Rating: 
Summary: If you are bored with Braun's recent books, this may be...
Review: ...just what the doctor ordered!I love the Lilian Jackson Braun "The Cat Who..." series, especially the first five or six books. I have read at least a dozen, and I would count myself as a fan... but I have stopped reading her stories in recent years because I have found them meandering and uninteresting. As I became increasingly impatient with Ms. Braun's writing, I started noticing my mind wandering as I read her books. I started to wonder about the lead character, James Qwilleran. Does Q ever have sex? Does he ever defecate? These questions are answered, to hilarious excess, through Robert Kaplow's introduction of James Qafka.... the alternate-universe Qwilleran! The beloved Q has certainly undergone a metamorphosis, from a resident of the kingdom of purity and light to... well... let's just say the anti-Q is more realistically human, in a very base way! My only real criticism of Kaplow's book is that Qafka's Siamese cats did not play a greater part. As a cat owner, I feel Ms. Braun has a good grasp of feline psychology. I love the way she integrates Qwilleran's cats, Koko and Yum-Yum, into her stories. I can think of about a dozen cat-related grotesqueries Kaplow could have perpetrated upon his helpless readers... And yes, the book has pornographic sequences. I found these sections to be rudely humorous, but readers who find such writing offensive should skip this book. I suspect Kaplow is actually a Lilian Jackson Braun fan, and that his attitude is probably "sometimes you have to make fun of what you love." I hope he loves other series by famous authors, and that we will see more of his subversive writing soon.
Rating: 
Summary: LJB fans stay far away from this!
Review: A clever parody imitates an author's style but this so-called parody is more like a personal diatribe against Lilian Jackson Braun. Makes me think of the line in Hitchcock's Rear Window, spoken after a woman discovers her little pet dog's been strangled. She shouts at her neighbors, "Why'd you have to kill him? Was it because he liked ya? Just because he liked ya?" I think Lilian Jackson Braun likes her readers and wants to give them something pleasant and fun to read. Kaplow's world doesn't allow for this, I guess.
Rating: 
Summary: Unlike Anything You've Read
Review: I ordered this book when I saw the ad in The New Yorker in which Susan Stamberg called it "mercifully short"! OK, it is short, but the Publisher's Weekly review is also right when it says Kaplow's "shotgun approach shatters his main targets and does a lot of collateral damage as well." This book is a wonderful free-for-all. It's like one of those old double-page cartoon spreads from Mad Magazine where every inch of the canvas is filled with jokes, and the more you look the more you find. It's fast, it's completely crazy, it's dazzlingly inventive, and in a strange way it's also kind of poignant. When the insane novelist is dying at the end, you really feel, for a moment, a pang of loss. (The scene is so crazy you really shouldn't feel anything but comedy, but there it is. I think Kaplow's a good enough novelist that even his dying crazy writer deserves a moment of our sympathy.) And in the same way, when James Qakfa, the novel's oafish and mostly clueless sleuth, says a final goodbye to Sally his undergraduate assistant, it's an appealingly bittersweet little moment. We've come to really like these two improbable friends. And we look forward to their meeting again in some new adventure. This is remarkable little book. I can't compare it to anything. All I know is I spent a week reading it sitting at a picnic table on the LSU campus, and I fell in love with its insane view of the world.
Rating:
Summary: VERY INTERESTING...
Review: Just finished listening to the audiobook version of THE CAT WHO KILLED LJB, and it's riotously funny. I nearly drove off the road twice. The box doesn't say "read" by Arte Johnson; it says "performed" by Arte Johnson, and that's the perfect word for this tour de force. It's a one-man show in which Johnson (of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" fame) performs about thirty different characters: men, women, gay, straight, old, young, famous, infamous. And in a wonderfully rich piece of irony, there's a running joke about "Laugh-In" in the novel, so eventually Johnson gets to play himself playing the famous Dirty Old Man on the Park Bench sketch! One of the highlights of the recording is a long monologue about Houdini trying to outwit a spiritualist in the 1920's, and it's all delivered in the manner of Sidney Greenstreet playing the Fat Man in THE MALTESE FALCON. It's a perfect piece of mimicry, and Johnson sustains that remarkable voice for a good ten minutes. Miraculous! If there was a Tony Award given for best audiobook acting, then Johnson should get Best One Man Show. I was laughing outloud for four hours.
Rating:
Summary: The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun: A Parody
Review: This book doesn't rate any stars. It is an insult to a gifted writer who has shared her talents with those of us who appreciate a good mystery that we can share with anyone in our families. This book's dialogue centers around a 4-letter vocabulary. I will gladly pay postage to return this book as I don't even want it in my house, let alone on the same shelf with Ms. Braun's wonderful books.
Rating:
Summary: HILARIOUS!
Review: I recently read Robert Kaplow's, The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun, and absolutely LOVED IT. Extremely funny. This book is a MUST HAVE for anyone who has read and enjoyed The Cat...series by Lilian Jackson. She is subject to a little mystery herself...finally. Kaplow's creativity through the wild adventure will keep you going till the end of the book. Ten thumbs up.
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't wade through it, either... ZERO STARS!!!!
Review: I really, really wish I had read the reviews before I wasted my money on this book - a friend had the title pop up on her "If you like Lilian Jackson Braun, you'll like this..." and I bought it on the basis of that information. WRONG!!!!! I couldn't even finish it; my friend managed to struggle through to the end but hated it. The parodying may be excellent, but I couldn't wade through all the graphic sexual scenes to appreciate the parody. There should have been some clue in the actual description of the book. Caveat emptor!!!
Rating:
Summary: Tasteless, childish
Review: I guess I'm one of the little old ladies, but I could not finish this book. All the scatology would appeal to 8-year-old boys, but they are too young for the sexual scenes. I just found this book too stupid to waste my time reading it. It is too bad this review system does not allow for negative stars.
Rating:
Summary: "A FORTUNE COOKIE FULL OF CYANIDE"
Review: My mystery reading group recently chose this title for our discussion. About half the people loathed it; the other half absolutely loved it. I was one of the second group, one who definitely was able to "read and roar." I think the readers who were alarmed by the novel found it "too risqué" and "not enough about LJB", but as the people on my side of the room kept insisting, that was the very point. Kaplow's book takes the polite little world of LJB and completely turns it on its head. Instead of a cute little eccentrics in white-washed little towns, we're given a book-length Eric Bogosian-like screed against the fraudulence of novelists like LJB, but, more specifically, we're given a smart literary parody that begins even before the novel starts. There's a "By the Same Author" page that includes such gems as "The Cat Who Mistook His Wife for a Litterbox." Then, on the copyright page, amid all the tiny legalese, we find: "All of the jokes in this novel were originally rejected by The New Yorker." This is really what the book is about: a sly send-up of books, authors, literary prizes, popular culture, and sexual mores. It's done at high volume and high intensity. It made me cry with laughter. If you're looking for a tame little tasteful send-up of LJB, then be prepared to drop your bifocals and your dentures in alarm. But if you've got a taste for something madder and wilder and smarter, this book is for you. (I particularly recommend you reread "The Maltese Falcon" as the last quarter of this book is a delicious send-up of that novel.)
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious
Review: I don't laugh at much, but this made me howl. I can see how this book might offend the "little old ladies" (both the literal and the figurative variety), but, honestly, this novel was refreshing in its total disregard for conventional "good taste." It's a satirical bunkerbuster, unafraid to take on anyone and anything, and, frankly, I enjoyed every second.
|
