Hope: A Tragedy

[Perknose]

Previewing? Good for you! This thread is about a book, a novel. Consider yourself warned.

Inspired by a series of rave reviews, I've just begun to read "Hope: A Tragedy," by Shalom Auslander. Fwiw, Auslander means foreigner in German. His entire name sounds like a non de plume, or pen name, doesn't it?

Apparently, it ain't.

Second side note: His previous novel was entitled "Foreskin's Lament."

Anyway, I just started reading the book itself. The author comes roaring out of the gate. His entire first chapter is really but a page long. I'd type the whole thing in if I had more ambition.

I don't.

But I will type this much, the opening sentence and the last paragraph:

IT'S FUNNY: It isn't the fire that kills you, it's the smoke.

[...]

You resolve, one sunny New Year's Day, to get back into shape. This is the year, you insist. A new beginning. A new start. A stronger you, a tougher you. At the health club the following morining, just as you're beginnig your third set of bench presses, your muscles cramp and the barbell collapses onto your neck, crushing your windpipe. You can't cry out. Your face turns blue. Your arms go limp. There, on the poster on the wall beside you, are the last words you see before your eyes close and darkness envelopes you for eternity:

Feel the burn.

It's funny.

His second chapter begins:

SOLOMAN KUGEL WAS LYING IN BED, thinking about suffocating to death in a house fire, because he was an optimist.

And I am sharing my love of good literature with OT because I, too, am an optimist.

 

[SandEagle]

are there pictures?

 

[surfsatwerk]

Always ask for a spot sillypants.

 

[Tim]

Book review boredom.

 

[Blackjack200]

"A virtuoso humorist, and a brave one: beware Shalom Auslander; he will make you laugh until your heart breaks.” – New York Times Book Review

Damn you PN, I'm trying to avoid buying books. I put it in my Amazon cart.

 

[Drako]

I thought this was going to be about the Obama presidency, oh well.

 

[Born2bwire]

Finally, now I have a new book to read.

 

[Arcadio]

I've got too many books on my reading queue already, otherwise I would give it a try.

 

[highland145]

Hope: A Tragedy
Change:A Joke

love ya Perk.