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Title: Lost In Place : Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia by Mark Salzman ISBN: 0-679-76778-9 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 28 May, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.41 (49 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: It grows on you!
Comment: While reading Mark Salzman's Lost in Place I was initially bored by all of the Zen master kung fu stuff. However as I kept reading I became really captivated by his life and was constantly wondering what stupid thing he was going to do next. Mark spends the entire time avoiding his father's path to pessimism, however, throughout the story he becomes just that. Mark has high aspirations for himself and every challenge he is faced with he makes an attempt to defeat it. Although he tries Mark finds himself acting negatively like his father and always giving up. All he wants to be is happy and throughout this book we follow him on his journey to happiness. Even though he may not have reached it, it was a treat to read all of the funny things he had to go through. Being a college student, Mark's story makes me realize that I am not alone in all the stupid things I have done. I would recommend this story to anyone in college or anyone who understands how absurd life can be.
Rating: 5
Summary: A great view into a teenage boy's mind
Comment: We read this for our book group and everyone in the group -- folks from about 50 into their early 70's -- thought it was great. Salzman captures the mind of the teenage boy and presents it in a wonderfully well written story. I had finished it and my wife then kept me awake for two nights with her chuckles as she read it. The mother in the story does not get much press but she is the real hero in Mark's life. She supports each of his youthful plunges into finding his way in life from the little kid in the box playing like a captain on a space mission to his leaving high school a year early after getting himself into Yale before graduating from high school. I am certain that we would have never seen this wonderful book had it not been for his mother and her fierce support for Mark as he worked through life "Absurd in Suburbia."
I have read two of his other books and have just ordered the only one that I have not yet read.
Rating: 4
Summary: Boy, can I relate
Comment: In addition to a memoir, this book is an effective mediation on what it really means to master something. We see Salzman try to become a martial artist, and, later, a cello soloist, the first with considerable dedication, the latter with a certain amount of natural ability; in both cases, though, he eventually realizes that he just doesn't have what it takes to really master the discipline. In the case of Kung Fu, after three years of study, he encounters a drugged-out man who threatens him with a lead pipe. In spite of the fact that he could probably easily disarm him, Salzman's nerve fails him and he hands over his wallet. Later, with the cello, he gives up after seeing one performance by legendary cellist Yo Yo Ma. He ends up finding his greatest success as a mailboy for an attorney.
One thing that struck me as interesting is that (I read somewhere) 'Kung Fu' refers to any human skill in Chinese (making a 'Kung Fu skills' redundant, like ATM machine); it's sort of a metaphor, then, for everything Salzman pursues.
Another thing to note is that in spite of the subtitle 'growing up absurd in suburbia,' Salzman's martial arts training is astonishingly difficult. His teacher is a borderline psychopath who curses and hits his students (at one point he throws Mark against a trophy display case), and the school regularly practices full-range sparring with no protective equipment except for a cup, which is about as hardcore, comparatively, as playing the cello with the skin stripped off your fingers.
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Title: True Notebooks by MARK SALZMAN ISBN: 0375413081 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 16 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman ISBN: 0394755111 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 October, 1987 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Laughing Sutra by Mark Salzman ISBN: 0679735461 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 15 January, 1992 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Lying Awake by Mark Salzman, Mark Salzman ISBN: 0375706062 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 09 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Soloist by Mark Salzman ISBN: 0679759263 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 February, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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