Solipsist

Rating:
Summary: Like riding the train of love
Review: Always new stuff with hank, - always going for more. Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: henry rollins
Review: from black flag to writing books either way this mans a genuis no matter what age you are this book is a master peice im 17 i love this my uncle who is 45 also love this this hits everyone its the best thing since well his last book i recomend this book but while your ordering it order black coffee blues too

Rating:
Summary: Solipsist
Review: Henry Rollins declares on the back cover: "I worked on the book in several cities all over the world until 1996. The writing is obsessive and claustrophobic.(...) I went foi it and it swallowed me whole." Yeah, he is right. That is the exact sensation I felt while reading it, but Rollins is progressing greatly as a writer. This is one of his most powerful books: he manages to grab your attention and never let go. His recurrent themes are all here: alienation, anger, death and love. As he says in the introduction in the "Portable Henry Rollins": "So far, this is my favorite batch of writing." And we have to agree with that.

Rating:
Summary: Hes so much more likeable when hes not whinining
Review: I have read and enjoyed many of Rollins books, and dont get me wrong I enjoyed this one too! A book that can turn your stomach and pickle you off like this did me, must be an amazing book... Henry Rollins has this way of making you want to hug him and then immediatly kick him. He tells us how he sees the lifeless faces, then pouts in his stained room for hours if not days, he tells how hes lonely and horny and then He tells us to go away. Through every page of this book I found myself wanting to rip out his heart, then mend his heart then maybe rip it out again and start over. hence I realized I must be just like Henry just like myself!

Rating:
Summary: just realize what you're in for
Review: I read this book because I was dating a guy who was into this book and Eye Scream. We shared a lot of similar outlooks on society and interaction that we hadn't been able to find in a lot of other people. He seemed to think that Henry Rollins was the author that shared that. I had really high hopes for the book.

The book really drew me in. I kept thinking that on one of these pages he was going to really get it. Here and there there would be a sentence or two that really hit the mark. But when I got to the end and realized that dream wasn't going to come to fruition I was quite disappointed. Everything he said was too much... too far... His unease was too extreme to be identified with. His anger was much the same. **I got the distinct impression that he was trying to write from the outside** He wanted to appeal to the young lost soul. He wanted all those angry youth to identify with them (and I hate the stereotype "angry youth"). But maybe that stereotype he was writing to was exactly that - a stereotype. A stereotype that was too far out to be real for even the most jaded teenager.

Now I'm not saying that it's impossible for someone out there to feel exactly the way he describes, I'm only saying that they are rare to the point of not being able to function in society and they are not him. Henry Rollins leads too successful of a life to have trouble doing the simple things he describes in his books, like making eye contact with a clerk at a store. I've seen him on TV (and I hadn't at the time). Henry Rollins is not writing his own feelings. He's just not.

And some people, like this guy I was dating at the time, probably find comfort in the feelings in the book. They may think they relate to them, as he did -- but what he was doing was extracting and twisting it into ideas he sort of felt. He wasn't that angry or that socially mal-adjusted. He just thought he was, I guess.

So in the end, what I want to leave you with is the idea that this book may make you even more jaded than you started if you have too high of hopes for the connection you expect to feel while reading it. You have to read this realizing that it's not Henry Rollins. It's a character that he has created that is not real, in an attempt to rope in the stereotyped angry youth. If you can keep this straight in your mind, it is excellently poetic -- good enough to keep a quote sheet from. Just don't expect a real, live, honest-to-god spilled soul.

Rating:
Summary: Rollins at it again
Review: I've found this book to be a refreshing change from the rest of the stuff out there. Solipsist is one of Rollin's best works.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful...
Review: In an age where I'd almost given up on honesty and authenticity in writing, a friend introduced me to Hank - and I was amazed. Maybe one or two people on earth are capable of having me in a screaming, raging fury of disgust at one moment, then two lines later can write something that lances straight into the center of my soul and gouges out something that I've been ignoring - or afraid to say - for years.

Henry Rollins speaks with a voice that has been forgotten by most of us. The voice of anger, sorrow, joy, love and murderous hatred... honest and truthful in its own fictional way, consequences be damned.

There are many people who'd tell you he's the Messiah, but in reality, he's just a screwed-up guy with some really good things to say - and the talent required to say them. I have great respect for people like that - and I recommend this book highly. It is, for me, and incredibly profound read.

Rating:
Summary: The only one of his kind
Review: Some people have called this work a little dark and a little self defeating.But I love henry rollin's work mainly because he tends to speak the truth even if its hard to swallow.He is willing to explore the harder parts of his character and in doing so makes some discoveries on the nature of things.

Rating:
Summary: i can not change or hide what i am even if i wantd to....
Review: when i first read "solipsist" i cried.
yes. i did... i am not some rollins fanatic,but i have to admit that this guy really knows what he is talking about.the way he describes loneliness,pain,humiliation that goes along sometimes with "being real" with women,the alienation that big cities can make you feel...this book sums it all up-in living colour,simple language and gut wrenching honesty.
rollins talks about situations that many of us go through- the need for someone,the sleepless nights after a loved one leaves...
the burning need to know where she is and what she is doing....
but! unlike others,rollins offers different solutions.rollins confronts his fear instead of being over sensitive (although his writing IS very sensitive and intelligent)- rollins offers confrontation instead of fear,long periods of loneliness instead of forced agony in marriage. he does NOT give the easy option.
he tells it like it is:"wonder where your EX is? let me assuer you-she is with someone else".brutal? yes.. but true.
this might not be easy reading,but whenever i was down,whenever i have felt bad about myself-whenever i woke up in the middle of the night- i opened "solipsist".didnt even matter which page ,and started reading.
this book is a MUST for everyone who has ever had a hard time and DIDNT break.
i will close this recommendation with a quote from "solipsist":

AND YOU NEVER FORGET WHAT YOU ARE.

WARRIOR.

Rating:
Summary: just realize what you're in for
Review: when i first read "solipsist" i cried.
yes. i did... i am not some rollins fanatic,but i have to admit that this guy really knows what he is talking about.the way he describes loneliness,pain,humiliation that goes along sometimes with "being real" with women,the alienation that big cities can make you feel...this book sums it all up-in living colour,simple language and gut wrenching honesty.
rollins talks about situations that many of us go through- the need for someone,the sleepless nights after a loved one leaves...
the burning need to know where she is and what she is doing....
but! unlike others,rollins offers different solutions.rollins confronts his fear instead of being over sensitive (although his writing IS very sensitive and intelligent)- rollins offers confrontation instead of fear,long periods of loneliness instead of forced agony in marriage. he does NOT give the easy option.
he tells it like it is:"wonder where your EX is? let me assuer you-she is with someone else".brutal? yes.. but true.
this might not be easy reading,but whenever i was down,whenever i have felt bad about myself-whenever i woke up in the middle of the night- i opened "solipsist".didnt even matter which page ,and started reading.
this book is a MUST for everyone who has ever had a hard time and DIDNT break.
i will close this recommendation with a quote from "solipsist":

AND YOU NEVER FORGET WHAT YOU ARE.

WARRIOR.