My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist

Rating:
Summary: Drained
Review: A frantic, hasty novella with no insight into the human condition as a whole, or the individual as a thinking, breathing being. Leyner is television on paper, a commercial for hiptitude, for look-at-me-I'm-cool "literature" that, I hope with all my heart, will go the way of greasy hair and cigarette packs rolled in the sleeves of tight cotton t-shirts. With this novella, we catch sporadic glimpses within the depths of an empty well; make that, a shallow bucket; we glean information on what it means to be vacant: emptiness. And, after two hours of reading this book, you will be drained in more ways than one.

Rating:
Summary: Refreshingly free of morals.
Review: A tangy blend of sex, violence, and everything you should havelearned in Chem but they wouldn't teach you, My Cousin combinessubjects that were always afraid of each other in a way that makes just enough sense to keep you reading. By the middle of the book, you will be enough in tune with Leyner's message to laugh when Yogi Vithaldis's eye lands in the styrofoam coffee cup. In addition to its taboo subject matter, My Cousin covers the seemingly inconsequential with viscious detail, while easily skimming over anything that might become a plot. The dialog is indiffererent and cynical, indicative of the world where Leyner lives, where phone sex happens on the answering machine and a man is a man is an android. This book paints an exiciting and depressing picture of the future, a time when all the priorities will have changed. My advice to the reader: read twice, once to laugh and ask "why the hell..." and once to see "why" and to put it together. Lynne Plettenberg PS: Makes great quotes to throw off your friends in conversation.

Rating:
Summary: Mark Leyner: It's Love or Hate. I Love, Love, Love.
Review: As you can see from the assortment of past reviews, people either love Mark Leyner or hate him (I wanted to use "get him" or "don't get him" but then this becomes snooty, and I'm trying to avoid snooty). He's different, what can I tell you? If you're a traditionalist who demands plot, theme and some semblence character development, you'll do better to move on past. However, if you fancy something a bit different, where the words and imagery take precedence over literature style-points, you've got to give Leyner a shot. I've found him to be especially popular with those who enjoy contemporary poetry, if that's more helpful. "My Cousin" was the first Leyner book I ever read and my mouth hung agape the whole way through- I never realized that anyone could get away with writing like that and be so great at it! Anyway, keep in mind, he's not for everyone, but if he's for you, you won't be sorry.

Rating:
Summary: Mark Leyner: It's Love or Hate. I Love, Love, Love.
Review: As you can see from the assortment of past reviews, people either love Mark Leyner or hate him (I wanted to use "get him" or "don't get him" but then this becomes snooty, and I'm trying to avoid snooty). He's different, what can I tell you? If you're a traditionalist who demands plot, theme and some semblence character development, you'll do better to move on past. However, if you fancy something a bit different, where the words and imagery take precedence over literature style-points, you've got to give Leyner a shot. I've found him to be especially popular with those who enjoy contemporary poetry, if that's more helpful. "My Cousin" was the first Leyner book I ever read and my mouth hung agape the whole way through- I never realized that anyone could get away with writing like that and be so great at it! Anyway, keep in mind, he's not for everyone, but if he's for you, you won't be sorry.

Rating:
Summary: This is not literature
Review: But it is funny as hell. Kind of like watching South Park. Is it important? Is it going to change your life? Well, no. But it may, like David Byrne writes on the back cover, make you laugh out loud in the bathroom. Great entertainment, but if you want literature pick up a book by Vollman or Faulkner.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most intelligently, witty books out there.
Review: Finally, a book chronicling the inanity of modern life withe the technological bent required for an intelligent appraisal of our lives.

Rating:
Summary: Disapointing
Review: He is one of the best writers in America, but this one is definitely not as good as 'Tooth Imprints on a Corndog' or 'Et Tu, Babe.' Get the others first. If you're a collector, then get this one.

Rating:
Summary: cubfan
Review: I kept waiting for some reality to creep in but it never happened. Hated the book. If thia is represetative of Mark Leyners work , I'll pass from now on.

Rating:
Summary: Fizz
Review: I must ask your indulgence for a brief autobiographical anecdote (it is relevant). When I was seventeen-years-old, I was an aspiring author, and this was one of my favorite books, along with Henry Miller's BLACK SPRING. MY COUSIN, MY GASTROENTEROLOGIST, I thought, expanded language to the breaking point. Flash-forward ten years later. I found a jaundiced copy of this book in my parents' basement, along with BLACK SPRING, and re-read both during a week-long visit.

Was I ever THAT young????

My impressions had changed radically. The book now seemed infantile to me: it is nothing more, really, than a frivolous, badly strung-together collection of verbal sound-bites. The book is superficial and hollow at its core. Now, I'm not a fan of transcendental meanings or linear narratives, but, FOR GOD'S SAKE or for the sake of WHOMEVER, even experimental fiction should have at least SOME formal consistency. The surrealists' experiments (one thinks of SOLUBLE FISH or THE MAGNETIC FIELDS) or the work of Alfred Jarry all have an internal logic. This book has none. It is completely meaningless and disjointed.

In fact, the book is a mess: a hastily written, blithe little throwaway of a book.

MY COUSIN, MY GASTROENTEROLOGIST is pure entertainment, nothing more. If that is all you are interested in, so be it. But if that is the case, then you must accept that there is ESSENTIALLY nothing to distinguish this book from an episode of the TV show, FRIENDS, except that the latter is probably more memorable.

This book belongs on the shelf next to BLACK SPRING, a much more "illustrious" book (if only because it was reviewed by Maurice Blanchot), but also one that suffers from a similar disorder.

I've given this book two stars only because to give it one would be to demean my prior self.

Rating:
Summary: Hey Snooty i don't get it
Review: I used to read Mark Leyner's column in the back of Esquire and laughed out loud every time... funny insightful cutting... So I bought this book... but I just didn't get it. Not only did I not find it funny, I just plain didn't understand it. It was like trying to read Finnegan's wake.