Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Hunters & Gatherers by Geoff Nicholson ISBN: 0-87951-559-7 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 1994 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "I'd even manged to lose my wife."
Comment: "Hunters and Gatherers" is the story of a writer who is trying to write a book about collectors and the bizarre art of collecting. Writer Steve Geddes is far from a collector himself--in fact he's managed to lead a life that seems remarkably uncluttered. Geddes believes that collecting is "a form of grasping covetousness." Following a break-up with his wife, Rachel, he secures an advance to write his book, and from this point on, his life becomes rather complicated. Geddes is determined to track down "a series of dubious but entertaining eccentrics" and soon he becomes involved with a bizarre set of characters. There's Victoria--a woman who collects (and categorizes) lovers. There's her husband who collects classic cars. Then there's Mike Gombrich, owner of Killer Kars, and he collects women's knickers. Jim, who cleans cars for a living, succumbs to the allure of a particularly insistent encyclopedia saleswoman, and he begins to collect general knowledge. (The entries in "The Books of Power" are the encyclopedia version of Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary".) There's also a collector who has a collection of 13,000 beer cans, and a comedian with 527,000 jokes. Everyone seems to be collecting something, and somehow these characters are all connected.
Author Geoff Nicholson pulls together the strands of this highly entertaining novel with sheer brilliance. The novel is funny, intelligent, and absorbing. There are many layers in this intricate plot, but the novel is so well structured, I never lost track of all the colourful characters within these delicious pages. After turning the final page, I am left with a feeling of awe for the brain that put this novel together. The novel is laced with wit and observations of the peculiarities of the human race. I recommend "Hunters and Gatherers" wholeheartedly. This novel was a truly marvelous discovery, and I shall most certainly re-read it--displacedhuman
Rating: 4
Summary: Collecting laughs
Comment: This is a comedy novel about collectors, with an oh-so-perfect title. It begins with a long list of things that collect, in all manifestations of the word, then proceeds to introduce us to a weird cross-section of British society. There is the car wash man with a craving for knowledge who decides to collect the entire contents of "The Books of Power," a strange encyclopedia set, into his memory. His boss, the prototypical used car salesman, with the pitch perfected, and a collection of knickers from his one-night stands (funny, how knickers is so much more tame than the American version "panties," no?). The wealthy auto collector and his wife who collects sexual experiences. And, finally, the narrator, who is writing a book on collectors, and so finds himself ironically in the position of collecting collectors.
The plot is an intricate construction that links all of the above together. I found it almost exactly opposite of a mystery novel, in that you have to unravel the events to get to the point, whereas Nicholson works to weave his characters together to show you the mystery. The book has echoes a couple of other works that I had read in the past, but these are not conscious on Nicholson's part, I believe, but simply the baggage I brought with me. It is similar to Stephen Fry's The Hippopotamus, which should not be that surprising, as Fry's novel was also a British comedy about writers. It had some of the feel of A.S. Byatt's Possession, in that Nicholson continued to explore the theme of collecting much farther than I thought possible, and possession is an aspect of collecting.
It is a short book--only about 200 pages in the American edition--and Nicholson's prose style is breezy and vibrant, easily sped through. The only thing I could find to complain with was the strange narrative shifts early on when I had trouble placing the narrator in the sections told in what I had thought was third person, but later ended up being first person anecdotal. I've got Nicholson's earlier novel, The Food Chain, and I'm looking forward to spending three hours with it sometime soon.
Rating: 2
Summary: Starts strong, then fizzles
Comment: I loved "Everything & More" and "Bleeding London," and while this book started with Nicholson's trademark razor-wire wit, I thought the last quarter or so of the book suffered from awkward, forced and unbelievable resolutions. I also found some of the social observations, which were so keen in the other Nicholson books I'd read, to be unconvincing and even, in some cases, irrelevant to the main story. I will say, though, that his metaphors are great, and I love the irony of a book of collected anecdotes railing against the collecting of anecdotes (among other things). I say skip this one and go right to "Everything & More."
 |
Title: Still Life With Volkswagens by Geoff Nicholson ISBN: 087951616X Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1995 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: Everything and More by Geoff Nicholson ISBN: 0879517107 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: Flesh Guitar by Geoff Nicholson ISBN: 0879519207 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
 |
Title: Street sleeper by Geoff Nicholson ISBN: 0704326051 Publisher: Quartet Books Pub. Date: 1987 |
 |
Title: The Food Chain by Geoff Nicholson ISBN: 0879515449 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
