The Human War

by Noah Cicero

'The Human War' is a bleak, disturbing tale of one man's struggle with war, death and the human condition, shot through with the author's deadpan humour.

Genres: Fiction, The United States Of America, War, Short Stories, Americana, Novels, Literature

92 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Tao · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book by Noah Cicero.

The words all have meaning that my brain can process. After I read the words I feel emotions. Each sentence makes me feel emotion.

[Alejandro Saint-Barthélemy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book very much (which I've read this very year and being an European living in China, so it being about Bush and from 2003 doesn't make it outdated nor limited).
The fresh and poetic stylistic choices in it cannot be overlooked (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M07jFcr...), not to mention the passion that you can tell Noah Cicero put into it.
This book inspired Ben Brooks and Tao Lin, and this is why they made it bigger than Noah:

1) Tao Lin's "Eeeee Eee Eeee" is better as a contemporary art book: dolphins and bears ruin the plot on purpose. Oh, and celebrities (our new gods). Sean Penn. Absurdity. It's more silly than "The Human War", and contemporary art has more to do with vomiting foolishness (think of Tracey Emin's "My Bed", Damien Hirst's spin or dot paintings, Jeff Koons's kitsch, Takashi Murakami's flower power, etc.) than rawness. However, since I firmly believe books are toys for adults (this one takes itself too seriously, and a little bit too much working class heroism/defeatness and costumbrism for my liking), and that there is too much good art in the past to keep on trying to be good instead of as new/hip as possible, I prefer Tao's improvement (NeXTmodernism).

2) Ben Brook's "Grow Up" has Mephedrone, a party and a rape scene, whereas Noah Cicero's "The Human War" only has alcohol, a strip joint and sex with a girlfriend/ex-girlfriend.


P.S.
Noah Cicero deserves more credit.
I'd love a world in which this book was more famous than "The Lights We Cannot See".
Serious literature.
19th century prose.
Nazis.
Pulitzer Prize.
Bestseller.
Absurdity.

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

a note this book is genius. I could finish this book before I review it but I'm hungry and I have to go to class and getting a computer in the lab is a pain and I already have way too much to say. This will be a supersized greg review and I'm sorry. I am also going to quote from all parts of the story but there isn't a plot so I won't spoil anything. I am reviewing the novella the book is named after, not the two stories which I will read while I eat before my class starts. I am not eating now because my ipod is dead and I need to be able to check the internet while I sit in the hall. I am putting off eating to charge an ipod that is what the world has come to. This novella is an existentialist cry and it's a good one. I think it might also be age realted. I mean I wasn't 22 when the iraq war started. march 20, 2003. so I was... 2003-... 16 when the war started. And well it was definitely one of the things that when I cared it was what I cared about. I ran an antiwar grow in college, in high school my brother put up posters that said "war is big business invest your children". I actually ended up have the major fallout that ended my time as a socialist over the fact the ISO made a plan to pull all their members out of the antiwar group because they had better things to do. They weren't making it an option, you weren't allowed to do both, they killed the antiwar movement at NYU. someone actually tried to restart it a few years later and emailed me, I feel bad for them. My point with all of this is that I relate to this book people who won't relate to this book might not like it. This book is not about doing something this book is about realizing the world is fuck and the only solution is to get drunk. and yes I was doing something, but now when something scares me, terrorists, militias, a friend's suicide I get drunk, my ex-boyfriend gets drunk, my friends get drunk. I have become part of the culture that drops out. Not like the sixties culture that drops out and turns in or something. But a new culture that drops out and stops caring. This is modern existentialism I can't be depressed or angry about the war cause I don't even understand how the world became what it is. I am now the age that mark is in the book, okay two years older but I started this lifestyle at 20. And my response to the world is his exactly, except the strippers but that is because they're just dirty and gross and I'm a girl so I care about such things.

Now lets talk quotes and responses and you can figure out if this is a book for you, i will try to keep it short and fail because I like nothing better than being understood and noah is doing that for me.

1. "I don't have any time for war, I have things to do" "Like what" "paint my bathroom and make curtains" "you're right you don't have time for war"

Have you ever talked to a person in my generation right after a breakup. Have you ever heard them say, "I'm busy I'll get around to being depressed next week." I actually know someone with borderline who schedules her breakdowns, and subsequent hospitalizations, with her therapist in advance. This is our generation the world can wait we have things to do.

2. "You have only yourself" "I don't want myself" "No one does"
3. "existence is impossible"

I am actually going to attmept to keep all the suicide quotes together here we will see how that works. Suicide has become less about killing yourself and more about this desire not to be. It is too hard to be alive to people want to stop.

4. I use to be able to love. But I can't anymore. It's too hard. And I especially can't love while a war is on.

This is important this is something I know a lot of people combating everyone remembers loving, or most people, but there is some fundamental piece that so many people seem to have misplaced and they just can't seem to love anymore. We became a world of people dealing with each other instead of a world of people caring about each other. I mean I don't have a solution since I'm not sure I ever had the capacity but I think it is so important to recognize that you have lost the capacity if you have because relationships are so different when "love" at least the kind we are told to feel is out of our reach. As far as the war comment, dude's right there is too much hate in the world to truely love.

5. There better be a god someone needs to answer for this.

You know sartre says the thing that bothers the existentialist most is the lack of a god because it means that humans are responsible for their own actions. well...

6. I don't believe there are absolute truths. perhaps I don't even care about truth. It's not like knowing the truth changes anything.

This is a huge problem these days people are obsessed with truth. with finding it with knowing it with living it. But then there is this whole generation of people like myself who have disregarded the truth. Sure we will say we don't believe in it. But if pressed it isn't that we actively don't believe so much as we just don't really care. If there turns out to be an absolute truth I'm not going to bow down and apologize I'm just going to keep doing exactly what I was doing before. Christians always say to me "what if god proved his existence", what if, honestly nothing, I don't really give a shit.

7. The world doesn't exist. suffering doesn't exist. there are no problems during sex

I disagree there is bad sex. Oh wait this book was written by a man.

8. "Why did my parents bring me into this world" "Because women have a baby fetish" "women only have babies because they want attention"

has anyone else noticed there is an entire generation of unwanted babies, and they are all a bit pissed about it. Here is the funny thing about a pro abortion atheistic generation people will actually say "My parents should have had an abortion"

okay I don't want to give you the whole book that's a taste, if you associate with this generation I think you'll like the book if you don't you won't so don't read it.

[Gene · Rating 5 out of 5]

i am giving this book five stars, and it is not because the words are pretty, or there is some nice story or smart plot. the human war is a good book because it is none of those things. noah cicero is an honest person.

[michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cicero knows what he's doing. This a great piece of writing.

[David Baker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dialogue was pretty ropy, which was a major distraction. It reminded me of the movie Slacker. A younger me would have liked this book more, probably. Fun note: I once had a piss next to the author in the Three Alleys bar in Itaewon, Korea. I knew who he was; he had no idea who I was. We didn't say a word to each other.

[Signe · Rating 4 out of 5]

i received this book in the mail, and it came wrapped like a christmas gift. i read it all at once. i liked this book. it made me feel very calm. should it have? i think it's very poignant without being overly dramatic or didactic.

noah cicero writes I see books as the purest representation of an era and i feel represented in that i am a young american who feels anger toward war and injustice, but i don't do much of anything about my anger except talk about it, write, and drink it away. anyway this book speaks to what i think is the current moral dilemma of most decent people; however, i hesitate to use that word "decent" since being implicit in war (as all americans are) negates a sort of decency.

[herocious herocious · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I take this book to Spin Cycle to read as I clean clothes for the upcoming work week. Most of it is dialogue. This book paved the way for sentegraphs, which are paragraphs made of only one sentence. I feel like this book showed me how writing doesn't have to be anything other than what you want it to be, and you don't have to write the same way forever. I liked this book for its xylophone sounds. I liked this book for its bravery.

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro genial. La guerra de Bush contra los árabes que le siguió al ataque contra las Torres Gemelas nos dejó a todos nerviosos. Lo vimos en vivo y en directo por la televisión. Recuerdo esa mañana psicótica. Algunos festejaban por la caída próxima de Estados Unidos, otros murmuraban que se avecinaba la Tercera Guerra Mundial. Noah Cicero escribió este libro, su primer libro, para vomitar su alma enferma contra Bush, contra Estados Unidos, contra él mismo ante ese episodio tan confuso de la historia. Cicero escribe a martillazos. Toma aire como un ahogado. Sus frases tienen la rabia sombría de Kurt Cobain, la eficacia luminosa de Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, la conexión directa entre sus emociones y las palabras que revientan el suelo como los pozos petroleros en el mundo árabe. Cicero es el Cobain de la Alternative Literature norteamericana, la Alt Lit. Su insólita lucidez, su rabia contra la lucidez, el desmantelamiento total de cualquier clase de mediación entre su lenguaje y el fondo mudo de la subjetividad, la facilidad con que cualquier pensamiento lo empuja al absurdo: La Guerra Humana es su Territorial Pissings. Este libro de hardcore-punk, de neo-grunge, es un alivio porque no reconoce la mesura ni la precaución. Entre una versión personal del existencialismo posmoderno y el realismo sucio con el que construye sus frases, Cicero ha logrado una voz propia, original, fuerte y visceral. Violento en su agonía, Cicero muestra en este libro que una manera de estar vivo consiste en oler como un espíritu adolescente.

[Alejandro Olaguer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Noah Cicero es, junto a Tao Lin y un par de escritores más, una de las caras más visibles de algo que se llama Alt-Lit y no se sabe bien qué es, si un movimiento estético, estilo literario, generación de escritores o etiqueta arbitraria del mercado. Quizás un poco de todo y nada de eso a la vez, por lo que entiendo son jóvenes americanos, nacidos después de los 80’, críticos del sistema, nihilistas, minimalistas y sin demasiadas ambiciones literarias. Jóvenes que escriben con la velocidad y la fragmentación propias de internet y las redes sociales, que parecen ser sus ámbitos naturales. La Guerra humana es su primer libro y está compuesto por cuatro relatos que sirven para reafirmar esas credenciales y permiten una aproximación a esta corriente literaria.

El primer relato, que suministra el título del libro, es el más extenso y recorre un día en la vida del joven narrador de 23 años en una pequeña ciudad de Ohio llamada Youngstown. No es un día cualquiera, es un día de 2003, un día especial, el señalado por Bush para atacar Irak. El protagonista sale de su casa dos horas antes de la señalada para el inicio de la guerra, visita a su novia Kendra con quien parece tener una relación algo truculenta, después va a Denny’s a leer a Proust y ahí se encuentra con un amigo con quien decide ir a un cabaret para, luego, finalizar la noche en un bar de karaoke en donde se emborracha con otros jóvenes de su edad. Mientras recorre ese itinerario, el joven protagonista no para de preguntarse y de preguntarles a sus amigos sobre el significado de la guerra, sus posibles consecuencias para su propia vida y sobre el futuro. Las preguntas generan más dudas que respuestas y casi siempre estos diálogos se transforman especulaciones abstractas de carácter existencial de las que ningún personaje parece estar demasiado convencido y terminan en temas más terrenales como el sexo, el dinero o las drogas. Este relato, escrito con oraciones cortas y tajantes, con un lenguaje coloquial (en ese sentido, es un acierto haberlo traducido a un español rioplatense, refuerza un poco la idea original del autor) y con un estilo llano y fragmentario, refleja la incapacidad de sus protagonistas (¿y de su autor?) para entender el mundo y para construir sentido, lo que los lleva a un estado de abulia cuasi animal.

El segundo relato es un diálogo entre dos internos de una institución psiquiátrica, David y Jimmy. David tiene transtornos con su imagen y un edipo mal resuelto a pesar de que su madre ha muerto, Jimmy parece un psicópata místico. Después se suma al diálogo Melisa que también tiene problemas en la relación con su madre y además parece estar muy confundida acerca de la vida (como todos los personajes de Cicero). Finalmente se suma a la conversación George, un ex combatiente trastornado de quien su madre abusaba de niño. Es, por supuesto, un diálogo de sordos, cada uno habla de sus propios miedos y, como en el relato anterior, no hay demasiada transición entre los temas que van tocando. De esta manera se va construyendo una conversación que, siendo muy generosos con el autor, remite a Beckett por lo absurdo. Básicamente se van consolidando las personalidades y los fantasmas de cada personaje, no mucho más.

El tercer texto, como el anterior, también es un diálogo, esta vez entre una pareja que acaba de tener sexo casual. Él es un joven universitario de clase media algo confundido respecto del futuro, que sin embargo espera retomar sus estudios y seguir adelante; ella es una chica que ha dejado a su madre para irse a vivir sola y aún así no logra que ésta la deje de extorsionar emocionalmente. Los diálogos son menos sucintos, son personas que hablan más que en los otros relatos, construyen mejor sus argumentos, pero la mecánica y los temas son los mismos: hablan de sexo, de miedos, de la soledad, de la guerra, de política y de la falta de perspectivas, saltando de un tema a otro una y otra vez, sin llegar a ninguna conclusión.

El último relato, como el primero, está compuesto en parte por el monólogo interior del protagonista y en parte con los diálogos que mantiene este con las personas que va encontrando en su camino. Es un joven de Ohio que acaba de graduarse en la universidad y va en tren hacia Chicago para empezar un viaje por todo Estados Unidos. En el camino se encuentra con algunas chicas de su edad, con hombres mayores, locos, solitarios, etc. Se repite, otra vez, la temática y la brevedad de las sentencias.

Además del laconismo, la pobreza del lenguaje y el estilo coloquial, los cuatro textos tienen en común algunas cosas: el final abrupto que parece decirnos que lo absurdo de la vida de los personajes se prolongará mucho más allá de los textos, la juventud de sus protagonistas, las dificultades de éstos para relacionarse con el mundo, el sin sentido de sus vidas y los temas (la guerra, el desprecio por el sistema, las drogas, el sexo, el amor, la muerte, la soledad, el aburrimiento, etc.). Es un libro efectivo, porque la intención de Cicero parece ser poner de relieve precisamente esos temas, y lo logra, lo hace directamente, habla a través de sus personajes y les transfiere sus ideas, sus discursos y, también supongo, sus limitaciones.

A pesar de la señalada pobreza del lenguaje, de la ausencia de ambición literaria, de la ingenuidad de algunas ideas y de la indigencia estética de estos textos, hay algo en ellos que logra captar un clima de época, una percepción generacional. Cicero logra expresar en sus relatos el vacío existencial y el enojo de toda una clase social compuesta por los jóvenes de clase media americanos que resignifican y actualizan aquella consigna punk: “No Future”. Cicero representa a través de sus relatos a ese adolescente enojado, aburrido y rebelde sentado al final del aula mirando con cinismo e indiferencia hacia el pizarrón mientras se toca la bragueta por debajo del banco, y a ese adolescente hay que prestarle atención, de lo contrario puede transformarse en un adulto peligroso. Salvo eso y la magnífica idea de traducirlo al español rioplatense, no hay mucho más que el libro pueda ofrecer, ni siquiera entretenimiento, porque, como dije, ese adolescente está enojado y aburrido.
Libro efectivo, con algunas ideas, con algunas pinceladas interesantes sobre la vida de los jóvenes de la “América Profunda”, efectivo en su mensaje, directo e incisivo. Personalmente prefiero libros con más ambición literaria, con más potencial poético y con más densidad lingüística, pero supongo que hay lectores para todo.

[Andrew Shaffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this in 2021 is probably a different experience than when it was first published…then again, we’re still fighting the same human war. So many great lines and passages in the main novella (although there are frequent tense changes, not sure if that’s a lack of editing or a weird stylistic choice).

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosh.
That was different!
Reading this short story was a literary slap around the head, perhaps even more than that, a good beating.
Definitely not every one's cup of tea but for me it was a wonderful tonic.
I read this in one sitting last night. There is the main story and two other short stories. The first was excellent, the second was..good, the third was ok. All of them are useful for revealing a part of humanity.

The authors style is...unique :)
I will look out with interest for his next piece of writing.

With no holds barred, we hear from a 1st person perspective, the main characters thoughts and feelings on the eve of the announcement of the USA bombing Iraq. As he interacts with a few other characters, all from 1st person perspective, I cant help but imagine exactly the scenes and the feelings.

War is and isn't something people want.
People know and don't know what they want.
Humans are wonderful and exquisitely fucked up.

Thanks Noah, you caught the sentiment of many of us. I could see me reflected in there sometimes. Not always! Sometimes. I am left feeling both together and alone; affirmed and depressed. Well done :)

[Caleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Human War by Noah Cicero was a very absorbing book, one of the books you want to savor but can't tear yourself away from. The title story, "The Human War" is about an American named Mark as he spends his night in Youngstown, Ohio thinking and talking to people about the Iraq War, which is expected to start at midnight. He talks with his family, his girlfriend, a Vietnam vet/pacifist, his friend Jimmy and others. Very philosophical and visceral. Lots of dialogue and deep thoughts on war, sex, violence, civilization and being human. Funny, too. Absurd. The other two stories, "The Doomed" and "Little Flowers" hold up as well.
I read this book in less than 2 days, which is fast for my standards. Reminded me of Samuel Beckett and Sam Pink and Tao Lin and James Frey. If you like these authors this book is definitely worth checking out.

[Sarah Crowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to have goals and dreams…Then I started reading Noah Cicero.

Now all I hope for in life is to one day meet him by chance at a Denny’s. Preferably one attached to a truck stop. I have no real reason for this preference besides the fact that my favorite Denny’s is in a truck stop in a small town in Indiana.

I went on a date there once and my date and I agreed that it was the best Denny’s that we had each ever been to.

That date was 2 weeks ago…Or maybe 3. I don’t really care about numbers much, especially when they are used to measure time. That number, any number, will only be right for such a short period of time.

Two weeks from now I’ll find an even better Denny’s. And then 2 weeks later it will happen again.

Is the Denny’s in Youngstown, Ohio truly the best Denny’s in the world? Maybe 2 weeks from 2 weeks from 2 weeks from now I’ll know.

[Cemile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basit olan güzeldir, sanırım bu hemen her konuda böyle. Müthiş bir Amerika eleştirisi olduğuna inanıyorum. Amerika- Irak meselesine yaklaşımı çok düz, halkın kafa karışıklığını anlatma konusunda çok başarılı. Öykü boyunca fonda ya bir radyodan ya bir televizyondan savaş hakkındaki haber ve yorumları duyuyor olmanız, bu esnada insanların neye inandıklarını ve ne düşüneceklerini bilmez halde kimi zaman içmeleri kimi zaman sevişmeleri ve her an içinde bulundukları gerginlik hem bu kadar yalın olup hem nasıl böyle açık ortaya konabilirdi bilemiyorum.

[Andrew]

This is one bleak son of a bitch. Short paragraphs, one after another, like machine gun fire. This is one of the best summations of life in the darker corners of the post-industrial Midwest you can imagine. Being a young person from a shithole town a long way from anywhere, I can easily empathize with our protagonist. This almost made me wish I'd stuck around.

[Stacey Teague · Rating 5 out of 5]

i really liked this book, i dog eared lots of pages, i found myself thinking things like "hey, yeah, yeah, fuck, yeah"

there were a lot of things that i felt and agreed with

read this sitting on my parents couch with my cat sitting on my lap

kept taking breaks from the book to put my face close to my cat's face until she got annoyed

anyway i liked the book

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Noah Cicero writes like a classic writer, he focuses on the dialog rather than on wordy descriptions. Like Noah the story revolves around Youngstown Ohio but it's all about one person and how the day the second iraq war makes his world feel as meaningless as Youngstown is.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

i don't know what the fuck is going on but i embrace it wholeheartedly

[Black Coffee Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a powerful book. Cicero's short, blunt poetic sentences are like jabs to the skull, ribs and stomach. As you read, you are saying, "I know these people. I was there." What a fucking beauty!

[Bill Shaner · Rating 4 out of 5]

my comments: http://thingsbillshanerwritesdown.tum...

[Jesús · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humans love humans who hate other humans.
Like Kurt Cobain.
He made a living off of hating people.

[Cecily · Rating 3 out of 5]

The two short stories are definitely more interesting than the titular novella, in my opinion, although that could just be the result of how fast-paced change has been the past decade. The references seem slightly outdated (especially the comment about being a millionaire and an American Dream like "Donald Trump," definitely a reference that leaves a bitter, putrid aftertaste as opposed to eliciting a chuckling as I imagine it used to be able to do.)

Ernst Bloch writes about how there is a fundamental utopianism in all forms of human creation: art, architecture, poetry, and even philosophy, which is why he believed Marxism to be the one true philosophy, as it not only embodied the idealistic utopianism for a "better world," but also an active solution to achieve it. Theory and practice synthesize as one.

In the "alt lit" movement, however, there seem to be a distinctive "lack" in both the theory and practice of utopianism: the text is permeated with a desolate, bleak, weary sense of nihilism, filled with self-absorbed characters who are peripherally aware of the outside world and confusedly (almost instinctively and most definitely reactionary) angry at everything. Disoriented in a world that most people have come to the consensus is "bad," the characters who inhabit such texts are often noted for their lack of emotion, instead characterized by their extreme ennui; I disagree. What I see instead is an immobilizing, paralyzing, overwhelming sensation overload, where the characters are unsure how to react. Privileged and seemingly without any "problems" (more often than not, they are (over) educated, artistic, creative, and good-looking people jumping from one social group to another), these characters are in fact ridden with problems: some self-created, but mostly arisen out of simple immobility. Insular in their education and then over-exposed to the real world, they simply stopped reacting. Gone is the tentative utopianism that permeated modernist fiction in both form and content (for a long time, experimentation in avant-garde literature marked a genuine need and belief in pushing forward the envelopes of both artistic form and social, political spheres), and replacing it is a passive, confused, and frantic anxiety that does not fuel or incentivize action, but instead paralyzes the actor into complete submission. Utopianism is gone in both theory and practice. What is left is the post-ironic, ironic half-smile that is distinctive of only the Internet, hyper-modernist age.

My main contention with the titular novella is that the content does not match the form for me: writing in a style that is reminiscent of Camus' The Stranger (especially with the paragraphs about trying to be, imitating, yet not fully feeling like one belongs to the human condition), the air floats with many big, BIG, political ideas. The form screams introspective stream of consciousness, yet arbitrary polemical catchphrases are thrown around, which threw me off. Perhaps it is meant to convey the confusion of the protagonist in a climate of political unrest, uncertainty, and extreme change, but it simply did not deliver in a way that felt cogent enough. To that end, perhaps it was NOT meant to deliver in the first place; perhaps it was meant to be fragmented, disjointed, and awkward, reflective of the protagonist's own frazzled mind that could only be soothed by the smoothness of a woman's thighs and alcohol.

The nihilism in this type of fiction is alluring and seductive, especially to me, because it resonates with me; after reading a handful of such texts in quick succession, however, I can't help but question the real validity--"validity" is perhaps not the right word, but I hesitate to use "value" instead--of this type of fiction. When fiction (or any type of art) is merely a mimetic reflection of an objectively kind of awful world, such as the one we live in right now, does that not merely render the text into bad art? Where is the line between fiction and reality? Why, then, would we even turn towards fiction? Many conversations in Cicero's The Human War read too much like the many, many drunken conversations I have overheard in bars, that I have heard my own dad ramble on about, than filled the campus chitchat during last year's election--it resonated, it rang true, but it left me feeling unfulfilled.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 2 out of 5]

“I know, a lot has happened to you. But you have to go on, you have to keep trying.”
“I don’t want to try anymore, I’m done trying. I work at Pizza Hut, that’s my life now, pizza.”

A handful of short stories, told mostly in single sentence paragraphs. I liked The Human War, about the lead up to the Iraq War as experienced by a young, poor man in Ohio, looking to get drunk and have sex. The mental asylum story set during the initial phase/lead up to the Iraq War had good dialogue but I didn't get into it as much. And the last one on the train, I dunno. I'm definitely still going to track down Burning Babies though. Overall I think there should be more of this kind of fiction. I want to call it stylish social realism, but I don't think that's right. Closer to autofiction, I suppose, at least somewhat. I don't know.

“The terrorists are coming to get me. They’re
going to put smallpox in the air, I know it. We’ll all be dead in a week, and Jesus will come back,” Kendra said.
“Jesus won’t come back, and you won’t die in a week.”
“Jesus will come back and send Bush to hell for everyone to see.”
“That would be nice,” I said.
“Jesus doesn’t like wars. He said to walk the extra mile.”
“Bush doesn’t care about that verse.”
“He should, he says he’s Christian.”
“He’s Christian for votes,” I said.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“You are.”
“Yes.”

[Scott_McClanahan41 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most book things now (with a few exceptions) are just built around nice, safe books written for nice and safe book club readers. These are usually the books you see on display at Barnes and Noble. These internet writers are, like, literally terrorists to me. They’re training as we speak. They’re getting ready to invade. They’re building an army.
(Scott Mcclanahan)

[Ethan Ksiazek · Rating 2 out of 5]

hardly vital, but I appreciate it

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obligatory 5 stars.

I did not particularly enjoy this book but i think noah’s stylistic choices just went above my head.

[Lazich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kendra touch my penis

[Joan Planells · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fa pocs dies, algú em diferenciava els autors que tenen una veu pròpia dels que, simplement, no la tenen. No sé si la distinció és fàcil de fer. En tot cas, Noah Cicero té veu pròpia. A The Human War, com a Best Behavior, la veu pròpia de Cicero té tan protagonisme, tanta força, que ho col·lapsa tot.

Hi ha veus pròpies engolades. Veus pròpies autosatisfetes, orgulloses, rebuscades i ampul·loses. Veus contentíssimes d’haver-se conegut. La de Cicero no és així. És un torrent de veu insolent i desestructurat, que un no sap ni d’on ve ni cap a on va. Probablement, tampoc l’autor ho sap. Autor i lector ens trobem sepultats per una espiral de paraules que t’arrosseguen.

És difícil resistir-s’hi, perquè la narrativa té un ritme magnètic. Però, alhora, també és fàcil lliurar-s’hi, perquè la veu de Cicero no va enlloc. No té conseqüències. No hi ha trama. No hi ha història. No hi ha nus ni desenllaç. Assistim, com a Best Behavior, a un fragment de vida de l’autor. Escoltem un bocí del seu pensament. És un pensament tan hipnòtic com estèril. Una veu forta com una pluja d’estiu, que no et deixa indiferent, però de la que al cap d’una estona, ja te n’has eixugat i gairebé oblidat.

Ressenya completa, aquí.

[Dr. Bower · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird little book that I couldn't put down.