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Title: The Pugilist At Rest: Stories by Thom Jones ISBN: 0-316-47304-9 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 04 May, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.56 (25 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Nothing restful about it
Comment: Gripping, forceful, hallucinatory collection by a writer fully in control of his craft. One of the best story collections ever.
Rating: 4
Summary: Must read Vietnam literature
Comment: Thom Jones' "Pugilist at Rest" is a fine collection of stories. The highlight of this book, however, are the three stories in the first section. Starting with the title story, these three pieces "feel" real. They all involve the same character and narrate his experiences in the Vietnam War.
What's so great about the Vietnam stories is the authenticity. Not just in the description of the war, but in the emotions and thoughts of the protagonist. Many reviewers noted the author's hard-edged voice, the roughness, confusion, and violence swirling just beneath the surface. But what most fail to mention is the voice of longing and hope that create the foundation of Jones' Vietnam tales. The steamy jungles of Southeast Asia have taken a tough, street smart kid and wrung every drop of humanity from him. All that remained was a near-crazed epileptic with a detailed knowledge of boxing and Schopenhauer. But there's a spark of life and joy that drives the narrator on, that turns him outward and gives him inspiration to write. He's a fighter, aching to find a peaceful moment.
The remaining stories are raw and amateurish, containing passages of wonder, but largely unauthentic. It's as if Jones churned these out in a writing class, inspired by an exercise on voice. I never got the sense that he actually believed in any of these stories.
But the collection is worth the price of the book just for the opening three stories. In the same league as O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," Jones' war stories will no doubt be long considered as essential reading on the Vietnam War.
Rating: 5
Summary: Misguided Notions of Machismo Propel Most of the Stories
Comment: The best of these stories, "The Pugilist at Rest," "Mosquitos," and "A White Horse" dramatize men who are trapped in misguided notions of masculinity, through their fighting prowess and the acquisition of money and power. The men endure severe growing pains as they realize that they have to redefine themselves if they are ever to find grace and redemption. I prefer this collection to Jones' more recent collections.
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Title: Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine by Thom Jones ISBN: 0316472409 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 12 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Cold Snap by Thom Jones ISBN: 0316472573 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
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Title: The Contortionist's Handbook by Craig Clevenger ISBN: 1931561486 Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.50 |
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Title: The Ice at the Bottom of the World : Stories by Mark Richard ISBN: 0385415443 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 January, 1991 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Jesus' Son : Stories by by Denis Johnson ISBN: 0060975776 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 15 December, 1993 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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