Life on Sandpaper

by Yoram Kaniuk, Anthony Berris (Translator)

A whirlwind of art, music, and lust, Life on Sandpaper is Yoram Kaniuk's overwhelming autobiographical novel detailing his years as a young painter in the New York of the 1950s. Wounded and alienated, a war veteran at the age of nineteen, Kaniuk arrives in Greenwich Village at its peak period of artistic creativity, and finds his way among such giants as Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Willem de Kooning, and Frank Sinatra. In terse prose, inspired by the associative and breathless drive of bebop, Kaniuk's memories race between the ecstatic devotion of his beloved Harlem jazz clubs, through the ideological spats of the dying Yiddish world of the Lower East Side, to the volcanic gush of passion, pain, art, dance, alcohol, and drugs that was Greenwich Village. Kaniuk's stories roll and tumble here with hypnotic urgency, as if this were his last opportunity to remember, and tell, before all is obliterated.

Genres: Fiction, Israel, Art, Jewish, Middle East

417 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Yoram Kaniuk (Hebrew: יורם קניוק) was an Israeli writer, painter, journalist, and theater critic.

Winner of the Bialik Prize for Children's Literature (1991).

Reviews

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

a masterpiece of life as jazz, hot jazz btw, from viewpoint of an israeli veteran of the war, um which war?, all of them maybe. so he goes to nyc to be an artist, and this novel is about him doing that. superb, relentless, has art, music, writing, namedropping, beats and booze and drugs, and traveling in usa. i'm really surprised how good this author is and how obscure he is. his champions seem to be dalkey archives and nyrb.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've spent the last week or so since finishing this unique memoir trying to think of a way to describe it without using the term "bebop." I just can't.

This almost solid block of text, over 400 pages long, is made readable by its fast paced, bebop-like syncopation of memory and self-reflection. Ranging from the post-war trauma of the new Israel to Europe to the life of the Village in New York City (not to be confused with America in Kaniuk's eyes) and a sojourn to the SouthWest and Central America worthy of Hunter S. Thompson, the book never loses steam.

What would be name-dropping in some memoirs works here to delimit the tiny, incestuous community of artists and performers who made up what we think of now as "New York in the '50s."

Holding this deluge of memory together is the roughly chronological process of a shell shocked teenaged soldier finding himself through painting, music, writing, and the occasional, but always doomed, get-rich-quick scheme.

This is a compassionate memoir that never sits still long enough to become sentimental or nostalgic. Failures are acknowledged, triumphs celebrated and that is enough.

The only negative comment I have is for this particular edition. As much as I appreciate Dalkey Archive for keeping books like this in print, there were typographical problems that broke the rhythm of the reading from time to time.

[Zek · Rating 5 out of 5]

מי שאוהב את כתיבתו של יורם קניוק צפוי להינות מהספר הזה מאד ומי שבנוסף גם ״נגוע״ באהבת הג׳אז לסוגיו כמוני יתענג עליו…
הספר מתאר תקופה של כעשר שנים בביוגרפיה של קניוק בה שהה ב״צנטרום של הפיילה״ של הבוהמה בניו יורק כצייר מצליח. סצנת הבי-בופ, אותה הוביל ענק הג׳אז צ׳רלי פארקר שכינויו היה ׳בירד׳, שזורה כמעט לכל אורך הספר באנקדוטות שונות המתארות מפגשים של קניוק עם ענקי הג׳אז של התקופה אותם הכיר אישית או שאולי לא… אבל הג׳אז הוא רק חלק משלל החוויות שקניוק חווה שם או שאולי לא… ובהקשר ל״שאולי לא״ הרי מן הידועות שאצל קניוק האמת והבדיה, ולעתים גם ההזייה מתערבבים להם כמו החיים שחי, או שאולי לא, ולכו תדעו מה נכון ומה לא אבל מה זה חשוב?
אולי דווקא הערבוב הזה כאמור מהווה את סוד הקסם הקניוקי וכך אנו מקבלים אוסף רציף ונפלא של אנקדוטות שרובן ככולן מובאות במה שמכונה ״זרם התודעה״ ושביחד מרכיבות את אחד מספריו המענגים ביותר של יורם קניוק.
נ.ב. (קצהו של ספויילר)
המון אנקדוטות נפלאות ישנן בספר זה ואחת שתהיה חקוקה בזכרוני לעד מתארת את המפגש ההזוי והנפלא בין קניוק ואשתו לעתיד מירנדה לבין סבתה האנטישמית… גרגרתי מהנאה 😎

[Oriana]

"In terse prose, inspired by the associative and breathless drive of bebop, Kaniuk's memories race between the ecstatic devotion of his beloved Harlem jazz clubs, through the ideological spats of the dying Yiddish world of the Lower East Side, to the volcanic gush of passion, pain, art, dance, alcohol, and drugs that was Greenwich Village. Kanuik's stories roll and tumble here with hypnotic urgency, as if this were his last opportunity to remember, and tell, before all is obliterated."

YES.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the most challenging books I've ever read, simply because it is a stream-of-consciousness memoir. There are no chapters, just 400+ pages of Yoram Kaniuk's recollections, embellishments and recounting of his artist's life in post-war America, the many women he knew and loved, and his accidental associations with several notables of that time, most famously Marlon Brando.

Irreverent, honest, caustic, humane, sensitive, angry, bitter and sweet, the mind of the author is first rate and unlike anyone alive now.

A veteran who fought in Israel's War of Independence, he was still young when he arrived in the US in the late 1940s, but entirely old in mind and weariness. He seemed to have taken the freedoms of living in America to heart, and traveled around everywhere, from Hollywood to New York, sleeping with and then abandoning many girls who fell for his good looks but never got a chance to marry him. Drugs, alcohol, sex, self-destruction enter into his memoir but are not the sum of his existence. He was strong and weak and profoundly articulate, and this book is worth reading to enter into the mind of an artist who lived a thousand lives by the time he was 30.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The front cover photo is the author as a young man in his 20s and covers his life in that decade when he was a painter in New York in the ‘50s and a war veteran at the age of 19. So many stories that include Charlie Parker here and there and the author’s wacky friends as well as trips to Mexico and Paris. Does not follow any rules writers are often told as there are no chapter breaks. A published author friend told me it’s something you have to earn to be able to write a story in that way. (Same as Ferlinghetti’s Little Boy - written in a style no new author could get away with.) That there are no chapters or index, made it somewhat hard to follow if I set it aside for a few days. Still, he’s a great storyteller.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life as Jazz? A fascinating story - an "autobiographical" (loosely, fiction...) tale of the author's time in NY after being wounded as an Israeli soldier in the '48 war. The protagonist basically wanders around, paints, and hooks up and breaks up and rubs shoulders with a vast array of characters and well known names. Full of art, jazz, and the NY scene. It's quite a work, but a little hard to take at times, and the free flowing unstructured style makes it a harder than average read. But it conveys a lot of (darkish yet hopeful) sentiments and a feeling of the mood of a place/time.

[K C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kaniuk's style of no chapters or breaks and stream of consciousness reminiscences in a vaguely chronological order is hard to follow particularly with the number of people who come in and out of his life, all with their own strange stories. But it was interesting reading and worth the struggle in the end.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

A New York fever dream I didn’t want to end…

[Lea K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this so badly, but it‘s just how it is: a wanna be beatnik :(

[Gwendolinepeepingtom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Durch die kurzen Sätze fühlt man sich durchgepeitscht und dass es keine Kapitel gibt, macht es nicht besser.

[Verfaille Dirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

he s ok

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in the original Hebrew, which may have been a mistake, since there are so many American names of streets, of people, and of songs that sometimes the Hebrew was a nuisance. And the translations into English were often wrong. This book is one of the oddest I've ever read. At times, knock-over marvelous and at other times, tedious. I kept on wishing that Kaniuk had had an editor, but of course that probably would not have been to his liking. The portraits of Charlie "Bird" Parker, of Billie Holiday, of De Koening, of James Agee, etc. -- you name it -- and the insight into the old Jewish world on the Lower East Side are simply terrific. He was a painter -- and he writes with a painter's eye. I had no trouble with the run-on sentences; and I suspect that's where Hebrew was easier than English, nor did I have trouble with the tense changes, since again that's rather ok in Hebrew. This is the second book I've read by him -- and I have to admit that despite the unevenness of this text, I'm very, very fond of the author--who unfortunately is not well-known.

[Dave Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half--or 60-65%, rather--is really good. However, at around that point there's this scene that feels very much like a climax, and so everything after that felt very... pointless. Kind of. The second half of the book isn't devoid of quality content, but it doesn't feel as resonant or connected as the first half. But that's one of the potential drawbacks of a memoir, or at least this memoir. It's about a decade or so the writer spends in New York. It's not about the beginning an end of interpersonal relationships, so it's beginning and end are dictated by when he arrives and leaves and not when arcs truly conclude. I mean, granted, there is a relationship with New York, but Kaniuk doesn't characterize New York enough to make it feel like it's about his relationship with the city, and, as such, when he leaves is much less climactic than when he *SPOILER* breaks up with his wife at around the 65% mark.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was amazing!

if you like jack kerouac's run-on prose style and endless sense of a desperation to get everything down on paper as soon as possible, you will love this book. BUT if you hate the beat style then you will absolutely detest this book. fortunately, on the road is one of my favorite books, so i was in love. kaniuk is like the israeli kerouac. his views on new york are amazing, because, like myself, he's a transplant and therefore is able to always see things through practically rose-colored glasses no matter how dire the situation. i'm gonna go read ALL his books now. thanks yoram, your wife is a lucky lady.

[Jess Gro · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was hard to keep up with the "be bop" style : no breaks, no chapters, going in every stream of conscice direction for 417 pages. Content was interesting enough for me to sweat through it.

The description of painting sessions with the dancer were electric.

Why didn't Kaniuk say why they moved to Israel? AUthors drops in that they will move to Israel and then in the last page withouth any discussion or anything they have a good bye party and get on the boat.

[Ruthie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sounded so interesting, however it reads as if it is one long, erratic run-on sentence. Had to toss it aside (very rare for me!)

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll provide a much more detailed review shortly.