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Outside Looking In: The Seriously Funny Life and Work of George Carlin
OUTSIDE LOOKING THE SERIOUSLY FUNNY LIFE OF GEORGE CARLIN
- GenresHumor
251 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 15, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 14, 2024
Brisk retelling of Carlin’s early days, followed by chapters devoted to different media (stand up, books, specials, etc). This results in some jarring time jumps (ie: the chapter on his books will discuss his death, and the next chapter will jump back to his first HBO special) and things like having a heart attack get offhand mentions after the fact which make the narrative somewhat disjointed.
December 31, 2022
Author John Corcelli deftly presents Carlin’s evolution from clean-cut comedian to profane, astute observer of the human condition, perhaps the wittiest of irreverent philosophers to have ever lived. Along the way Corcelli introduces Carlin’s many influences, such as Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor. I kept putting the book down to look up videos of these legendary comedians and various instances of Carlin’s work, such as a fascinating early appearance on Marlo Thomas’s That Girl.
Expertly researched, written, structured and paced, I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining chronicle of one of my favourite comedians.
Full Disclosure: John is a friend of mine and I am listed in this book’s acknowledgements for “responding to (his) questions in a timely fashion.”
Merged review:
Author John Corcelli deftly presents Carlin’s evolution from clean-cut comedian to profane, astute observer of the human condition, perhaps the wittiest of irreverent philosophers to have ever lived. Along the way Corcelli introduces Carlin’s many influences, such as Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor. I kept putting the book down to look up videos of these legendary comedians and various instances of Carlin’s work, such as a fascinating early appearance on Marlo Thomas’s That Girl.
Expertly researched, written, structured and paced, I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining chronicle of one of my favourite comedians.
Full Disclosure: John is a friend of mine and I am listed in this book’s acknowledgements for “responding to (his) questions in a timely fashion.”
Expertly researched, written, structured and paced, I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining chronicle of one of my favourite comedians.
Full Disclosure: John is a friend of mine and I am listed in this book’s acknowledgements for “responding to (his) questions in a timely fashion.”
Merged review:
Author John Corcelli deftly presents Carlin’s evolution from clean-cut comedian to profane, astute observer of the human condition, perhaps the wittiest of irreverent philosophers to have ever lived. Along the way Corcelli introduces Carlin’s many influences, such as Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor. I kept putting the book down to look up videos of these legendary comedians and various instances of Carlin’s work, such as a fascinating early appearance on Marlo Thomas’s That Girl.
Expertly researched, written, structured and paced, I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining chronicle of one of my favourite comedians.
Full Disclosure: John is a friend of mine and I am listed in this book’s acknowledgements for “responding to (his) questions in a timely fashion.”
March 31, 2024
Very good history of how Carlin became the iconic stand up comedian of the 20th century and well into the 21st- most outstanding feature was the explanation of his work ethic
May 22, 2023
I liked the book. Learning the back story of one of my favorite comedians was interesting, but wished more of his actual work had been included.
March 25, 2025
Informative but somewhat disjointed biography of one of the late 20th century's more influential comedians. The presentation seemed a bit disorganized and unfocused sometimes. Though the book follows a very rough chronological progression, it does skip around in the middle which can be confusing. Also, information is repeated several times, often in quick succession, probably as a side effect of the disorganized presentation.
As for the occasional lack of focus, the narrative often wanders a bit too far from the point now and then. In a chapter discussing Carlin's influences (in which Carlin is barely mentioned at all), we are given far more detailed bios of other comedians like Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, and Richard Pryor than is really needed for purposes of this book. In the context of this book, we care about these other comedians for how they influenced George Carlin. We do not need to know when Mort Sahl was born, or what Richard Pryor's childhood was like, we need to know when and how Carlin knew them, and what their influence on him was.
Both of these problems start to get better toward the end of the book, thankfully. There comes a point about 2/3 of the way through that the narrative is basically done meandering and we get a more-or-less straight telling of the latter part of Carlin's life. This feels fairly abbreviated, which is strange because overall the book feels much longer than its 251 pages would suggest. I think this is due to the meandering first half and the frequent repetition of details.
There's a solid biography in here, but it would have benefited from some tighter editing.
As for the occasional lack of focus, the narrative often wanders a bit too far from the point now and then. In a chapter discussing Carlin's influences (in which Carlin is barely mentioned at all), we are given far more detailed bios of other comedians like Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, and Richard Pryor than is really needed for purposes of this book. In the context of this book, we care about these other comedians for how they influenced George Carlin. We do not need to know when Mort Sahl was born, or what Richard Pryor's childhood was like, we need to know when and how Carlin knew them, and what their influence on him was.
Both of these problems start to get better toward the end of the book, thankfully. There comes a point about 2/3 of the way through that the narrative is basically done meandering and we get a more-or-less straight telling of the latter part of Carlin's life. This feels fairly abbreviated, which is strange because overall the book feels much longer than its 251 pages would suggest. I think this is due to the meandering first half and the frequent repetition of details.
There's a solid biography in here, but it would have benefited from some tighter editing.
May 7, 2023
Seriously interesting book…grew up with George Carlin’s comedy…he was simply ahead of his time🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews