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Vernon God Little
Автор: DBC Pierre
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“If Huckleberry Finn were set on the Mexican-American border and written by the creators of South Park, it might read something like this.” —San Francisco Chronicle
Hailed by critics and lauded by readers for its riotously funny and scathing portrayal of America in an age of trial by media, materialism, and violence, Vernon God Little was an international sensation when it was first published in 2003 and awarded the prestigious Man Booker Prize.
The memorable portrait of America is seen through the eyes of a wry, young protagonist. Fifteen-year-old Vernon narrates the story with a cynical twang and a four-letter barb for each of his townsfolk, a medley of characters. With a plot involving a school shooting and death-row reality TV shows, Pierre’s effortless prose and dialogue combine to form a novel of postmodern gamesmanship.
“A dangerous, smart, ridiculous, and very funny first novel . . . Pierre renders adolescence brilliantly, capturing with seeming effortlessness the bright, contradictory hormone rush of teenage life.” —Sam Sifton, The New York Times
Hailed by critics and lauded by readers for its riotously funny and scathing portrayal of America in an age of trial by media, materialism, and violence, Vernon God Little was an international sensation when it was first published in 2003 and awarded the prestigious Man Booker Prize.
The memorable portrait of America is seen through the eyes of a wry, young protagonist. Fifteen-year-old Vernon narrates the story with a cynical twang and a four-letter barb for each of his townsfolk, a medley of characters. With a plot involving a school shooting and death-row reality TV shows, Pierre’s effortless prose and dialogue combine to form a novel of postmodern gamesmanship.
“A dangerous, smart, ridiculous, and very funny first novel . . . Pierre renders adolescence brilliantly, capturing with seeming effortlessness the bright, contradictory hormone rush of teenage life.” —Sam Sifton, The New York Times
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Vernon God Little
Автор: DBC Pierre
Описание
“If Huckleberry Finn were set on the Mexican-American border and written by the creators of South Park, it might read something like this.” —San Francisco Chronicle
Hailed by critics and lauded by readers for its riotously funny and scathing portrayal of America in an age of trial by media, materialism, and violence, Vernon God Little was an international sensation when it was first published in 2003 and awarded the prestigious Man Booker Prize.
The memorable portrait of America is seen through the eyes of a wry, young protagonist. Fifteen-year-old Vernon narrates the story with a cynical twang and a four-letter barb for each of his townsfolk, a medley of characters. With a plot involving a school shooting and death-row reality TV shows, Pierre’s effortless prose and dialogue combine to form a novel of postmodern gamesmanship.
“A dangerous, smart, ridiculous, and very funny first novel . . . Pierre renders adolescence brilliantly, capturing with seeming effortlessness the bright, contradictory hormone rush of teenage life.” —Sam Sifton, The New York Times
Hailed by critics and lauded by readers for its riotously funny and scathing portrayal of America in an age of trial by media, materialism, and violence, Vernon God Little was an international sensation when it was first published in 2003 and awarded the prestigious Man Booker Prize.
The memorable portrait of America is seen through the eyes of a wry, young protagonist. Fifteen-year-old Vernon narrates the story with a cynical twang and a four-letter barb for each of his townsfolk, a medley of characters. With a plot involving a school shooting and death-row reality TV shows, Pierre’s effortless prose and dialogue combine to form a novel of postmodern gamesmanship.
“A dangerous, smart, ridiculous, and very funny first novel . . . Pierre renders adolescence brilliantly, capturing with seeming effortlessness the bright, contradictory hormone rush of teenage life.” —Sam Sifton, The New York Times
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interesting, but ultimately not all that satisfying... kept me entertained, and enjoyed the media circus around the whole justice thing, but didn't find any of the characters engaging enough to care about the outcome...
Rating: 3Amazing and creative language in a setting that reflects many of America's worst facets.
Rating: 4Imaginative, beautifully written, funny, the invention of a delightful character
Rating: 4This guy was in the running for a five-star review and probably would have made it if not for the post-climactic ending, in which Pierre feels the inexplicable need to get everything all squared away, thoroughly diminishing the enjoyment of the preceding events. If you haven't read it, this review is now making less than no sense, and I simply recommend you read it until you start to feel mildly disappointed, then stop.
Rating: 4Everything about this book seemed forced and ridiculous to me. Sometimes I liked the main character, but mostly not. A poor "Catcher in the Rye" imitation. Not a book I would recommend.
Rating: 2A gritty tale of Texas white trash with a strong focus on anal sphincters and excrement. Absolutely nothing to recommend it.
Rating: 2I honesty cannot see how "Vernon God Little" won the Man Booker Prize (or the Whitbread Best First Novel Award or the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award for Comic Writing for that matter). It's not that it's poorly written, although I was tempted to stop reading throughout the earlier sections of the book, but it just didn't grab my attention like a good novel should. And considering I was living in South Korea at the time and was starved of English language literature, it's a big statement to claim I was tempted to stop reading.Yes, "Vernon God Little" improves as it goes on and by the end I did care whether the narrator lived or died but I think it suffered from its huge reputation.While I'm here, I'll take the opportunity to give a shout-out to Luling, Texas, name-checked in the book. I spent an evening in Luling more than twenty years ago but the place still seems to haunt me; not quite in a "Poltergeist" way, but close.
Rating: 4Vernon Little is 15 when his friend Jesus opens fire on a group of classmates, killing 16 including himself. As one of the few survivors, Vernon becomes the town's scapegoat and is almost immediately charged as an accessory to the crime. This book, told from Vernon's point of view, describes the nightmare of his life in the months following the shooting. Surprisingly, it does so with considerable humor and irony. Vernon lives with his mother; his father disappeared some time before. They have very little money and his mother clearly has emotional issues. Vernon steadfastly maintains his innocence relative to the shootings, but the townspeople are looking for a way to release their anger and grief. Unfortunately Vernon has no idea how to work the legal system, and his mother is pretty useless as well. He befriends a news reporter who appears to be on his side, but turns out to be a conniving jerk, using Vernon's story to his own advantage and fanning the flames of anger in the town. Vernon does several stupid things that increase the authorities' suspicions, and these desperate acts only serve to get him further tangled up in the case.Vernon God Little is completely different from another in the "school shooting genre," We Need to Talk about Kevin, which was published about the same time. The latter is intense and emotional. Vernon God Little is filled with the wry wit and sexual obsessions of a 15-year-old boy. It's almost funny in parts. About two-thirds of the way through the book the storyline became a bit unbelievable, but the last 30 pages or so resolve things in a fairly satisfying way. Not a bad read.
Rating: 3I got into this more as it went along, but still wasn't thrilled overall. I don't think I'm in the right frame of mind, and found myself impatient with plot illogicality. Picky, I know, but there you go.
Rating: 3This is a very clever, insightful book. Vernon grows a little more on you every page that you turn. I found my opinion of him shifting subtly as the novel progressed. The teenage first-person narrative gave the story an ingenuous feel as the plot evolved.There is a poignant wit and humour that makes you want to linger over some thoughts, while at the same time you can't help but want to leap into the next paragraphs to find out what develops next.I will definitely be reading this book again.
Rating: 4Pierre didn't quite capture America--his depiction of American culture, even in parody, gave me the sense of reading English translated into a foreign language then back again--but that actually made the book in a way more interesting. It was a look at someone from outside looking in at the ugliest, least flattering side of us.
Rating: 3If Catcher in the Rye and Southpark had a child, Vernon God Little would be their frenetic, foul-mouthed, Red- Bull guzzling offspring. Laced with witty vernacular and a constant barrage of verbal gymnastics, this book delivers like very few books do. One of the best books I've ever read. Highly recommended!
Rating: 5You will laugh even though this is a story about pathetic people surviving a school shooting in their small Texas town. Amazing, right? But the way this author weaves the story, is truly clever. I was hooked. The name of the town, Martirio, even means martyr, which is certainly a theme in the book. Sooo many great topics here. My kind of literature. (Compare to Catcher in the Rye.)
Rating: 5I enjoyed the comedy elements of this book - there are some brilliantly funny phrases which make this worth reading. That said I found the story and characters hard going. The ending is bizarre and lost me completely. This book is a real mixed bag for me - sometimes I loved it and sometimes I didn't think I would finish it. This book may well be the literary equivalent to marmite.
Rating: 4I loved this book. the characters were so well drawn, and the style so refreshing. I couldn't put it down. Some were put off by the swearing and refused to read it, but if you are writing about a teenage boy, and using his words, of course there will be swearing, he is hardly likely to go around saying 'gosh, how absolutely ghastly'. This book, while dealing with a serious and awful event at a High School in America, manages to portray with humour the scrapes a young man can get into if he is always believed to be a criminal. Some of the characters are hilarious, I found myself laughing out loud.Definitely recommend this book.
Rating: 5This is a very painful read!As with the best of satire, you are taken into a world of extremes where you KNOW that this couldn't really happen (or could it?)!The characters who people this world are not like us - they are condensations of what we can do, of how we could think, of how we might act. You need only look at the vigilante groups wandering various parts of the world, at the more extreme religious views held by certain groups of people and of the ruthless way the media have at times investigated personal tragedies to realise that this is not about any one place or any one time - it is about all of us and about what we could turn into if there were not people like the author of this work throwing books like this at our heads and hoping, like the fools of old, some of the message sticks.
Rating: 4No question about the quality of the writing (it's high: the modern American teenager's verbal awkwardness released through a lyrical written consciousness), perhaps more about whether this is for everyone.It's filthy and shot through with bleakness. Then again, it's the filth and bleakness of the modern world, nothing more or less. Pierre has nailed the internal grindings of an adolescent boy, and much of America too. I couldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did were it not for the lively sense of humour, and the redemption which is given room to breathe. Tellingly, it's the redemption Vernon envisages; he's a product of his world to the last.
Rating: 4Vernon Gregory Little is a 15-year old living in the "barbecue sauce capital of Texas", accused of being an accessory to the murders committed by Jesus Navarro. As Jesus is dead, killing himself after fatally shooting 16 others in his school, VGL becomes the scapegoat. The rest of the novel is about the media circus surrounding the story, VGL's near-escapes, and his adolescent angst, told by VGL himself in either comical tone or dark cynicism but either way, it seemed forced. The story attempts at satire, but midway, it falls apart. It becomes very artificial. Every possible misfortune befalls our young hero. Sadly, he is unable to speak for himself and nobody takes up the cudgel for him. Moreoever, a bigger group of morons could not have populated an entire town the way they did in that place. To top it all, there is a death row TV reality show thrown in. Just how bad can a Booker winner get?
Rating: 2I'm going to keep this short. One of the worst books I ever read. Too many swear words. Infantile language. I couldn't relate.
Rating: 1The back cover of the copy I read was blurb after blurb about how funny this book is (all from UK publications). I hadn't picked up the book looking for a comedy, I picked it up because the Booker list leads me to great reads. But there was a giant disconnect between the blurbs and the book. I just didn't find the subject very funny. I was moved and frustrated by Vernon, but left cold by the leaps of logic that are usually acceptable in a comedy. Call me humourless.
Rating: 2'Vernon God Little' is commonly denounced as an unrealistic portrayal of the tragedy of a school shooting, similar to the incident at Columbine High in Colorado some years ago. These type folks fail to realize that 'Vernon God Little' is only barely about a school shooting. It's about fancy writin'. Check it:"Deputy Gurie tears a strip of meat from a bone; it flaps through her lips like a shit taken backwards."A shit taken backwards! Is that even possible? Who cares, it rules! Gems of this sort preponder in V.G. Little.People seem to think that 'Vernon' was meant to be to the Columbine Massacre as 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' was to 9/11, or as the documentary 'Terminator 2' was to the coming robot rebellion. But it's not.The school shooting is just an example of the larger malaise and absurdity DBC Pierre is pointing at with 'Vernon.' To even read the first sentence of the synopsis on the inside flap will show that Pierre is aiming a little higher than a recreation of the tragedy. The name of Vernon's Mexican friend who shot 16 kids and then himself is Jesus. Jesus killed a bunch of kids. Jesus is killing YOUR kids. And then killing himself. And Vernon 'God' Little is on the run from the cops.This book has the very rare quality of being wildly funny and startlingly meaningful simultaneously. For this reason,a blurb on the back compares it to 'A Confederacy of Dunces,' and I agree. Although there is much more cursing and sex in 'Vernon,' which makes it automatically better.Pierre also creates the most likable character I've read since, say, the protagonist in John Barth's 'The Floating Opera,' or what his face from 'The Sun Also Rises.' The sort of main character you can't help but want to see succeed. Or even William Stoner from 'Stoner' or Bjartur of Summerhouses from 'Independent People.' Characters who just can't catch a break, even though they probably deserve one.Furthermore, all the narration is in Vernon's "fucken" dialect, which might get fucken old if it weren't so goddamn funny and Pierre was less tasteful and skillful with it. But he is, so it only serves to support the reader's warm feelings toward 'Vernon.'The metaphor in 'Vernon' is trashily powerful. Can't find the page, but something like "The sky was like a bunch of lint balls on a soggy graham cracker." Mmm. Lint.Suffice it to say, you should read this book, and you should should ignore the idea that it is meant to be a paean for the lives lost at Columbine High, because it's not. If you can divest yourself of that thought, you will at *least* have fun reading it, whether you agree with Pierre's assessment of American pop culture or not, because it is a masterful farce. Also:"You don't know how bad I want to be Jean-Claude Van Damme. Ram her fucken gun up her ass, and run away with a panty model. But just look at me: clump of lawless brown hair, the eyelashes of a camel. Big ole puppy-dog features like God made me through a fucken magnifying glass. You know right away my movie's the one where I puke on my legs, and they send a nurse to interview me instead."
Rating: 5Vernon's best friend shoots up a school and Vernon becomes a scapegoat and the chance of a lifetime for a greasy, slimeball loser named Lally. Local color is a tad distracting, but you gotta love a book that has this line: "Ella's (hair) always blown to hell, like a Barbie doll your dog's been chewing on for a month."
Rating: 4It's interesting that an Australian raised in Mexico can imagine an "America-as-imagined-by-Brits".This could be destined to become one of my all-time favourites.
Rating: 5Not so funny humorous book. Got slightly better at the end, but not worthy of awards. Lots of gratuitous vulgarity.
Rating: 1As a sixteen year old boy, I thought this was a great laugh-out-loud book, and a great way of combining British humour within an unmistakably American setting. Very much a modern 'catcher in the rye' type book, not supprised that it won such a prestigious award.
Rating: 5Damn funny and irreverent. Though sometimes I found myself becoming frustrated at just how much goes wrong for poor Vernon Little, the ending really made it worth it. It's about time something this cutting and amusing came from an Australian author.National tragedies. Media beat ups. Excrement.And it's better than it sounds.
Rating: 4Such an astonishing book!! Enjoyed so much the humour and sadness in it.
Rating: 4I really wouldn't recommend this book. It is humorous in places and the characters are mostly believable, but the story is pretty ridiculous and confusing in places (vaine gurie, judge gurie, gurie gurie, gurie street!?), with an ending that is equally ridiculous and confusing.I've entirely failed to recognise what could possible make this book a Man Booker Prize winner :-SPerhaps the seemingly American lifestyle and humour has been lost on this Brit.
Rating: 2I enjoyed the Texas teen angst of this novel and at times, was laughing out loud. I came to understand and care about the characters very quickly which was a bit of a trick considering most of them are as fallable and floundering as the rest of mankind. Real, hard, desperate people dealing with a terrible catalyst yet they all remained true to their nature. It may not be for everyone, but for those willing to crawl into this utterly warped and damaged 15 year old boy brain, I think you will be satisfied with the results. And no... if you want Columbine, read Columbine.
Rating: 4This novel, Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre, is some of the wackiest, darkest comedy I've ever come across, not that I'm a humor expert, or anything. It satires life in a central Texan town, the media, and many types of human beings we all know. It's told in first person by Vernon Gregory Little, with his ever so interesting vocabulary and twang, and the reader gets to see him grow up while wrestling with a personal nightmare.When Vernon's best friend, a depressed outcast in school, randomly shoots sixteen of his classmates and then turns the gun on himself, Vernon is left in the wrong place at the wrong time and is accused as being an accessory to these murders. There really is no case against Vernon, or so you'd think, in a town where people are reasonable and reasonably bright, but unfortunately, this town is filled with people who are just plain ole stupid. This is a cliffhanger of a story that you'll want to keep reading, and there's lots of laughter, too. An original!
Rating: 5