Book reviews written by chicobangs

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Displaying 11-13 of 13 reviews

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N'Roll (Vintage)

by Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs
- Rated 5 stars
“I probably should give this four stars instead of five -- it's as inconsistent as the subjects he writes about, it reads like it was slapped together by Greil Marcus in an afternoon (which it probably was), the feud with Lou Reed that occupies the middle third of the book is not nearly as interesting as the two principals would like to have thought, and for a compendium of his greatest work, it doesn't give an image of the man or even the man's career arc ferfucksake, but by god the best parts of this cook with broken-line gas so hot you'll feel like you're being blinded by science, kicked in the heart, slapped in the bunghole and stomped by the sheer awesome ass-kickin-finger-lickin rage of his prose. The opening piece on how the Yardbirds were the beginning of the next great wave of rock and roll that rose with his own social awakenings through the MC5, Iggy Pop, the Godz, Slade, Uncle Lou and (yes) the Count Five sets the tone for all the sowhatwhocares that follows about the Guess Who, Coltrane, James Taylor and the Clash. But maybe the best piece of all is his amazing first-person short story spun from the lyrics of Rod Stewart's greatest hit. Sweet creamery elvis costello in a bucket, but give that boy a bottle of cough syrup and a typewriter and he could give you the friggin' moon and stars.”

chicobangs wrote this review Tuesday, December 12 2006. ( reply | permalink )
Infante's Inferno

by
- Rated 4 stars
“Infante's Inferno is a memoir of Guillermo Cabrera Infante's sexual awakening from childhood into middle age. While less scattershot than his more famous novel, Three Trapped Tigers, Infante's Inferno certainly retains much of the joy of language and of discovery from his masterpiece.

I wouldn't read this before TTT; it could have used one more round of editing, it is slightly inconsistent, and it does drag in places, but it retains the charm that makes Infante such a great writer, and much of it crackles with equal parts lyrical swordplay and accidentally human innocence.”

chicobangs wrote this review Tuesday, December 12 2006. ( reply | permalink )
Three Trapped Tigers (Latin American Literature Series)

by G. Cabrera Infante
- Rated 5 stars
“For my money, as underappreciated a novel as I have ever read. Imagine Joyce in Havana in the 1950's, hanging out with the two-bit glamor girls and the big-band underbelly of Cuban society, living an American Graffitiesque life with his two best friends, all of them chasing women and drink and privacy and kicks, and kicks, and kicks, and kicks.

When people say a book is laugh-out-loud funny, they generally don't mean it, but lovers of wordplay and who have even a vague understanding of mid-20th Century North American popular culture will freak over this book.

A punny, dense, eclectic, raunchy, filthy, swinging rhumba of a novel. I can't recommend it highly enough.”

chicobangs wrote this review Friday, March 21 2008. ( reply | permalink )