"One
of our most prodigiously talented and magical writers."
- The New York Times Book Review
From
Booklist, July 19, 1996:
This is another gathering of essays, following Zombification (1994),
based on Romanian-born Codrescu's commentaries for National Public
Radio's All Things Considered. Also including longer pieces
drawn from conference papers, keynote addresses, and introductions
to books, this collection is organized by four thematic divisions:
politics ("America Right and Wrong"), technology ("The
Dog With the Chip in His Neck"), book reviews and observations
on storytelling and language ("Swimming between languages"),
and travel stories ("The Meat in Motion"). Codrescu is
a very distinctive writer, displaying a formidable command of the
language, heady opinions, and a mordant sense of humor. This potent
combination makes him perfectly suited to address America's strange
brew of high culture and low; indeed, perhaps only Codrescu could
successfully link physicist Edward Teller and pop icon Vanna White
in the course of a few short and winding paragraphs. This is challenging,
disturbing, and often very funny reading and is sure to be requested
wherever Codrescu is popular, and these days, that seems to be just
about everywhere.
- Joanne Wilkinson ©1996, American library Association. All Rights
Reserved.
From Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 1996:
Prolific belletrist, novelist, and NPR commentator Codrescu (The
Blood Countess, 1995; Zombification, 1994, etc.) offers his trademark
benign-oddball perspective on a broad array of cultural topics in
another scattershot collection. Codrescu grew up in Communist Romania
and came to America in 1966, and most of the essays here are either
explicitly or implicitly about the experience of exile, whether
linguistic, political, or geographical. The subject of computers
and the Internet prompts several Luddite outbursts about the failure
of communication; the titular pet's surgically implanted ID tag
inspires a brief technophobic fantasy poised between humor and genuine
uneasiness. Codrescu cocks an eye at young lesbians in San Francisco,
a Japanese game show, Brancusi's life and sculpture, airline travel,
and the faithful in Jerusalem. But he's at his best when his subjects
are most personal. He anchors a diffuse piece about the complications
and rewards of communicating across language barriers with a single
perfect anecdote about arriving in Detroit without speaking any
English and being befriended in a ghetto coffee shop. A pilgrimage
to Mexico with his Castaneda-obsessed 14-year old son sparks a splendid
piece that poetically conflates his son's adolescent volatility
and Mexico's tempestuous history. And his takes on life in Eastern
Europe after the fall of Communism are acid reminders that the adoption
of "freedom" and "democracy" has by no means
solved most problems there. But when Codrescy riffs on abstractions,
he tends to strain his whimsy to the point of opacity. From a piece
on walls as metaphors: "The only creature worthy of respect
is the wallflower. A creature is a wall. Respect is space. Therefore,
worth is the space one accords a wall." Whatever. Newcomers
to Codrescu may be put off by some of his slapdash indulgences hee,
but his many fans will welcome the opportunity to roam around again
in his quirky mind.
- ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All Rights Reserved.
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