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Good Clean Fun
Short stories from the award-winning, bestselling and acclaimed Michael Arditti
'[These stories] simply and elegantly break your heart. They deserve a wide audience, and will create a wiser one' Amanda Craig
Arditti imbues his stories of loneliness, confusion and the uncertainties of sexual neophytes with genuine pathos and . . . humour' The Times
A young boy discovers the ambiguity of adult affection. A camp comedian cracks up on stage. A picture-restorer learns to accept her husband's true nature. A travel agent tastes the mysterious power of the Internet. A honeymoon couple take an unconventional route to love . . .
These stories employ a spectrum of different voices to explore all aspects of experience - friendship, family, misunderstandings, frustrations, griefs and joys. They will appeal not only to the author's loyal readers, but also to a broad new readership for their assured style, humour, compassion and insight.
'[These stories] simply and elegantly break your heart. They deserve a wide audience, and will create a wiser one' Amanda Craig
Arditti imbues his stories of loneliness, confusion and the uncertainties of sexual neophytes with genuine pathos and . . . humour' The Times
A young boy discovers the ambiguity of adult affection. A camp comedian cracks up on stage. A picture-restorer learns to accept her husband's true nature. A travel agent tastes the mysterious power of the Internet. A honeymoon couple take an unconventional route to love . . .
These stories employ a spectrum of different voices to explore all aspects of experience - friendship, family, misunderstandings, frustrations, griefs and joys. They will appeal not only to the author's loyal readers, but also to a broad new readership for their assured style, humour, compassion and insight.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
254 pages, Paperback
First published May 26, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 1, 2024
There are only four reviews on Goodreads, including mine. One of them says:
"...Story after story about self-loathing gay men swimming in humiliation. The writing is fine, but the relentless emotional ugliness is hard to take..."
another:
"...it's about gay men I did not feel it was relevant to me, nor something I wanted to explore or learn about, so only read half the book..."
fortunately another said:
"...This is a brilliant collection of short stories...(that) explore(s) the gamut of human emotion, from sadness to reconciliation, despair to hope, love to indifference and cynicism..."
Reviewer number one doesn't seem to have read the same collection as I have because there isn't one story about a self loathing gay man and I wonder does reviewer two realise what she has revealed about herself? Do I need to explain? substitute any other descriptive term for a group of people for 'gay men' and see. Also the stories are not 'about' gay men they are, as reviewer number three wisely and perceptively said, 'about sadness, reconciliation, despair, hope, love, indifference and so much more'. None of those are 'gay' themes, though gay experience them.
Michael Arditti is an incredibly talented writer I refer you to the link to his Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael...
because there is too much there for me to quote and that he is praised by Philip Pullman would, I hope, suggest that he is an author deserving of better than the reviews here. He is one of the finest authors to emerge in the UK during the 1990s and has built a career as an author that continues to this day (2024).
All the stories in this collection are superb but I can't help mentioning the title story 'Good Clean Fun'. It is a masterpiece in the way it portrays, by the subtlest shift in language and tone, the disintegration of an old school camp comedian, the sort who today would now be embraced as a 'national treasure', as he finds himself out-of-fashion and despised by younger more openly gay comedians who know nothing of the sacrifices he had to make to survive. As he celebrates his life and career in his outrageous monologue you hear how the bile and bitterness he has buried for years forces itself out. It is a devastating portrait of disintegration.
A brilliant collection of stories and it is a pity Arditti hasn't written more (of course he may have but they remain uncollected - so I regret that he has published no further collections).
Although I read this collection during COVD lockdown I first read at least fifteen years ago and have read all or parts many times since. This collection is a real collection of undiscovered? lost? masterpieces.
"...Story after story about self-loathing gay men swimming in humiliation. The writing is fine, but the relentless emotional ugliness is hard to take..."
another:
"...it's about gay men I did not feel it was relevant to me, nor something I wanted to explore or learn about, so only read half the book..."
fortunately another said:
"...This is a brilliant collection of short stories...(that) explore(s) the gamut of human emotion, from sadness to reconciliation, despair to hope, love to indifference and cynicism..."
Reviewer number one doesn't seem to have read the same collection as I have because there isn't one story about a self loathing gay man and I wonder does reviewer two realise what she has revealed about herself? Do I need to explain? substitute any other descriptive term for a group of people for 'gay men' and see. Also the stories are not 'about' gay men they are, as reviewer number three wisely and perceptively said, 'about sadness, reconciliation, despair, hope, love, indifference and so much more'. None of those are 'gay' themes, though gay experience them.
Michael Arditti is an incredibly talented writer I refer you to the link to his Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael...
because there is too much there for me to quote and that he is praised by Philip Pullman would, I hope, suggest that he is an author deserving of better than the reviews here. He is one of the finest authors to emerge in the UK during the 1990s and has built a career as an author that continues to this day (2024).
All the stories in this collection are superb but I can't help mentioning the title story 'Good Clean Fun'. It is a masterpiece in the way it portrays, by the subtlest shift in language and tone, the disintegration of an old school camp comedian, the sort who today would now be embraced as a 'national treasure', as he finds himself out-of-fashion and despised by younger more openly gay comedians who know nothing of the sacrifices he had to make to survive. As he celebrates his life and career in his outrageous monologue you hear how the bile and bitterness he has buried for years forces itself out. It is a devastating portrait of disintegration.
A brilliant collection of stories and it is a pity Arditti hasn't written more (of course he may have but they remain uncollected - so I regret that he has published no further collections).
Although I read this collection during COVD lockdown I first read at least fifteen years ago and have read all or parts many times since. This collection is a real collection of undiscovered? lost? masterpieces.
September 28, 2017
This is a brilliant collection of short stories, and though it’s a couple of years since I read it, many of the tales remain in my mind.
I actually cried over one story, but they do explore the gamut of human emotion, from sadness to reconciliation, despair to hope, love to indifference and cynicism.
I actually cried over one story, but they do explore the gamut of human emotion, from sadness to reconciliation, despair to hope, love to indifference and cynicism.
March 27, 2020
Oh, good. Story after story about self-loathing gay men swimming in humiliation. The writing is fine, but the relentless emotional ugliness is hard to take.
March 25, 2017
well written, but as it's about gay men I did not feel it was relevant to me, nor something I wanted to explore or learn about, so only read half the book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews