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Harold
A uniquely humorous and deeply profound novel from a legendary stand-up comedian that follows the thoughts of a 1960s third grader during a single day at school.
Steven Wright is one of the most significant and influential stand-up comedians in history. Rolling Stone ranked him fifteenth on their “50 Best Stand-ups of All Time” list, while the New York Times has written of his enduring legacy: “If you made a family tree of modern stand-up, he would top one of the few major and expanding branches. The children of Mr. Wright pack the comedy scene today.” Now comes his first novel, which is sure to be unlike anything you’ve ever read.
From the outside, Harold is an average seven-year-old third grader growing up in the 1960s. Bored by school. Crushing on a girl. Likes movies and baseball—especially the hometown Boston Red Sox. Enjoys spending time with his grandfather. But inside Harold’s mind, things are a lot more complex and unusual. His thoughts come to him as birds flying through a small rectangle in the middle of his brain. He visits an outdoor cafe on the moon and is invited aboard a spaceship by famed astronomer Carl Sagan. He envisions his own funeral procession and wonders if the driver of the hearse has even been born yet.
Harold documents the meandering, surreal, often hilarious, and always thought-provoking stream-of-consciousness ruminations of the title character during a single day in class. Saturated with the witticisms and profundities for which Wright’s groundbreaking stand-up has long been venerated, this novel will change the way you perceive your daily existence. To quote one of its many memorable lines: “Everything doesn’t have to make sense. Just look at the world and your life.”
Steven Wright is one of the most significant and influential stand-up comedians in history. Rolling Stone ranked him fifteenth on their “50 Best Stand-ups of All Time” list, while the New York Times has written of his enduring legacy: “If you made a family tree of modern stand-up, he would top one of the few major and expanding branches. The children of Mr. Wright pack the comedy scene today.” Now comes his first novel, which is sure to be unlike anything you’ve ever read.
From the outside, Harold is an average seven-year-old third grader growing up in the 1960s. Bored by school. Crushing on a girl. Likes movies and baseball—especially the hometown Boston Red Sox. Enjoys spending time with his grandfather. But inside Harold’s mind, things are a lot more complex and unusual. His thoughts come to him as birds flying through a small rectangle in the middle of his brain. He visits an outdoor cafe on the moon and is invited aboard a spaceship by famed astronomer Carl Sagan. He envisions his own funeral procession and wonders if the driver of the hearse has even been born yet.
Harold documents the meandering, surreal, often hilarious, and always thought-provoking stream-of-consciousness ruminations of the title character during a single day in class. Saturated with the witticisms and profundities for which Wright’s groundbreaking stand-up has long been venerated, this novel will change the way you perceive your daily existence. To quote one of its many memorable lines: “Everything doesn’t have to make sense. Just look at the world and your life.”
6 pages, Audiobook
First published May 16, 2023
564 people are currently reading
9682 people want to read
About the author
Steven Wright
24 books285 followersSteven Alexander Wright is an American comedian, actor and writer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, and one-liners with contrived situations.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 463 reviews
June 30, 2023
Harold smiled internally and externally so neither side of him would get jealous. That thought made him smile too. His head was a circus.
It was like the day he was born someone handed him a ticket to his brain.
Here's the first of what I hope to be many novels by stand-up comic and my once-upon-a-time pretend boyfriend, Stephen Wright.
Meet Harold. He is seven years old, and in the third grade. Birds and random thoughts fly in and out of his mind constantly.
He did more thinking than someone his age. Or any age.
There's no real plot here, no dysfunctional family, no car chases - just a marvelous jumble of stream of conciousness Haroldisms
Some of my favorites:
He loved stencils and the word stencil and what it meant and he thought that if he ever had a little girl he might name her Stencilina.
It became a routine for Harold that whenever Ms. Yuka said:
"May I have your attention?"
Under his breath he would say:
"Get your own attention."
Sometimes Harold saw his mind as an insane asylum where none of the rooms had doors.
If you like the above, you will probably enjoy this book. It's written in small snippets, and really doesn't need to be read all at once.
Come to think of it, this would probably make a great by-the-shitter book.
(Sorry, Harold.)
(And, Steven.)
It was like the day he was born someone handed him a ticket to his brain.
Here's the first of what I hope to be many novels by stand-up comic and my once-upon-a-time pretend boyfriend, Stephen Wright.
Meet Harold. He is seven years old, and in the third grade. Birds and random thoughts fly in and out of his mind constantly.
He did more thinking than someone his age. Or any age.
There's no real plot here, no dysfunctional family, no car chases - just a marvelous jumble of stream of conciousness Haroldisms
Some of my favorites:
He loved stencils and the word stencil and what it meant and he thought that if he ever had a little girl he might name her Stencilina.
It became a routine for Harold that whenever Ms. Yuka said:
"May I have your attention?"
Under his breath he would say:
"Get your own attention."
Sometimes Harold saw his mind as an insane asylum where none of the rooms had doors.
If you like the above, you will probably enjoy this book. It's written in small snippets, and really doesn't need to be read all at once.
Come to think of it, this would probably make a great by-the-shitter book.
(Sorry, Harold.)
(And, Steven.)
June 13, 2023
Love It… Wait, That’s Enough
Steven Wright is a comic genius, a true original, and his brilliant early performances on shows like Johnny Carson are gold mines to visit on YouTube. Looking at his peers, say on Saturday Night Live, some comics who sparkled in that framework were later able to parlay that success in motion pictures. Some routines, however, wore a little thin when stretched out to a full-length format. The question is, can the Steven Wright heartbeat sustain itself in a long form?
In his debut novel, Wright speaks to us through the imaginings of a seven-year-old boy named Harold. He daydreams throughout the school day, his ideas imported by exotic birds swooping through a rectangular opening into his consciousness. He shares wisdoms handed down by his grandfather, lessons learned from Lakota legend. When his mind returns to the classroom, he baffles his third-grade teacher with random philosophical questions, only to jet back into his imagination. There he finds himself and his possible girlfriend on the dark side of the moon, where they ponder the puzzles of God and the universe with Carl Sagan.
I found myself laughing out loud at so many points… Wright definitely has not lost his creative talent. His pacing, though, is difficult to keep up with. It is a dizzying journey into an M.C. Escher painting with stairways and gravity heading off in different directions. Unpredictable thoughts pop out like popcorn popping… or like a stand-up comedian spouting out one-liners. I enjoyed it in small portions, but it was difficult to hang in for longer sessions.
Thank you to Simon and Schuster and NetGalley and Edelweiss for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Steven Wright is a comic genius, a true original, and his brilliant early performances on shows like Johnny Carson are gold mines to visit on YouTube. Looking at his peers, say on Saturday Night Live, some comics who sparkled in that framework were later able to parlay that success in motion pictures. Some routines, however, wore a little thin when stretched out to a full-length format. The question is, can the Steven Wright heartbeat sustain itself in a long form?
In his debut novel, Wright speaks to us through the imaginings of a seven-year-old boy named Harold. He daydreams throughout the school day, his ideas imported by exotic birds swooping through a rectangular opening into his consciousness. He shares wisdoms handed down by his grandfather, lessons learned from Lakota legend. When his mind returns to the classroom, he baffles his third-grade teacher with random philosophical questions, only to jet back into his imagination. There he finds himself and his possible girlfriend on the dark side of the moon, where they ponder the puzzles of God and the universe with Carl Sagan.
I found myself laughing out loud at so many points… Wright definitely has not lost his creative talent. His pacing, though, is difficult to keep up with. It is a dizzying journey into an M.C. Escher painting with stairways and gravity heading off in different directions. Unpredictable thoughts pop out like popcorn popping… or like a stand-up comedian spouting out one-liners. I enjoyed it in small portions, but it was difficult to hang in for longer sessions.
Thank you to Simon and Schuster and NetGalley and Edelweiss for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
March 17, 2023
The gorgeous book cover and description of the plot (stream-of-consciousness of a third-grade boy) inspired me to read this novel by Steven Wright. Wright is apparently a famous comedian, but I was unfamiliar with his work.
There were so many things that did not work for me, unfortunately, but I'd like to start with a couple of positives:
Sprinkled throughout this story are some absolutely beautiful, heart-breaking sentences, such as this one:
"His grandfather told him that rather than measuring time with clocks whenever you see a bird it can be a click, a nudge to be aware of your time, that a bird is like a live second hand."
Harold, who is our 7 year-old narrator, experiences new thoughts in his head as different types of very specific birds, who fly into a rectangular-shaped area in his brain. Each time a new bird flies into the rectangle, he describes what he's now seeing in his mind. These are often very vivid and strange scenes, which transport him out of his third-grade classroom, and into other temporary realms. I thought this was a lovely way of describing thought patterns--birds flying into a rectangle, and this concept initially drew me into the story.
I also thought that the character of Harold's grandfather had many wise sayings, which Harold imparts throughout the story. I enjoyed reading some tidbits about the Lakota tribe, which is part of Harold's ancestry.
So, what did not work for me (at all):
There is absolutely no instance where a 7 year-old boy (who is apparently in 3rd grade...this seems young for 3rd grade, in the 1960s?), describes his thoughts and feelings in the way Harold does throughout this novel. The tone of Harold sounds much more like a disgruntled 45 year-old man, who has negative things to say about fat people, religion, politicians, women, sex, etc... There were times when I was truly appalled by the often-rambling sentences I was reading, which were supposed to be coming from a 7 year-old. For example:
"A stunning Albino Blackbird glided through the rectangle with an emotionless face like the look that some very beautiful women have because they're so used to men looking at them with their mouths open in awe and even though they act like it doesn't matter to them and some of them even act like the men are actually rude for looking at them and some of these women will experience an emotional self-esteem plane crash when time washes their beauty away like someone cleaning the sand off a sidewalk with a garden hose."
Yes, there are unfortunately, many, many sentences that go on, and on, and on like this one. I understand that children often ramble, and it's to be expected in a stream-of-consciousness narrative, but the thoughts described for Harold do not at all sound like thoughts a child would think or say, like, ever.
I also did not appreciate the random, insults (which Harold thinks, supposedly) about mental illness (specifically insanity), fat people ("The problem with fat people is they never eat on an empty stomach"; sexual identity ("This was in the 1960s not like many many years later when it would become like going through a sexual identity salad bar.". Harold also uses expletives a lot, which I don't have a problem with, but when he uses them, they just sound so out of place, like the author was randomly sprinkling them in. Again, I have zero issues with reading books that are explicit or deal with dark, complicated subjects--in fact, I prefer a really deep, dark, complex story that stretches the imagination. This one, however, felt like it was the author (or another adult male) speaking the entire time, and I got very tired of hearing that voice when I was expecting to hear a young child's instead.
There were also many instances where Harold would think or say something, and I got the feeling the author was trying to be funny (probably because he's a comedian), but the jokes truly fell flat--they were insulting and just not funny, not even in a poking-fun-at-someone-jokingly kind of way. Harold often thought very adult-sexual thoughts about his teacher and another female student in his grade (and not cute 7 year-old crush thoughts). Those were there as well, but then out of nowhere Harold would think something extremely racy and at one point the author even describes the teacher feeling horny during class (?).
I was relieved when I finished the book, mostly because I didn't want to hear the voice of Harold anymore (whoever he was, which is not a child).
I thought the concept for this story was great. Sadly, it didn't work for me, but perhaps it will for someone else. I still love the cover art so there's that.
Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
There were so many things that did not work for me, unfortunately, but I'd like to start with a couple of positives:
Sprinkled throughout this story are some absolutely beautiful, heart-breaking sentences, such as this one:
"His grandfather told him that rather than measuring time with clocks whenever you see a bird it can be a click, a nudge to be aware of your time, that a bird is like a live second hand."
Harold, who is our 7 year-old narrator, experiences new thoughts in his head as different types of very specific birds, who fly into a rectangular-shaped area in his brain. Each time a new bird flies into the rectangle, he describes what he's now seeing in his mind. These are often very vivid and strange scenes, which transport him out of his third-grade classroom, and into other temporary realms. I thought this was a lovely way of describing thought patterns--birds flying into a rectangle, and this concept initially drew me into the story.
I also thought that the character of Harold's grandfather had many wise sayings, which Harold imparts throughout the story. I enjoyed reading some tidbits about the Lakota tribe, which is part of Harold's ancestry.
So, what did not work for me (at all):
There is absolutely no instance where a 7 year-old boy (who is apparently in 3rd grade...this seems young for 3rd grade, in the 1960s?), describes his thoughts and feelings in the way Harold does throughout this novel. The tone of Harold sounds much more like a disgruntled 45 year-old man, who has negative things to say about fat people, religion, politicians, women, sex, etc... There were times when I was truly appalled by the often-rambling sentences I was reading, which were supposed to be coming from a 7 year-old. For example:
"A stunning Albino Blackbird glided through the rectangle with an emotionless face like the look that some very beautiful women have because they're so used to men looking at them with their mouths open in awe and even though they act like it doesn't matter to them and some of them even act like the men are actually rude for looking at them and some of these women will experience an emotional self-esteem plane crash when time washes their beauty away like someone cleaning the sand off a sidewalk with a garden hose."
Yes, there are unfortunately, many, many sentences that go on, and on, and on like this one. I understand that children often ramble, and it's to be expected in a stream-of-consciousness narrative, but the thoughts described for Harold do not at all sound like thoughts a child would think or say, like, ever.
I also did not appreciate the random, insults (which Harold thinks, supposedly) about mental illness (specifically insanity), fat people ("The problem with fat people is they never eat on an empty stomach"; sexual identity ("This was in the 1960s not like many many years later when it would become like going through a sexual identity salad bar.". Harold also uses expletives a lot, which I don't have a problem with, but when he uses them, they just sound so out of place, like the author was randomly sprinkling them in. Again, I have zero issues with reading books that are explicit or deal with dark, complicated subjects--in fact, I prefer a really deep, dark, complex story that stretches the imagination. This one, however, felt like it was the author (or another adult male) speaking the entire time, and I got very tired of hearing that voice when I was expecting to hear a young child's instead.
There were also many instances where Harold would think or say something, and I got the feeling the author was trying to be funny (probably because he's a comedian), but the jokes truly fell flat--they were insulting and just not funny, not even in a poking-fun-at-someone-jokingly kind of way. Harold often thought very adult-sexual thoughts about his teacher and another female student in his grade (and not cute 7 year-old crush thoughts). Those were there as well, but then out of nowhere Harold would think something extremely racy and at one point the author even describes the teacher feeling horny during class (?).
I was relieved when I finished the book, mostly because I didn't want to hear the voice of Harold anymore (whoever he was, which is not a child).
I thought the concept for this story was great. Sadly, it didn't work for me, but perhaps it will for someone else. I still love the cover art so there's that.
Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
June 10, 2023
One of the best novels I’ve ever read. A very unique novel of daydreams a little boy named Harold has while sitting in school. On just about every page there was a startling thought worth the price of entry. You get that 240 times. Most books have it once or twice. Anyways. Read this one.
May 17, 2023
Disclaimer: I won a free ARC of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
Every bit as weird and wonderful as you'd expect from the mind of Steven Wright. Harold is a somewhat precocious third grade student in a classroom in 1965. The entire book takes place inside his head as his mind wanders from topic to topic. That's it. There's not really a plot, at least not as the term is commonly understood. There is a flow, and, as a reader, I found myself drifting with the current.
I've been a fan of Wright's work ever since hearing some of his comedy on the local college radio station. I bought a copy of his first album, I Have A Pony, and have been a fan ever since.
The novel definitely feels like an extension of his comedy. He's always had a knack for unique and surreal ideas and imagery. Being able to write without the need to constantly set up punchlines seems to have unleashed his imagination tenfold.
The time period and Harold's age seem only loosely adhered to. There are times when he feels older than seven, and there are references in his thoughts and dreams that seem to be from the 70's rather than the 60's (one anachronism is even footnoted by Wright with a comment to the effect of, Yeah, it doesn't fit the time period; So sue me.) None of these really matter, though, and there are definite flashforwards to Harold's teen and adult years, so at least most of these inconsistencies can be explained away as simply memories from his older self.
In the end, it's a lovely, fascinating book that will likely give you new perspectives on many aspects of life. Recommended!
Every bit as weird and wonderful as you'd expect from the mind of Steven Wright. Harold is a somewhat precocious third grade student in a classroom in 1965. The entire book takes place inside his head as his mind wanders from topic to topic. That's it. There's not really a plot, at least not as the term is commonly understood. There is a flow, and, as a reader, I found myself drifting with the current.
I've been a fan of Wright's work ever since hearing some of his comedy on the local college radio station. I bought a copy of his first album, I Have A Pony, and have been a fan ever since.
The novel definitely feels like an extension of his comedy. He's always had a knack for unique and surreal ideas and imagery. Being able to write without the need to constantly set up punchlines seems to have unleashed his imagination tenfold.
The time period and Harold's age seem only loosely adhered to. There are times when he feels older than seven, and there are references in his thoughts and dreams that seem to be from the 70's rather than the 60's (one anachronism is even footnoted by Wright with a comment to the effect of, Yeah, it doesn't fit the time period; So sue me.) None of these really matter, though, and there are definite flashforwards to Harold's teen and adult years, so at least most of these inconsistencies can be explained away as simply memories from his older self.
In the end, it's a lovely, fascinating book that will likely give you new perspectives on many aspects of life. Recommended!
May 22, 2023
DNFed. I get the idea. Would’ve been better as a short story.
May 24, 2023
The ramblings and daydreams of a seven-year-old boy… only that the scornful undertones make it sound like the protagonist is a man-child 7 times that age. The second star is for the interweaved bird imagery alone... and the cover!
Thank God it’s over, if there is a God.
Thank God it’s over, if there is a God.
October 13, 2023
I found this quirky & odd all wrapped into one. Just not a fan, as it was hard to even give it a 3.
January 28, 2025
For those unfamiliar with the author, Steven Wright's brand of comedy is unlike most and his renown in the stand up community grew rapidly..I would categorize his style as 'Obtuse Dead Pan' since his take on every topic is not only funny, but weird. I personally found his approach hilarious and his popularity moved him from stage to television rapidly.
This being his only novel, its clear its not only personal, but a vehicle to express his oddball views that are often laugh out loud. Told through third person POV, we experience the life of an unusual. 7 year old boy who questions authority and the existence of God..or not. Harold likens thoughts to an amazing variety of birds that 'fly through the rectangle' in his head.
Fascinated by Ms. Yuka, his third grade teacher and an attractive classmate, Elizabeth, the 'birds' cause commentary of all sorts and his 'twilight zone' dreams add to the craziness. Harold holds his grandfather in highest esteem and his impact on his life is formidable. His mother was committed to a mental health facility years previous due to her unwillingness to stop talking. That said, there's a strong undercurrent of love throughout the story which lightens his view of spirituality. Harold is both strange and brilliant simultaneously, and I feel confident saying this is a 'memoir' of sorts rather than fiction.
About two thirds of the way through, Harold and Elizabeth go on a field trip to the nearby planetarium, which triggers an epic dream sequence on the moon. Given the strange experiences the boy describes, I couldn't help but think the author was high on something illegal :)
It takes an open mind and appreciation for obtuse views as well as an outlandish sense of humor. If you enjoy laughter and are open to something out of the ordinary, I'd suggest you add this to your list.
This being his only novel, its clear its not only personal, but a vehicle to express his oddball views that are often laugh out loud. Told through third person POV, we experience the life of an unusual. 7 year old boy who questions authority and the existence of God..or not. Harold likens thoughts to an amazing variety of birds that 'fly through the rectangle' in his head.
Fascinated by Ms. Yuka, his third grade teacher and an attractive classmate, Elizabeth, the 'birds' cause commentary of all sorts and his 'twilight zone' dreams add to the craziness. Harold holds his grandfather in highest esteem and his impact on his life is formidable. His mother was committed to a mental health facility years previous due to her unwillingness to stop talking. That said, there's a strong undercurrent of love throughout the story which lightens his view of spirituality. Harold is both strange and brilliant simultaneously, and I feel confident saying this is a 'memoir' of sorts rather than fiction.
About two thirds of the way through, Harold and Elizabeth go on a field trip to the nearby planetarium, which triggers an epic dream sequence on the moon. Given the strange experiences the boy describes, I couldn't help but think the author was high on something illegal :)
It takes an open mind and appreciation for obtuse views as well as an outlandish sense of humor. If you enjoy laughter and are open to something out of the ordinary, I'd suggest you add this to your list.
June 16, 2023
First, I love Steven Wright. He's hilarious.
This book was awful. To call it a "novel" is just plain wrong. To call it 235 pages of ramblings of a 60 year old man supposedly disguised as the thoughts of a 7 year old is more honest. The first 50 pages were interesting, but he may as well have copy and pasted those 50 pages over and over as the "novel" never told a story. At all.
This is the second worst book I've ever read. If I could, I'd give it no stars.
Also, learn how to use a comma.
This book was awful. To call it a "novel" is just plain wrong. To call it 235 pages of ramblings of a 60 year old man supposedly disguised as the thoughts of a 7 year old is more honest. The first 50 pages were interesting, but he may as well have copy and pasted those 50 pages over and over as the "novel" never told a story. At all.
This is the second worst book I've ever read. If I could, I'd give it no stars.
Also, learn how to use a comma.
April 27, 2023
The inner Harold unveiled!
Of course anything Steven Wright puts pen to will be a stream of consciousness seemingly endless.
Harold is akin to Wright’s’ inner seven year old boy with an adult understanding, despite his innocence.
Dry, remorseless even, in his diatribe, Harold’s imagination is one where adults go to hide. Speaking of hidden, much of Harold’s sideways moves come through a series of rectangular windows opening up in his head. They’re a brilliant segue! Those birds who deliver his thoughts and questions are part of the wonder. And such birds!
Harold’s questions are a thing of beauty. Of course they happen on the inside. Ms. Yuka just isn’t worth asking questions of on the outside! Ms.Yuka fortunately is not inside Harold’s head, except in dreams.
I hear Wright’s in concert voice, in my head. This is pure Steven Wright blending with the known, yet giving new voices. Ha! Genius! Nobel stuff to me! (a reference!)
Harold is like no other thirdrd grade child, he’s Wright’s voice piece—seemingly innocent, maybe stubborn, satirical, ironic, and piercing. A book for those who appreciate Wright and are prepared to put up with his non PC references and entertaining voyeurism. Either brilliant or a complete faux, I’m coming down on the brilliant side.
A Simon & Schuster ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)
Of course anything Steven Wright puts pen to will be a stream of consciousness seemingly endless.
Harold is akin to Wright’s’ inner seven year old boy with an adult understanding, despite his innocence.
Dry, remorseless even, in his diatribe, Harold’s imagination is one where adults go to hide. Speaking of hidden, much of Harold’s sideways moves come through a series of rectangular windows opening up in his head. They’re a brilliant segue! Those birds who deliver his thoughts and questions are part of the wonder. And such birds!
Harold’s questions are a thing of beauty. Of course they happen on the inside. Ms. Yuka just isn’t worth asking questions of on the outside! Ms.Yuka fortunately is not inside Harold’s head, except in dreams.
I hear Wright’s in concert voice, in my head. This is pure Steven Wright blending with the known, yet giving new voices. Ha! Genius! Nobel stuff to me! (a reference!)
Harold is like no other thirdrd grade child, he’s Wright’s voice piece—seemingly innocent, maybe stubborn, satirical, ironic, and piercing. A book for those who appreciate Wright and are prepared to put up with his non PC references and entertaining voyeurism. Either brilliant or a complete faux, I’m coming down on the brilliant side.
A Simon & Schuster ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)
May 30, 2023
Hilarious and delightful. Felt kind of like the literary equivalent of a Wes Anderson tribute to Calvin & Hobbes — and I mean that in the best way possible.
May 4, 2023
The joy of Steven Wright is that life is a non sequitur. No two thoughts are ever connected. You never know what he will say next, other than it will have nothing to do with what he has already said. So when Steven Wright writes a novel, it would just have to be out there. And so it is, in Harold, Steven Wright’s first novel.
Harold is a seven year old third grader with a tremendously independent, unfettered and fertile imagination. (As an infant, his first words were “Your witness.”) In his daily boredom at school, he daydreams. He is the vehicle for a Grand Canyon full of one liners and out there concepts that are the stock in trade of Steven Wright.
There is a neat gimmick to deliver all these disparate concepts. Harold has a rectangular frame in his brain, and birds of all stripe from the common to the extinct to the made up, fly through it. That is the cue for a new thought to get himself out of whatever corner he has painted himself into. It works very well, helping to keep the pace dancing. He identifies each bird, but one time “A bird flew through the rectangle so quickly it cannot be described. Like everybody’s life.”
The scene is 1961 Massachusetts. Wright tries to bring to life the pop culture of the era, but he seems to bristle at the limitations Harold presents him. So every so often, there are references to Harold thinking about people and events that haven’t happened yet, like the introduction of the Boeing 747 or the pillaging of Vietnam.
To be clear, there is no plot, and there are really only four characters of any importance: Harold, his grandfather, a classmate/crush called Elizabeth, and of course his teacher, an Asian woman named Ms Yuka.
His memories of them are stereotypical. His grandfather is his favorite. He lives on a lake in Maine, and imparts the wisdom of the ages to Harold (Never do anything a woman tells you). Elizabeth is a seven year old blonde bombshell two rows up, which causes Harold all kinds of confusion, because he somehow knows with certainty he will be hurt and damaged not only by her, but by many women he will be drawn to: “He was aware, even at his age, that if she knew how much he really liked her she would be in charge and his life would be ruined.” His teacher, who he claimed to like, is fed up with Harold’s neverending non sequitur questions, and he fantasizes cursing her and punishing her in interesting ways. When she says “May I have your attention,” under his breath he would say: “Get your own attention.” Or getting permission to go the bathroom, he just sits there: “I don’t have to go, I just wanted to know if I could go.”
The stage is set for Harold to escape into a blistering adventure of ideas, thoughts, concepts and observations. They take him to moon, where he meets Carl Sagan (who was totally unknown in 1961) in a plywood spaceship by a lake on the dark side. Sagan is on his way to deliver 500 merry-go-round horses to God’s office in the Milky Way. He gives Harold and Elizabeth wallet sized copies of the famous Blue Dot photo (Earth, seen from space), which would not be shot until several years later. But both Harold and Elizabeth know all about it.
Then, to top it off, Wright enters the narrative near the end. He, the narrator, suddenly says “I” in: “This little boy didn’t know what would happen in his life, but I did.” Or if it’s not Wright, who is this sudden new character? Is it God, who has seen fit to torture this child using his own brain? Because throughout the book, Harold continually references God, with the qualifier “if there is a God.” It is the most common meme in the book. Is God simply amused by Harold?
The narrator makes one more appearance a little later, saying “I don’t know if you noticed or not but in this story he hardly mentions his own mother.” Well, the narrator declared Harold’s mother mentally ill very early on, and she is not any kind of inspiration or support for Harold, the child or the book.
Harold can be rather precocious for a seven year old. His analysis of grade school is “Is this a school or a lobotomy factory?” Wright says Harold is sometimes “like a bird trapped inside a building, desperately trying to find a way back to the sky.” He also maintains he never gets lonely because “the human brain is a portable universe.”
There are of course, innumerable quick laughs among all the non sequiturs.
-“So when exactly did you lose track of time?”
-On trying coffee the first time: “It tastes like cocoa with poison in it.”
-On politicians on TV: “ ‘Do you agree that you are not answering the question?’ Then no matter what he says he should be beaten until he’s unconscious on live television with no criminal consequences.”
-“He wondered if there could be three dimensional shadows.”
-“He thought the white square (of a priest’s collar) looked like a little movie screen and wouldn’t it be great to project a movie right on there.”
It’s not the great American novel, but there are so many concepts in it, it could be the basis for a series of books, all totally unrelated. That’s how fertile Wright’s mind is. He can afford to toss off and waste great one-liners just in passing. And there is no doubt whatsoever that these shots are Wright-isms. He’s a unique franchise.
Good fun.
David Wineberg
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
Harold is a seven year old third grader with a tremendously independent, unfettered and fertile imagination. (As an infant, his first words were “Your witness.”) In his daily boredom at school, he daydreams. He is the vehicle for a Grand Canyon full of one liners and out there concepts that are the stock in trade of Steven Wright.
There is a neat gimmick to deliver all these disparate concepts. Harold has a rectangular frame in his brain, and birds of all stripe from the common to the extinct to the made up, fly through it. That is the cue for a new thought to get himself out of whatever corner he has painted himself into. It works very well, helping to keep the pace dancing. He identifies each bird, but one time “A bird flew through the rectangle so quickly it cannot be described. Like everybody’s life.”
The scene is 1961 Massachusetts. Wright tries to bring to life the pop culture of the era, but he seems to bristle at the limitations Harold presents him. So every so often, there are references to Harold thinking about people and events that haven’t happened yet, like the introduction of the Boeing 747 or the pillaging of Vietnam.
To be clear, there is no plot, and there are really only four characters of any importance: Harold, his grandfather, a classmate/crush called Elizabeth, and of course his teacher, an Asian woman named Ms Yuka.
His memories of them are stereotypical. His grandfather is his favorite. He lives on a lake in Maine, and imparts the wisdom of the ages to Harold (Never do anything a woman tells you). Elizabeth is a seven year old blonde bombshell two rows up, which causes Harold all kinds of confusion, because he somehow knows with certainty he will be hurt and damaged not only by her, but by many women he will be drawn to: “He was aware, even at his age, that if she knew how much he really liked her she would be in charge and his life would be ruined.” His teacher, who he claimed to like, is fed up with Harold’s neverending non sequitur questions, and he fantasizes cursing her and punishing her in interesting ways. When she says “May I have your attention,” under his breath he would say: “Get your own attention.” Or getting permission to go the bathroom, he just sits there: “I don’t have to go, I just wanted to know if I could go.”
The stage is set for Harold to escape into a blistering adventure of ideas, thoughts, concepts and observations. They take him to moon, where he meets Carl Sagan (who was totally unknown in 1961) in a plywood spaceship by a lake on the dark side. Sagan is on his way to deliver 500 merry-go-round horses to God’s office in the Milky Way. He gives Harold and Elizabeth wallet sized copies of the famous Blue Dot photo (Earth, seen from space), which would not be shot until several years later. But both Harold and Elizabeth know all about it.
Then, to top it off, Wright enters the narrative near the end. He, the narrator, suddenly says “I” in: “This little boy didn’t know what would happen in his life, but I did.” Or if it’s not Wright, who is this sudden new character? Is it God, who has seen fit to torture this child using his own brain? Because throughout the book, Harold continually references God, with the qualifier “if there is a God.” It is the most common meme in the book. Is God simply amused by Harold?
The narrator makes one more appearance a little later, saying “I don’t know if you noticed or not but in this story he hardly mentions his own mother.” Well, the narrator declared Harold’s mother mentally ill very early on, and she is not any kind of inspiration or support for Harold, the child or the book.
Harold can be rather precocious for a seven year old. His analysis of grade school is “Is this a school or a lobotomy factory?” Wright says Harold is sometimes “like a bird trapped inside a building, desperately trying to find a way back to the sky.” He also maintains he never gets lonely because “the human brain is a portable universe.”
There are of course, innumerable quick laughs among all the non sequiturs.
-“So when exactly did you lose track of time?”
-On trying coffee the first time: “It tastes like cocoa with poison in it.”
-On politicians on TV: “ ‘Do you agree that you are not answering the question?’ Then no matter what he says he should be beaten until he’s unconscious on live television with no criminal consequences.”
-“He wondered if there could be three dimensional shadows.”
-“He thought the white square (of a priest’s collar) looked like a little movie screen and wouldn’t it be great to project a movie right on there.”
It’s not the great American novel, but there are so many concepts in it, it could be the basis for a series of books, all totally unrelated. That’s how fertile Wright’s mind is. He can afford to toss off and waste great one-liners just in passing. And there is no doubt whatsoever that these shots are Wright-isms. He’s a unique franchise.
Good fun.
David Wineberg
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
July 10, 2023
A surreal novel about one day in the mental life of a 7-year old named Harold. If you are a fan of Steven Wright and his unique style of comedy, you should try this.
"From his conversations with his grandfather and comments he made he learned that being in love with someone was a very tricky thing and was like gambling with the idea of yourself. It was a package deal of positive and negative emotions - a pendulum festival - like being served a birthday cake that might have poison in it."
Like some other reviewers, I found it was better to read this in chunks, rather than straight through. My brain got tired when I tried to take it all in like a typical novel. He's on a whole other level, and I am so thrilled to have something new from this amazing artist.
"From his conversations with his grandfather and comments he made he learned that being in love with someone was a very tricky thing and was like gambling with the idea of yourself. It was a package deal of positive and negative emotions - a pendulum festival - like being served a birthday cake that might have poison in it."
Like some other reviewers, I found it was better to read this in chunks, rather than straight through. My brain got tired when I tried to take it all in like a typical novel. He's on a whole other level, and I am so thrilled to have something new from this amazing artist.
March 9, 2025
Rounding up to two stars out of my appreciation and respect for his early stand-up comedy and appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. So many of his one-liners from those days are still stuck in my head in a good way.
This is a non-stop stream of consciousness of a 7 year old boy during one day of school, and he daydreams a lot. It’s the same thing page after page. Any time the word God is mentioned, it’s followed by “if there is a God.” Which is fine, but not 25-30 times in a 240 page book.
The best part about the book, besides being done, is the cover.
This is a non-stop stream of consciousness of a 7 year old boy during one day of school, and he daydreams a lot. It’s the same thing page after page. Any time the word God is mentioned, it’s followed by “if there is a God.” Which is fine, but not 25-30 times in a 240 page book.
The best part about the book, besides being done, is the cover.
June 13, 2023
I thought it was one of the greatest wastes of my time I've ever allowed myself to endure. And it totally changed my opinion of Steven Wright from eclectic and humorous comedian, to just a weird guy.
August 21, 2023
I stuck with the whole book, but no thanks. It just didn’t do it for me.
August 19, 2023
Not really sure who this was for nor the drive of the author to even take the time to write it? It's interesting that the book attempts to capture a day of daydreaming in the life of young student at the halfway power nt of the 1900s but...that's it... Mkay.
May 29, 2023
So sporadic that I was just really confused at times.
March 19, 2024
Made it 50% then DNFed. So utterly boring. Once in a while, there's a random thought in there that may make you go, "Hm. Yeah. Never thought about that." But otherwise just boring boring boring.
September 14, 2023
I have adored Steven Wright as a comedian ever since he stepped onto Johnny Carson’s stage, decades ago. His monotone delivery and deadpan humor, combined with some seriously wild thoughts on all kinds of matters, made for some hilarious stand up routines. But it just doesn’t work in this novel at all. What may have been funny in a 5-minute stand-up routine becomes tiring, here. I have also lost a lot of respect for Steven Wright as a man, and a human being after reading his novel. I thought he was better than this. How stupid of me, I guess.
Anyway, Harold is obsessed with birds and has a rectangular window in his brain through which assorted birds fly in, mouthing varied observations about life. They sound more like a cantankerous old man who has negative things to say about fat people, religion, politicians, women, sex, and then adds a bizarre and grisly fantasy attack on criminal defense lawyers. There were times when I was truly appalled by the way this 67 year old man (the author) made a seven-year-old **from the 1960s** named Harold, have a very foul mouth (in his mind, at least), and some terrible attitudes about sex and women that are far, far, beyond what a seven-year-old would usually have. It was very hard to escape the many comments made about women that are less about Harold and more about Wright’s (possibly rejection-based..?) hostility. As those comments pile up, and it quickly becomes an overload as I found it difficult to get to any semblance of story. Mainly because we are stuck in the mind of a character who is at least, in part, based on Steven Wright himself, and that mind is moving faster than Robin Williams on speed. And it’s not fair for a grown man of 67 to dump all his hang-ups on a 7 year old boy, even a fictional boy. Seriously, Harold has such a sexualized view of the world, and this is the world of 1965. So not only is there no internet, there’s no cable tv as we know it today. So instead, Harold’s just a kid who thinks about doing lewd things to his teacher, and his classmate Elizabeth. How Ew.
At one point, Harold’s grandpa tells him “Listen to me—don’t ever do what a woman tells you to do.” With guidance like that, let’s hope Harold finds a good therapist sooner rather than later.
While it is written from the perspective of a 7-year-old “daydreaming” in class, the framework allows for no plot and a series of random thoughts that gradually increase in absurdity. Though not in a way that struck me as comic. There were a few lines that made me laugh, but only a few. It’s hard not to read this as a 67 year old comedy writer impersonating the thoughts of a boy, rather than as the thoughts of an actual 7-year-old. And paragraphs like this really struck me, hard:
"A stunning Albino Blackbird glided through the rectangle with an emotionless face like the look that some very beautiful women have because they're so used to men looking at them with their mouths open in awe and even though they act like it doesn't matter to them and some of them even act like the men are actually rude for looking at them and some of these women will experience an emotional self-esteem plane crash when time washes their beauty away like someone cleaning the sand off a sidewalk with a garden hose."
For more quotes on Wright’s insults disguised as comedy, please read this wonderful review that makes way more sense:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I agree with everything Lisa Weldy says in this review, except the part where she states that Harold’s grandfather had many wise sayings. I’m betting that Harold spent entirely way too much time with his old grandfather, and maybe this is where he got all of his awful views, and how he sees women, etc.
So listening to this novel on audiobook didn’t help Steven Wright at all. His entire novel was read to us in Wright’s deadpan, monotone voice, and it literally kept trying to put me to sleep at a few times. I had to drink gallons of tea to keep going. Who knew that this comedian wouldn’t do well at narration…? Certainly not I, for some extremely dumb reason. Simon & Schuster Audio, PLEASE don’t do that again, pretty please? It was painful to get through.
Why did I keep going, you might ask? Well every once in a while there were some funny lines, and at ONE time, a whole funny paragraph. I was hoping that this would continue. It really and truly didn’t. I instead kept either getting frustrated at Wright’s ‘old man yelling at cloud’ views, and trying desperately not to pass out cold.
And guys, I really, REALLY loved his stand up routines…! I’m not only shook, but incredibly disappointed. In Wright, in Simon & Schuster Audio, and everyone else who thought this novel might be a good idea. This is really painful to me. I could have used this time on some other, more deserving novel.
So I’m giving this novel 2 stars, and recommending that you DO NOT read it, unless you really enjoy these kinds of views. And you really don’t like commas….. (Dude, learn how to use a comma!)
Anyway, Harold is obsessed with birds and has a rectangular window in his brain through which assorted birds fly in, mouthing varied observations about life. They sound more like a cantankerous old man who has negative things to say about fat people, religion, politicians, women, sex, and then adds a bizarre and grisly fantasy attack on criminal defense lawyers. There were times when I was truly appalled by the way this 67 year old man (the author) made a seven-year-old **from the 1960s** named Harold, have a very foul mouth (in his mind, at least), and some terrible attitudes about sex and women that are far, far, beyond what a seven-year-old would usually have. It was very hard to escape the many comments made about women that are less about Harold and more about Wright’s (possibly rejection-based..?) hostility. As those comments pile up, and it quickly becomes an overload as I found it difficult to get to any semblance of story. Mainly because we are stuck in the mind of a character who is at least, in part, based on Steven Wright himself, and that mind is moving faster than Robin Williams on speed. And it’s not fair for a grown man of 67 to dump all his hang-ups on a 7 year old boy, even a fictional boy. Seriously, Harold has such a sexualized view of the world, and this is the world of 1965. So not only is there no internet, there’s no cable tv as we know it today. So instead, Harold’s just a kid who thinks about doing lewd things to his teacher, and his classmate Elizabeth. How Ew.
At one point, Harold’s grandpa tells him “Listen to me—don’t ever do what a woman tells you to do.” With guidance like that, let’s hope Harold finds a good therapist sooner rather than later.
While it is written from the perspective of a 7-year-old “daydreaming” in class, the framework allows for no plot and a series of random thoughts that gradually increase in absurdity. Though not in a way that struck me as comic. There were a few lines that made me laugh, but only a few. It’s hard not to read this as a 67 year old comedy writer impersonating the thoughts of a boy, rather than as the thoughts of an actual 7-year-old. And paragraphs like this really struck me, hard:
"A stunning Albino Blackbird glided through the rectangle with an emotionless face like the look that some very beautiful women have because they're so used to men looking at them with their mouths open in awe and even though they act like it doesn't matter to them and some of them even act like the men are actually rude for looking at them and some of these women will experience an emotional self-esteem plane crash when time washes their beauty away like someone cleaning the sand off a sidewalk with a garden hose."
For more quotes on Wright’s insults disguised as comedy, please read this wonderful review that makes way more sense:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I agree with everything Lisa Weldy says in this review, except the part where she states that Harold’s grandfather had many wise sayings. I’m betting that Harold spent entirely way too much time with his old grandfather, and maybe this is where he got all of his awful views, and how he sees women, etc.
So listening to this novel on audiobook didn’t help Steven Wright at all. His entire novel was read to us in Wright’s deadpan, monotone voice, and it literally kept trying to put me to sleep at a few times. I had to drink gallons of tea to keep going. Who knew that this comedian wouldn’t do well at narration…? Certainly not I, for some extremely dumb reason. Simon & Schuster Audio, PLEASE don’t do that again, pretty please? It was painful to get through.
Why did I keep going, you might ask? Well every once in a while there were some funny lines, and at ONE time, a whole funny paragraph. I was hoping that this would continue. It really and truly didn’t. I instead kept either getting frustrated at Wright’s ‘old man yelling at cloud’ views, and trying desperately not to pass out cold.
And guys, I really, REALLY loved his stand up routines…! I’m not only shook, but incredibly disappointed. In Wright, in Simon & Schuster Audio, and everyone else who thought this novel might be a good idea. This is really painful to me. I could have used this time on some other, more deserving novel.
So I’m giving this novel 2 stars, and recommending that you DO NOT read it, unless you really enjoy these kinds of views. And you really don’t like commas….. (Dude, learn how to use a comma!)
May 24, 2023
On August 6th, 1982, The Tonight Show’s Johnny Carson prophetically said, “I think you’re going to find him a little different.” Moments later Steven Wright made his national television debut. His surreal, absurdist one-liners, delivered in an endlessly downbeat monotone, have continued to be “a little different” for the last forty years. Now, the master of upside-down concision and bottoms-up compression, whose very career is a gravelly whispered ode to implausibility, has seemingly done the impossible by stretching out his focus to novel length.
How do you transition from packing ironic wisdom into five-word sentences, like the classic “Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow,” to storytelling over several hundred pages?
A clue lies in Wright’s comedy: “Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.” And so every literary form is writing distance, if you have the time. Which Wright apparently did, explaining in recent interviews that it took him seven years to write Harold, published on May 16th by Simon & Schuster. He started by posting one sentence at a time on Twitter, and then decided to work offline, mainly during two-hour coffee highs.
But is word-count enough to fashion a novel? What about plot? Narrative structure? Character development? Themes?
Wright forgoes most of this, focusing instead on stream-of-consciousness musings, putatively from the point of view of a seven-year-old boy attending Wildwood Elementary School sometime in the late 60s. Harold, who thinks of himself as a “wondering machine,” imagines “a little very very small rectangle in the middle of his brain.” There are “thousands and thousands and thousands of tiny birds in his head,” and whenever one of these birds flies through the rectangle “whatever thought that bird represented that’s what Harold would think about.” Courtesy of Wright, that’s what we then think about.
The novel is set during a single day of external time, but roams back and forth through decades of psychological time. The subjectivity of time is itself one of the novel’s subjects, as when, for instance, Harold reflects that “dream time must be different than awake time.” The novel, which comedian Bill Burr has described as The Catcher in the Rye “on mushrooms,” contains a limited supporting cast: Harold’s teacher, Ms. Yuka, a girl in Harold’s class named Elizabeth, and Harold’s grandfather, Alexander, who pops up via flashbacks. Near the end, Carl Sagan makes a brief appearance.
There’s no plot, barely a smidgeon of story, and, despite microscopic access to Harold’s scattershot brain, only a fraction of the character development we might expect. During the 1989 Oscars, when Wright, along with Dean Parisot, accepted an Academy Award for their thirty-minute film The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, Wright said, “We’re really glad we cut out the other sixty minutes.” Likewise, I’m sure Wright is presently glad that he cut out the other three hundred pages, you know, the ones containing all the traditional novelistic elements.
Still, though Harold is indeed “a tangent festival” of a book, certain recurring attitudes arise, and possibly some themes. Early on we learn that “one of Harold’s hobbies was to try to see the world through the eyes of other people or animals.” Wright once joked, “I live on a one-way street that's also a dead end. I'm not sure how I got there.” If Harold, Wright’s de-aged proxy persona, is any indication, relentlessly abstract empathy might be how.
The novel espouses a kind of quaint anti-establishmentarianism, with “the establishment” being consensus reality. Harold often expresses distrust of authority figures, including all grown-ups: “Harold realized that adults were always saying and describing how the world worked and he felt sorry for them because he knew they believed it and he knew they knew nothing and thought they knew everything which was the lowest rung on the whole ladder.” Socrates would be proud.
Harold intensely dislikes people who monopolize conversations. He rails against anything he perceives as an invasion of privacy, and despises prevarication: “When Harold became aware of how politicians on TV refused to answer a question directly, it infuriated him and he thought someone should come out of the wings and ask them this: Do you agree that you are not answering the question? Then no matter what he says he should be beaten until he’s unconscious on live television with no criminal consequences.”
On the positive side, Harold often references the Lakota admiringly. Though he regularly enlists scientific notions such as the speed of light, a part of him craves mystification. He values science as a way of debunking nonsense, but perhaps values debunking the drive to debunk even more. In Chapter 10 he realizes that “as he learned more about the scientific reason for things, he always liked the before science versions better. Harold thought they somehow connected more to human beings even though they were mythical.”
His sense of injustice relates back to the very fabric of chronological existence. We learn that “Harold resented that when you were born determined what time in history you lived—He felt that birth had an undeserved claim to time.” He is constantly trying to untether himself from linearity, as when he wonders: “Wouldn’t it be great if he had a big house and in the many different rooms he could have Elizabeth at different ages.”
Several layers beneath Harold’s literalized bird-flights of fancy, fears congregate. There is, for instance, the dread anticipation of romantic pain: “Maybe it would keep girls from hugging him and then he would never have a broken heart.” Certain experiences–like death–seem more manageable to Harold if he somehow gets some practice in first. He fantasizes about going for a ride with whoever will be the driver of his hearse when he dies, so that “that way when he was dead in the hearse it would be the second time he was in it and then he would already be a little bit used to it. That made Harold wonder if there were other things you could do now to help you be used to being dead.” This is followed by the telling repetition: “Used to being dead.”
Stand-up comedy, though it may be recorded with modern technology, is evanescent in nature, a one-time exchange between comedian and live audience. But written works are temporally dislocated from their perceivers. Existing in perfectly preserved limbo until inquiring eyes land on them, texts can endure past the lives of their creators. In a way, then, writing this novel may have been Wright’s attempt to get a little used to being dead. Harold is Steven Wright’s hearse test drive. Call it a re-hearse-al.
The twinning of deep-seated fears and narrative nonlinearity make me think, somewhat obliquely, of Beau Is Afraid, another recent work, albeit filmic, of extended macabre comedy. Beau is a child trapped in an adult’s body. Harold is the exact inverse, an old man funneled into a vehicle of youth. With these works we might be seeing the birth of a genre capturing a new condition: temporal body dysmorphia.
As formally experimental as Harold is, its sensibility can be traced back to Romanticism, an exaltation of the mysterious beauty of nature amidst disillusionment with modern life. One of the granddaddies of this aesthetic is Lord Byron’s long poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. With some slight tweaking–Kid Harold’s Pilgrimage of the Mind–that same title could serve Wright’s book.
Every page has laugh-out-loud beats. The plentiful comedy in the novel arises not only from Harold’s observations, but from the fact that Wright doesn’t take himself too seriously. Harold “wondered if it was possible to be in your 70s and have the perspective of a 5 year old without being nuts.” To quote Michael Keaton's Batman: Let’s get nuts. For readers jumping at the chance to point out anachronisms, Wright is one step ahead: “mind your own business.” As Harold says, “all art is modern art at some point.”
Wright himself reads the audiobook version, by the way, which contains a treasure of a moment. Twelve minutes and thirty-five seconds into Chapter 10, Wright breaks character. What he’s reading is so ridiculous that it cracks him up and for a precious second he gives up the pretense of deadpan.
Wright’s stand-up comedy is stupendously non-sequential and often radical in its inventiveness of perspective. Watching a Wright set is a bit like listening to a long Ornette Coleman solo: you keep waiting for the boundaries. By pouring his off-kilteredness into a fictional point-of-view narrator, Wright has tempered the fracture of himself, containing it and couching it in the birds of Harold’s mind. Ordinary literary criticism can’t do justice to Harold; it calls for the creation of a conceptual ornithologist–or, perhaps, ornette-ologist.
(Review originally published here: https://hexpublishers.com/column.php?...)
How do you transition from packing ironic wisdom into five-word sentences, like the classic “Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow,” to storytelling over several hundred pages?
A clue lies in Wright’s comedy: “Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.” And so every literary form is writing distance, if you have the time. Which Wright apparently did, explaining in recent interviews that it took him seven years to write Harold, published on May 16th by Simon & Schuster. He started by posting one sentence at a time on Twitter, and then decided to work offline, mainly during two-hour coffee highs.
But is word-count enough to fashion a novel? What about plot? Narrative structure? Character development? Themes?
Wright forgoes most of this, focusing instead on stream-of-consciousness musings, putatively from the point of view of a seven-year-old boy attending Wildwood Elementary School sometime in the late 60s. Harold, who thinks of himself as a “wondering machine,” imagines “a little very very small rectangle in the middle of his brain.” There are “thousands and thousands and thousands of tiny birds in his head,” and whenever one of these birds flies through the rectangle “whatever thought that bird represented that’s what Harold would think about.” Courtesy of Wright, that’s what we then think about.
The novel is set during a single day of external time, but roams back and forth through decades of psychological time. The subjectivity of time is itself one of the novel’s subjects, as when, for instance, Harold reflects that “dream time must be different than awake time.” The novel, which comedian Bill Burr has described as The Catcher in the Rye “on mushrooms,” contains a limited supporting cast: Harold’s teacher, Ms. Yuka, a girl in Harold’s class named Elizabeth, and Harold’s grandfather, Alexander, who pops up via flashbacks. Near the end, Carl Sagan makes a brief appearance.
There’s no plot, barely a smidgeon of story, and, despite microscopic access to Harold’s scattershot brain, only a fraction of the character development we might expect. During the 1989 Oscars, when Wright, along with Dean Parisot, accepted an Academy Award for their thirty-minute film The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, Wright said, “We’re really glad we cut out the other sixty minutes.” Likewise, I’m sure Wright is presently glad that he cut out the other three hundred pages, you know, the ones containing all the traditional novelistic elements.
Still, though Harold is indeed “a tangent festival” of a book, certain recurring attitudes arise, and possibly some themes. Early on we learn that “one of Harold’s hobbies was to try to see the world through the eyes of other people or animals.” Wright once joked, “I live on a one-way street that's also a dead end. I'm not sure how I got there.” If Harold, Wright’s de-aged proxy persona, is any indication, relentlessly abstract empathy might be how.
The novel espouses a kind of quaint anti-establishmentarianism, with “the establishment” being consensus reality. Harold often expresses distrust of authority figures, including all grown-ups: “Harold realized that adults were always saying and describing how the world worked and he felt sorry for them because he knew they believed it and he knew they knew nothing and thought they knew everything which was the lowest rung on the whole ladder.” Socrates would be proud.
Harold intensely dislikes people who monopolize conversations. He rails against anything he perceives as an invasion of privacy, and despises prevarication: “When Harold became aware of how politicians on TV refused to answer a question directly, it infuriated him and he thought someone should come out of the wings and ask them this: Do you agree that you are not answering the question? Then no matter what he says he should be beaten until he’s unconscious on live television with no criminal consequences.”
On the positive side, Harold often references the Lakota admiringly. Though he regularly enlists scientific notions such as the speed of light, a part of him craves mystification. He values science as a way of debunking nonsense, but perhaps values debunking the drive to debunk even more. In Chapter 10 he realizes that “as he learned more about the scientific reason for things, he always liked the before science versions better. Harold thought they somehow connected more to human beings even though they were mythical.”
His sense of injustice relates back to the very fabric of chronological existence. We learn that “Harold resented that when you were born determined what time in history you lived—He felt that birth had an undeserved claim to time.” He is constantly trying to untether himself from linearity, as when he wonders: “Wouldn’t it be great if he had a big house and in the many different rooms he could have Elizabeth at different ages.”
Several layers beneath Harold’s literalized bird-flights of fancy, fears congregate. There is, for instance, the dread anticipation of romantic pain: “Maybe it would keep girls from hugging him and then he would never have a broken heart.” Certain experiences–like death–seem more manageable to Harold if he somehow gets some practice in first. He fantasizes about going for a ride with whoever will be the driver of his hearse when he dies, so that “that way when he was dead in the hearse it would be the second time he was in it and then he would already be a little bit used to it. That made Harold wonder if there were other things you could do now to help you be used to being dead.” This is followed by the telling repetition: “Used to being dead.”
Stand-up comedy, though it may be recorded with modern technology, is evanescent in nature, a one-time exchange between comedian and live audience. But written works are temporally dislocated from their perceivers. Existing in perfectly preserved limbo until inquiring eyes land on them, texts can endure past the lives of their creators. In a way, then, writing this novel may have been Wright’s attempt to get a little used to being dead. Harold is Steven Wright’s hearse test drive. Call it a re-hearse-al.
The twinning of deep-seated fears and narrative nonlinearity make me think, somewhat obliquely, of Beau Is Afraid, another recent work, albeit filmic, of extended macabre comedy. Beau is a child trapped in an adult’s body. Harold is the exact inverse, an old man funneled into a vehicle of youth. With these works we might be seeing the birth of a genre capturing a new condition: temporal body dysmorphia.
As formally experimental as Harold is, its sensibility can be traced back to Romanticism, an exaltation of the mysterious beauty of nature amidst disillusionment with modern life. One of the granddaddies of this aesthetic is Lord Byron’s long poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. With some slight tweaking–Kid Harold’s Pilgrimage of the Mind–that same title could serve Wright’s book.
Every page has laugh-out-loud beats. The plentiful comedy in the novel arises not only from Harold’s observations, but from the fact that Wright doesn’t take himself too seriously. Harold “wondered if it was possible to be in your 70s and have the perspective of a 5 year old without being nuts.” To quote Michael Keaton's Batman: Let’s get nuts. For readers jumping at the chance to point out anachronisms, Wright is one step ahead: “mind your own business.” As Harold says, “all art is modern art at some point.”
Wright himself reads the audiobook version, by the way, which contains a treasure of a moment. Twelve minutes and thirty-five seconds into Chapter 10, Wright breaks character. What he’s reading is so ridiculous that it cracks him up and for a precious second he gives up the pretense of deadpan.
Wright’s stand-up comedy is stupendously non-sequential and often radical in its inventiveness of perspective. Watching a Wright set is a bit like listening to a long Ornette Coleman solo: you keep waiting for the boundaries. By pouring his off-kilteredness into a fictional point-of-view narrator, Wright has tempered the fracture of himself, containing it and couching it in the birds of Harold’s mind. Ordinary literary criticism can’t do justice to Harold; it calls for the creation of a conceptual ornithologist–or, perhaps, ornette-ologist.
(Review originally published here: https://hexpublishers.com/column.php?...)
September 2, 2023
Steven Wright is one of my favorite stand up comics. His humor is very much dependent upon the timing of his delivery. This novel includes much of the wit that I enjoy, but it doesn't provide the delivery. My reading pace is much faster, and doesn't allow for the pauses that Wright's act provides.
June 20, 2023
Cannot recommend enough. Unlike check out 19, this is the right way to do stream of consciousness. A completely unique novel, with brilliant ponderings posed through the mind of a young schoolboy. Recommend the audio read by Steven Wright… so interesting to hear his voice in the mind of the main character 😆
Some favorites to remember:
“Do you think I’m a mind reader, Harold?
No, I know you’re not.
Why not?
Because if you were, you wouldn’t be here.”
My favorite quote from grandpa: “Everything happens for a reason, except coincidences, and most things.”
“It might have to do with God, if there is a god.
You mean maybe there’s no god?
Yes that’s correct. Maybe there is no god. But don’t worry about it. There’s no sense in that. Even if there is no god, that won’t change anything. And then he laughed a little bit more. “
Some favorites to remember:
“Do you think I’m a mind reader, Harold?
No, I know you’re not.
Why not?
Because if you were, you wouldn’t be here.”
My favorite quote from grandpa: “Everything happens for a reason, except coincidences, and most things.”
“It might have to do with God, if there is a god.
You mean maybe there’s no god?
Yes that’s correct. Maybe there is no god. But don’t worry about it. There’s no sense in that. Even if there is no god, that won’t change anything. And then he laughed a little bit more. “
May 7, 2024
This book is very hard to rate. On one hand it is a great example of tight writing, profound and beautiful prose, and brilliant yet oblique perspective/ideas/philosophy. And on top of all of that it is very funny.
On the other hand it is an endless stream of ideas and topics, like a fever dream that never finds its footing.
The sections of the book that tell a story or resemble a scenic narrative are few and far between but are very satisfying when apparent.
All in all it felt like a great example of how a brain with adhd works—-jumping from topic to topic, thought to thought….which in Wright’s defense, felt very intentional.
I do highly recommend this book for anyone who loves breathtaking prose and brilliant ways of looking at existence.
On the other hand it is an endless stream of ideas and topics, like a fever dream that never finds its footing.
The sections of the book that tell a story or resemble a scenic narrative are few and far between but are very satisfying when apparent.
All in all it felt like a great example of how a brain with adhd works—-jumping from topic to topic, thought to thought….which in Wright’s defense, felt very intentional.
I do highly recommend this book for anyone who loves breathtaking prose and brilliant ways of looking at existence.
August 6, 2023
I love Steven Wright’s standup work. I have both of his albums and have seen him in concert despite living in an out-of-the-way Midwestern town. And I didn’t enjoy his book. While it is written from the perspective of a 7-year-old daydreaming in class, the framework allows for no plot and a series of random thoughts that gradually increase in absurdity, but not in a way that struck me as comic. There were a few lines that made me laugh, but only a few. It’s hard not to read this as a 60-something comedy writer impersonating the thoughts of a boy, rather than as the thoughts of an actual 7-year-old.
October 14, 2023
There needs to an option next to the star rating, like an alarm 🚨 or siren or something, that indicates people should absolutely never attempt to read the book next to that symbol.
What an absolute waste of time.
On top of being supremely boring and literally just a stream of consciousness mess, it’s also poorly written, not edited, and doesn’t even follow its own premise sometimes.
It blows my mind that there are people that enjoyed this. This is probably the worst “book” I’ve ever read but I struggle to even call it a book.
Good god.
What an absolute waste of time.
On top of being supremely boring and literally just a stream of consciousness mess, it’s also poorly written, not edited, and doesn’t even follow its own premise sometimes.
It blows my mind that there are people that enjoyed this. This is probably the worst “book” I’ve ever read but I struggle to even call it a book.
Good god.
April 19, 2023
A hilarious and absurd comedy of errors. I laughed out loud at Harold’s misadventures. Steven Wright is a genius. 4 stars!
I received an advance review copy for free from NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free from NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
July 31, 2023
That was a really fun book. It was given to me as a gift and I went in blind and I loved every second of it. It's touching, quirky, silly, and thought provoking.
September 11, 2023
Wacky, and so perfectly Steven Wright!
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