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| Conan O'Brien?!? |
by J.P. Donleavy
... you can't catch me, I don't get the humor of this man!
Number 99 on the Modern Library's top hundred books is J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man. It took me a month to finish The Ginger Man is that after while I really had no desire to pick it up and finish it. I've read other reviewers calling it a comic masterpiece, but for the most part, I just didn't get it. A lot of negative reviews focused on the reader's dislike of the main character's debauchery and low moral conduct. This is not what turned me off to the book...
The fact it had no real central narrative is what did it for me. For the first few chapters, The Ginger Man was an interesting read; however, after a while I became bored as the plot simply went nowhere. The story is about an Sebastian Dangerfield, a broke American veteran in Ireland who is studying law at Trinity College. He is married with a small child and basically spends his days drinking and cheating on his wife.
The story is a rinse, wash & repeat of Dangerfield drinking to excess, racking up massive debts, pawning possessions and then being left/leaving the woman he is currently with.
There are admittedly a few funny scenes which come to mind: an indecent exposure in a train, an attempt to buy condoms, his first encounter with a shy girl at a party who turns out to be a bit of a nymphomaniac. However, these scenes are far and few between and all we're left with is a boring narrative of an unappealing main character who really doesn't do much of anything. In the end, perhaps the most humorous part of the book is the striking resemblance the man on cover art looks like Conan O'Brien. I ended up buying a physical copy just for the posterity.
Save your time and money on this one.
Days Elapsed: 35
Books Completed: 2/100
Pages Read: 606
Money Spent: $9.60
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