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2 of 2 members found this review helpful.Witty, inventive, yet searing -- & searching for what's right
“Moody has contributed a number of glittering nuggets to our literature, and is best known for the more restrained early novels, made into movies. Yet in that longer form, I'd choose PURPLE AMERICA as his most feisty and moving, but after so enjoying my time with RIGHT LIVELIHOODS, I must put my shoulder behind the wheel of these three novellas. I'd characterize the set as a triangulated vision (triangulated, in keeping with the classic menage-a-trois for novellas, established by John Barth in CHIMERA) of groaning WASP America's ever-more-destructive looniness. This climaxes in "The Albertine Notes," a keening post-apocalyptic New York counterpoint to Proust's swooning recollection of his lost dream lover and, with her, of a collapsing European order. But literary references and a moral summary -- calling the work a search for a "right livelihood" in a fallen world -- does a disservice to the imagination and dramaturgy at play in "Notes," and in Moody's entire trio of catastrophes, always an entertaining skeleton-dance. The work seems one of those in which a rare talent has found a new way to his express his storytelling gift, and so to refresh his sensibility, and at the same time it vivifies anew the notion of the monitory artist, part hectoring Jeremiah and part head-over-heels jive artist, delivering dire warnings via belly laugh, rich personalities, and the skilled manipulation of surprises. ”
An amazon user wrote this on 2008-08-09. -
2 of 5 members found this review helpful.
3 great novelas
“Who says summer reading can't be significant lit. Who says significant lit can't be fun! Every sentence is packed with meaning. ”
An amazon user wrote this on 2007-08-23. -
1 of 4 members found this review helpful.
Disappointing Book
“Reviewed by Joanne Benham (6/07)
An amazon user wrote this on 2007-07-09.
In the first story, "The Omega Force," we meet Dr. Jaime Van Deusen, a retired civil servant living on the small island of South Beach, an isolated enclave of the wealthy. He wakes up one morning on a neighbor's loggia, a paperback book called `The Omega Force: Code One' lying next to him. With no memory of why he was sleeping on the loggia; indeed, he doesn't even know on whose loggia he's sleeping, his keen brain makes an immediate leap to espionage. After all, the clues are all in the book and he gets other clues from a U.S. spy, cleverly disguised as a fisherman. Realizing that certain `dark-complected' foreign nationals are planning to overrun his island home, Jaime sets out to single-handedly save it from that terrible fate.
Told in the ramblings of a drunken man, I kept waiting for Jaime to be vindicated, hoping that he would find his `dark-complected' foreign nationals and save his home and family.
The second story is "K & K," a thoroughly boring read about the goings-on of a small insurance company. With only eleven employees on the payroll of Kolodny and Kolodny, Ellie Knight-Cameron figured it wouldn't take much effort to track down the writer of the totally inappropriate suggestions placed in the company suggestion box. The story follows her as she tracks down lead after lead, even going so far as to stake out the home of one of the employees, as she stubbornly pursues her quest. The parallels to Jamie Van Deusen's story are obvious; although Ellie's mental instability is not caused by drinking.
The third installment in the book is "The Albertine Notes," a story about the aftermath of a catastrophe that has leveled fifty square blocks of Manhattan, and left four million dead. Albertine is a mind-altering drug, capable of producing enhanced memory, where you not only remember past events, you actually relive them down to the smallest detail. Albertine was also capable of giving certain select individuals the ability to see into the future.
The story follows Kevin Lee, a magazine reporter assigned to write a story about the history of Albertine, as he tracks down leads, interviews people and tries desperately to understand and explain the power of Albertine. In this story, the mental instability is of course caused by the drug.
Again, I was disappointed with the story, literally forcing myself to finish it.
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0 of 3 members found this review helpful.
Not sure where author is going
“The first story was simply hard to finish. Seemingly without a purpose. I found myself not caring what was happening and just wanting to get through it.
An amazon user wrote this on 2007-07-05.
The second story started out much more interesting but ended with a disappointing thud.
The third story is the very best of the three, but honestly its not worth buying the book just for the third work.
Sorry to be such a downer, but I had high hopes for this. The reviewers in recent magazines must owe the author something, or were just being nice.” -
2 of 4 members found this review helpful.
a "lay" review written for common, ordinary folk like myself
“Let's say I'm coerced to pick one word to describe RIGHT LIVELIHOODS (or ANY book by Rick Moody). That word would be "rain". Not floodwaters that rise over your head and wash you away. Smooth, still, tranquilizing rain. Melancholic without being too depressing. Sober, REAL. The three novellas in RIGHT LIVELIHOODS are so real and intrinsic that I read each one in its entirety before putting down the book.
An amazon user wrote this on 2007-06-28.
I need good books to help me escape my depressed self. A "good book" embraces me instead of vice versa. It moves me to relax my troubled mind. My soul is engulfed by it and I can step into another life. I can have a different name, a different heritage, a different past. I can have sundry worries and diverse dreams. A good book leaves me feeling woebegone when it ends and sends me back to myself. It returns me to an apathetic world after giving me a day full of sighs and smiles and perhaps even tears and laughter. Thus, it leaves me feeling more discomposed than as it found me. Yes, a good book finds ME. I don't have enough good luck nor common sense to find the good ones. Somehow, they meander into my life, usually by recommendation. Once in my life, they influence and transform me. They improve me. They don't make me happy, very little does. But they do make me THINK. They compel me to ponder, to reflect, to fantasize.
RIGHT LIVELIHOODS is a good book. (ALL Rick Moody books are GREAT books!) RIGHT LIVELIHOODS shares with us the foolhardy shenanigans of an adorable Dr. "Jamie" Van Deusen in the novella "The Omega Force". It shares with us the delusional reality of a mousy perfectionist Ellie Knight-Cameron in "K & K". And introduces us to a likable, downtrodden Kevin Lee and to a wonderful illicit drug called Albertine in "The Albertine Notes".
I can't imagine a reader not instantly befriending these characters. One would have to be indifferent to decent literature in order to remain detached. I fell in love with them.
So, should you read this book? Yes, indubitably. It's a good book, friends. Don't just take my word for it. Read it and experience it. Let it affect you too.
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