. I'm not even going to try. What I will say is, on a sentence by sentence basis, this book is HILARIOUS, and I frequently laughed out loud. Do I see the bigger picture? I'm not sure, but I keep circling back to I liked it!
If you've read Leyner before, you know he's a little... different. Special. Here, as he has done in the past, the author himself is one of the characters. And let me tell you, he takes some abuse at the hands of the author! But his daughter comes off well. And it is that father/daughter relationship that is at the heart of this novel. That bond is the only reality anchoring anything here.
The narrative is in the form of a play being read by a patient off of an optometrist's eye chart. Does that sound insane? I promise you, that barely brushes the surface of the absurdism here. It's fairly pointless to try to wrestle a coherent plot synopsis into being. I'm not even going to try. What I will say is, on a sentence by sentence basis, this book is HILARIOUS, and I frequently laughed out loud. Do I see the bigger picture? I'm not sure, but I keep circling back to I liked it!
July 7, 2021
A wild, audacious and heartfelt experiment that succeeds in both pushing boundaries and being pulse-racingly entertaining
January 18, 2021
Recommended.
Review posted at Tzer Island book blog:
https://www.tzerisland.com/bookblog/2...
Review posted at Tzer Island book blog:
https://www.tzerisland.com/bookblog/2...
January 25, 2021
This novel does not work. Too many conceits. The manic cleverness leaves nothing for the reader to hold onto.
February 12, 2021
Mark Leyner is so great, and such a gloriously particular taste, that I always fear each book will be his last. But they're so funny! And so uncompromisingly clever, with a crazy deep reference game, and a demand that you read them on their own terms. Repetitious? Yes, but the repetition is a rhythm, and also a way of reevaluating those elements as they reappear and reappear. If you've never tried, you should!
February 20, 2021
I would watch this movie if Don't Let This Robot Suck Your Dick Productions made it. The audiobook was an excellent experience, and the whole thing comes highly recommended if you like absurd but not slapstick books.
September 29, 2022
what the actual fuck did i just read?
Read
September 26, 2023Currently paused/ left as a back burner book. I tried to read with an open mind and see what happened, but I felt like things were just flying over my head. It’s a fun format, and I wanted to like it based on how many amazing reviews this had, but I think it was too wild a ride for me with everything else waiting on my TBR. hopefully I come back to it and have a similar experience as those who loved it
February 12, 2022
An astonishing achievement.
March 25, 2021
I wanted to give up on this book around page 30 because I couldn’t figure out what was going on. But I’m so glad I didn’t. The absurdity just ramps up as it goes along. There isn’t a plot per se, but that’s fine. Once I got to about page 50 I couldn’t put it down and finished reading it all. Very good absurdist fiction. It will make you ask yourself “What did I just read?” If you’re looking for something VERY DIFFERENT, please give this a try. 😂
November 28, 2021
It’s fucking over. Thank. God.
I give it two for creativity. Otherwise, I don’t think I’ve disliked reading a book so much.
I give it two for creativity. Otherwise, I don’t think I’ve disliked reading a book so much.
May 5, 2025
Watching one's kids grow up is the great pleasure in life for a large number (though I don't think even a plurality) of men, and while I've only raised a daughter, I think the father/daughter bond is intense enough that it is impossible to describe the level of pride one has when the adult daughter, for example, wears a Weyland-Yutani T-shirt out in public without comment. It's like: OK. This is a thing I did ok.
I guess we've finally found the Leyner novel I can't write anything smart[1] about, but I will take a swing on that what LOotDH is really about is that feeling evoked above, and how everything else in life, while admirable, and useful, and gladdening, and whatever else, is still, also, superfluous when you've succeeded at at least that one project of having an adult kid that you admire.
____________________
[1] OK, sure, nothing I've ever written about has been smart either, but this doesn't feel like I can even conjure anything intellectual to say about it.
I guess we've finally found the Leyner novel I can't write anything smart[1] about, but I will take a swing on that what LOotDH is really about is that feeling evoked above, and how everything else in life, while admirable, and useful, and gladdening, and whatever else, is still, also, superfluous when you've succeeded at at least that one project of having an adult kid that you admire.
____________________
[1] OK, sure, nothing I've ever written about has been smart either, but this doesn't feel like I can even conjure anything intellectual to say about it.
February 24, 2024
“And within this shaft of incandescent effervescence resides the sublime truth that we inhabit an imaginary world without meaning.
And this dazzling lucidity prompts us to either dance or die, or both dance and die.
And this, comrades, is “the orgy.”
“And then there emerged something of a cross between speech and song (a “Schoenbergian Sprechtimme!” a tipsy blacksmith, with a long glistening beard, had the chutzpah to blurt out)… and then gradually an incipient but unmistakable melody.”
“After losing everything during the Night of the Broken Glasses, when neo-Nazis targeted Jewish optometrists, smashing all their lenses and frames, he refused to allow rancor to detract from the conscientious care of his patients (many of whom were themselves neo-Nazis). He methodically rebuilt his practice and, in 2023, was voted “New Jersey’s Most Optimistic Optometrist.”
“and then the street soldier disappears into the night, the cloud of ink into which he withdraws like an octopus.”
June 17, 2024
A waking delirium of pop culture references both made up and real. It’s a wild ride but puts unbelievable amounts of effort into building its own folklore, i respect the hell out of that. Somebody should make this into a movie before Yorgos gets his hands on it.
March 20, 2021
Every Sunday, I am humbled to discover in the NYT Book Review that I have read a fraction of what any decent sized library has to offer. Recently, they mentioned a new novel by Mark Leyner. Leyner? Never heard of him. Then I saw the titles of his books, read their review of this book, and got on my smart phone to get in the cue at the library.
This book is truly the essence of absurdity.
Written with playwrite's license, it could be identified as satire, absurdist fiction, postmodernist absurdity. Or just sarcasm.
It can be harsh. Alarming. In a single page, in a single paragraph, in a single sentence, the author can send you to the heights of belly chortling laughter to the depths of puke level grotesque. Blood and humor, rarely a duo, are dynamically and consistently juxtaposed.
I like this. Others may well hate it. To each their own. And, I do not take pride in reading a novel in which murder is both commonplace, and descriptively vile from which details are best forgotten.
If you like Borat, and the Academy did in 2021 by donning the movie numerous Oscar nods, then you may like this. Get the idea? Gross can be funny. To a certain extent.
I also enjoyed the characters dialogue including references to the author's name and honoring him as a messiah. Max Beerbohm did this 110 years ago in Zuleika Dobson. Absurdity then was more eclectic than grotesque. Easier for some readers to inhale when entrails and blood and bathrooms are not the topic of every tenth page.
This is a great writer whose titles, by themselves, inspire imagination. I will read this author again. Soon.
This book is truly the essence of absurdity.
Written with playwrite's license, it could be identified as satire, absurdist fiction, postmodernist absurdity. Or just sarcasm.
It can be harsh. Alarming. In a single page, in a single paragraph, in a single sentence, the author can send you to the heights of belly chortling laughter to the depths of puke level grotesque. Blood and humor, rarely a duo, are dynamically and consistently juxtaposed.
I like this. Others may well hate it. To each their own. And, I do not take pride in reading a novel in which murder is both commonplace, and descriptively vile from which details are best forgotten.
If you like Borat, and the Academy did in 2021 by donning the movie numerous Oscar nods, then you may like this. Get the idea? Gross can be funny. To a certain extent.
I also enjoyed the characters dialogue including references to the author's name and honoring him as a messiah. Max Beerbohm did this 110 years ago in Zuleika Dobson. Absurdity then was more eclectic than grotesque. Easier for some readers to inhale when entrails and blood and bathrooms are not the topic of every tenth page.
This is a great writer whose titles, by themselves, inspire imagination. I will read this author again. Soon.
April 23, 2021
Having been a huge fan of Leyner’s work in my college days (mid-90s), following him this far has been a mixed bag. Although I’ve sporadically felt the elation of his prose and cerebral jokes as I did back then, for the most part, as Morrissey sings on “Still Ill,” It wasn’t like the old days anymore / No it wasn’t like those days….
Which isn’t to say Mark Leyner is inexorably tied to his salad days. I thought 2016’s “Gone with the Mind” brought an unexpected, emotional maturity to his work that, well, worked. It seems that with “Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit,” Leyner’s trying to recreate that formula, i.e., merging his old style with a meta living-memoir re: a family member (his mother in the former, his daughter in the latter).
Results are, umm, mixed. LOOTDH is kind of a mess. It’s less reader-friendly than “Gone with the Mind,” and more akin to 2012’s “The Sugar Frosted Nutsack.” There were definitely times I felt traces of the old thrill (e.g., the Night of Broken Glasses, lol), but the creativity had a more labored, scattershot approach.
P.S. At a couple points in LOOTDH, Leyner refers to the disappointing sales of “Gone With the Mind”… probably not a good time to mention that I’ve gotten his last three books from the library—sorry, dude, I’m just a big user of libraries.
Which isn’t to say Mark Leyner is inexorably tied to his salad days. I thought 2016’s “Gone with the Mind” brought an unexpected, emotional maturity to his work that, well, worked. It seems that with “Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit,” Leyner’s trying to recreate that formula, i.e., merging his old style with a meta living-memoir re: a family member (his mother in the former, his daughter in the latter).
Results are, umm, mixed. LOOTDH is kind of a mess. It’s less reader-friendly than “Gone with the Mind,” and more akin to 2012’s “The Sugar Frosted Nutsack.” There were definitely times I felt traces of the old thrill (e.g., the Night of Broken Glasses, lol), but the creativity had a more labored, scattershot approach.
P.S. At a couple points in LOOTDH, Leyner refers to the disappointing sales of “Gone With the Mind”… probably not a good time to mention that I’ve gotten his last three books from the library—sorry, dude, I’m just a big user of libraries.
January 17, 2021
While well beyond my realm of understanding, I learned a lot of new vocabulary and can now relate to my students who struggle to finish a book. I enjoyed the references that I recognized, but am positive that there were plenty more that went over my head.
January 1, 2021
A random blenderfull of ideas hung on the flimsiest of narrative frameworks. Absurdity without practical purpose, for the sake of being absurd. You know whether that's what you want or not.
January 23, 2021
I couldn’t even finish reading the kindle sample. I might like this better in actual print form because of how the words are arranged on the page.
February 3, 2021
I'm sure I would have loved this back in my Lit Theory days, so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. An examination on reading, story and the artifice of language we use to convey meaning.
May 1, 2022
Rating: 3 stars
What a weird book. While the book was confusing and hard to follow, it had many redeeming moments that were smart, funny, poignant, and thought-provoking. This book is hard to review, but maybe even harder to read. Here are my random thoughts:
1. I own a book with writing tips compiled from the teaching of Kurt Vonnegut. It is called Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style. I think about the title "Pity the Reader" a lot. I think Vonnegut did that and not enough authors pity the reader. In this book, Mark Leyner took no pity on me. He uses $10 words non-stop, he throws non-sequiturs at you in quick succession about pop culture and history. I was always looking up words, historic events, pop culture events, and more. Some of the stuff was true, but most of it was just made up. Elton John wasn't born in Texas - I looked it up.
2. This book reminded me a lot of Trout Fishing in America and Naked Lunch. I haven't finished Naked Lunch, but I definitely enjoyed this book more than Trout Fishing in America. Both books are all over the place and have that "Mad Libs" style in places. There was no reality for me to hold on to. It also seems that a lot of reviewer enjoyed both these books more than I did so maybe take this review with a grain of salt.
3. It's definitely funny and clever many times, like in this line:
"Both his parents were killed in a horrific home invasion (they were the invaders, not the occupants)."
That's genuinely funny to me. There are plenty of funny and clever ideas throughout, but a lot of it also fell flat for me, like this one:
"I was thinking about that scene in Finding Nemo where the one guy says, 'You have the hairiest ass crack I've ever seen on a Jew.' and the other guy goes, 'I'm not Jewish. And that's not my ass crack.'"
I've seen Finding Nemo and I don't remember that line - and that wasn't clever or funny to me. If that's hilarious to you, you're going to love this book.
3. Another reviewer (Bop Pop) here invented a word "Metabsurd" to describe this book and I can't think of a more perfect word. This book is very meta. Mark Leyner is brilliant at times as we travel layers within layers of reality.
4. The story of the book is the author is an anthropologist and his daughter are together writing an ethnography about a fictional country. The country and its customs, language, and folk lore is funny, quirky, and absurd. We are reading the prologue and epilogue of this book throughout.
5. So what is the book really about? On the surface, it tells you it's about Fathers and Daughters, as well as drinking and reading. But I think it's also about free will and how we fill the roles we are given. Rarely is anyone saying their own words in this book. They are either reading from an eye chart or a screen at a spoken-word karaoke bar (clever, right?). It sometimes leads to confusion as a reader, but kind of makes an interesting point. We often get lost in the words and forget they're reading someone else's line. It's also written in a play format with scene direction and all, which is another layer of reading another's lines. How often are my words from someone else's script (in my head)? Kind of deep, right?
Anyway, I think I'm glad I read this book, but it was not easy. I would be reluctant to recommend this book to most of my friends, but with maybe an exception for that one friend who would "get it" more than I did.
What a weird book. While the book was confusing and hard to follow, it had many redeeming moments that were smart, funny, poignant, and thought-provoking. This book is hard to review, but maybe even harder to read. Here are my random thoughts:
1. I own a book with writing tips compiled from the teaching of Kurt Vonnegut. It is called Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style. I think about the title "Pity the Reader" a lot. I think Vonnegut did that and not enough authors pity the reader. In this book, Mark Leyner took no pity on me. He uses $10 words non-stop, he throws non-sequiturs at you in quick succession about pop culture and history. I was always looking up words, historic events, pop culture events, and more. Some of the stuff was true, but most of it was just made up. Elton John wasn't born in Texas - I looked it up.
2. This book reminded me a lot of Trout Fishing in America and Naked Lunch. I haven't finished Naked Lunch, but I definitely enjoyed this book more than Trout Fishing in America. Both books are all over the place and have that "Mad Libs" style in places. There was no reality for me to hold on to. It also seems that a lot of reviewer enjoyed both these books more than I did so maybe take this review with a grain of salt.
3. It's definitely funny and clever many times, like in this line:
"Both his parents were killed in a horrific home invasion (they were the invaders, not the occupants)."
That's genuinely funny to me. There are plenty of funny and clever ideas throughout, but a lot of it also fell flat for me, like this one:
"I was thinking about that scene in Finding Nemo where the one guy says, 'You have the hairiest ass crack I've ever seen on a Jew.' and the other guy goes, 'I'm not Jewish. And that's not my ass crack.'"
I've seen Finding Nemo and I don't remember that line - and that wasn't clever or funny to me. If that's hilarious to you, you're going to love this book.
3. Another reviewer (Bop Pop) here invented a word "Metabsurd" to describe this book and I can't think of a more perfect word. This book is very meta. Mark Leyner is brilliant at times as we travel layers within layers of reality.
4. The story of the book is the author is an anthropologist and his daughter are together writing an ethnography about a fictional country. The country and its customs, language, and folk lore is funny, quirky, and absurd. We are reading the prologue and epilogue of this book throughout.
5. So what is the book really about? On the surface, it tells you it's about Fathers and Daughters, as well as drinking and reading. But I think it's also about free will and how we fill the roles we are given. Rarely is anyone saying their own words in this book. They are either reading from an eye chart or a screen at a spoken-word karaoke bar (clever, right?). It sometimes leads to confusion as a reader, but kind of makes an interesting point. We often get lost in the words and forget they're reading someone else's line. It's also written in a play format with scene direction and all, which is another layer of reading another's lines. How often are my words from someone else's script (in my head)? Kind of deep, right?
Anyway, I think I'm glad I read this book, but it was not easy. I would be reluctant to recommend this book to most of my friends, but with maybe an exception for that one friend who would "get it" more than I did.
August 6, 2023
It is a defining feature of all Mark Leyner novels that the reader, upon completing the novel, will query out-loud, “What the heck did I just read?” For me, the proffering of this outward exclamation was quite literally the case because I downloaded Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit only to complete the novel, turn to the electronic cover, and discover that I had in fact read Daughter (Waiting for Her Drunk Father to Return from the Men’s Room)—which is in fact, or at least I surmise is in fact, one and the same novel. It is also the case that “What the heck did I just read?” is an appropriate interjection for a novel in which the first half is narrated by a patient sitting in an optometrist’s chair misreading a Snellen chart, and in which the second half is a transcription of a discussion between a father and daughter reading their cues from video screens in a bar while armed revolutionaries pellet the bar’s windows with enucleated eyeballs, followed by a drunken trip to the men’s room. In other words, it is also the case that this is a pretty typical Leyner masterwork.
You plot-addicted masses, stay far away from this gem. There is nothing here for you. For those of us devoted to seeing how far the novel form will stretch before breaking into shards, however, this will delight you with wordplay and obscure culture referents, batter you with repetition and retelling, and appeal to and infuriate you in perfect measure. The book may be riddled with humor, but it is undergirded by a deep pathos of impending mortality, with Leyner reduced from subject of extreme narcissistic puffing to object of derision and creeping death. The reader who is not impaled by the underlying sadness that death takes us from all, from our most beloved, from those we love so powerfully that our love cannot be stated only felt, and that all we can do to express that anguish is emotively stumble like drunks in our death-throes, deserves not to read this book.
I do grade this book three stars, but it is only because I just re-read The Sugar-Frosted Nutsack, which is one the great early 21st Century American novels, and I am a cruel rater, and I cannot say this novel equals that novel in satiric madness.
You plot-addicted masses, stay far away from this gem. There is nothing here for you. For those of us devoted to seeing how far the novel form will stretch before breaking into shards, however, this will delight you with wordplay and obscure culture referents, batter you with repetition and retelling, and appeal to and infuriate you in perfect measure. The book may be riddled with humor, but it is undergirded by a deep pathos of impending mortality, with Leyner reduced from subject of extreme narcissistic puffing to object of derision and creeping death. The reader who is not impaled by the underlying sadness that death takes us from all, from our most beloved, from those we love so powerfully that our love cannot be stated only felt, and that all we can do to express that anguish is emotively stumble like drunks in our death-throes, deserves not to read this book.
I do grade this book three stars, but it is only because I just re-read The Sugar-Frosted Nutsack, which is one the great early 21st Century American novels, and I am a cruel rater, and I cannot say this novel equals that novel in satiric madness.
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