Here are some customer reviews of
Last Exit to Brooklyn (An Evergreen Book)
: I read this book about 9 years ago, and I can stiil remember the raw power of this novel. It is a brutal account of an assorted cast of characters who are basically human garbage. If they are not misanthropic or misogynistic, then they are poorly guided souls looking for love or meaning in a vile enviorment. This novel reminds me of my old neighborhhood in South Philadelphia, where the only true emotions shown are ones of angry, lust and gluttony. Reading this book should show the reader the evil of men, and what not to do in this world. The language is powerful, the atomosphere is heavy, and the vision is dismal. No other book, with the exception of "Naked Lunch" or "City of Night", shows the strength of great writing style and content. A must read!!!!!
If you like requiem for a dream the movie or the novel this book should be right up your alley. Simillar to Ellis' nove "The Informers" this novel is told through the eyes of several differant narratives and characters. Its a very moveing novel that shows the desperation of the human soul in a setting that couldnt be more dark than Brooklyn. Like "Requiem for a Dream" once the characters seem like they are at their highest they are quickly brought back to reality, realities that couldnt be any more devestating. The individual stories work well as a whole novel where the story isnt the driving factor, its the observation of the big city and the lives lived their. Totally disturbing and as dark as any writer has ever wanted to get; Selby's first novel "Last Exit to Brooklyn" is a wonderful piece of work and lays the ground work that was later put in full focus with works such as "The Demon" Beautifully tragic and dark this novel will aim to please. Selby IS A GENIUS, take a look inside.
No two ways about it, Selby is one of the best writers in the English language, forget what pussy top100 lists say. Selby's tales will pierce your soul and make it bleed, that is the kind of power his language has. Selby literally creates this euphoria through his language that inserts the reader into the character's mind and soul. Hence, we pity the depraved, the drug addled, the whores who populate this work. Even Ken Starr would let these characters off the hook, that's how humane and brilliant Selby's depiction is of these otherwise unsympathetic characters.
Fifteen years ago I was busted out, suicidal, and 60 days off the juice. I hated all living things. Especially myself. One day I stumbled on to Last Exit To Brooklyn at a used book store in Venice. I believe it was Kafka who said that a good novel should have the same effect as a blow to the head. Last Exit To Brooklyn had that impact on me. I was never the same after the first page. Said plainly, Selby is a master at exposing his guts. His truth and the truth of the human condition screams and bleeds from every page. Every endless sentence. Last Exit is the finest thing of its kind I have ever read. Maybe the best novel in the last 50 years. It tore my heart out and made me beg God to be a writer. Today, when I look in the mirror, I still see the same two heads looking back but I know for certain that there's at least one other whackjob like me witnessing a similar event. I owe the end of my isolation from the human race and my birth as a writer and my love of books to Hubert Selby Jr. Great stuff. Thanks Cubby.
I first read LAST EXIT when I was in junior high school, having discovered it mixed in with a cache of other books in my mother's library. I read it twice in a week, then a few more times, more slowly, over the following months. Selby crashed into my life like a meteor smacking into the earth -- literally, like someone from another world, which was what he was reporting to me. He wrote about the life in the city around him, which ruined many and forced some to ruin others, and starved people for love and made them turn to hateful substitutes. He also wrote unflinchingly about sexual agony, something I hadn't seen addressed honestly in any fiction at all until I'd read him. He also wrote with great empathy; he didn't hate any of his characters, even the vilest ones, but wanted to give them all a clear moment in the sun for us to see. I've gone on to recommend this book to others that I know will be moved and stunned by it, and they've in turn done the same to others they know. A lot of people will reflexively dismiss the book as disgusting or depressing, but I'll say this: what's more depressing? Reading an honest depiction of the worst and the best in us, or reading something that chooses to ignore the whole question in the first place? Selby will be remembered and loved for a long time after the louder, shallower, more immediate authors of our age are left to rot.
|
