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McSweeney's #36 (2010)

by Dave Eggers(Favorite Author)

3.85 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1934781746 (ISBN13: 9781934781746)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

McSweeney's

series

McSweeney's Quarterly Concern

review 1: A lot of good stuff -- a nice story from Colm Toibin, a great brief excerpt selected by Paul Collins, an interesting play by Wajahat Ali, and a creepy box, among other things -- but the five stars are for the Michael Chabon booklet.It's the first four chapters of Fountain City, the novel he couldn't finish and then abandoned to write Wonder Boys, about a writer who can't finish a novel. The chapters are extensively annotated with detailed, insightful, funny, and fascinating comments from Chabon. It's an essential book for Chabon fanatics like me and I'm really glad I read it.
review 2: Wow where to start? I've been looking forward to this issue since I found out that McSweeney's 36 was going to be a human head! Well it is - kind of. It's a box with a wraparou... morend picture of a middle aged balding dude who's sweating. But pop open his head and - voila! A collection of books, booklets, postcards, and a scroll of fortunes without the cookies! The issue knocks you out it's so well produced. As I explored through the head though and marvelled at the high production values that must have gone into such a project, I hoped to myself that the contents of these books could live up to the high standard of the presentation. But alas, as I read my way through the head it's my sad conclusion that this is a very weak issue for writing. First off - "Early Morning at the Station". This is a very small paper booklet featuring an extract from Andrew Kennedy Hutchinson Boyd's 1861 book "The Recreations of a Country Parson" and is as boring as you would think. Basically the man stares at the countryside and describes it. Thankfully it's very short. Sophia Cara Frydman's booklet, also very short, is called "Don't Get Distracted" and is a comic book about her walk to art school one morning. She meets a vagrant, he imparts some "profound" advice - the title - and walks off. Argh! When was I going to find something good to read?! Then there are four postcards of a submarine catfish - a nice idea as it revives an old way of sending postcards in pieces so once you'd received four postcards from that person it'd make up a picture when you placed them together. Adam Levin contributes a booklet which is an extract from his forthcoming novel "The Instructions". It's about teenage kids beating each other up and talking rubbish. It's as bad to read as it sounds. Absolute drek. Right, I was going to pick something that looked good on the cover - Jack Pendarvis' "Jungle Geronimo" it was! This is a fake 1960s abridgement of a fake 1910 Tarzan like novel. It's supposed to be funny because these abridgements were bad. But then so were the original "adventure" novels. So what about this was a good idea? It's so utterly crap as to be unreadable. Honestly I made it to Chapter 2 and gave up, it's so dull and unengaging. In the brown envelope was a covering letter (nice touches both) with a fake screenplay "written for the comedy partnership of Dana Carvey and Mike Myers". It's about a washed up baseball player making good. Really corny - even by Austin Powers standards - gags abound in yet another painfully unfunny book from this issue. When was this issue going to show some promise? Well, thankfully something turned out well. The book titled "McSweeney's 36" had an excellent story from the persistently brilliant writer Ismet Prcic (read his story in "McSweeney's 26" for further proof of his ability) about an Eastern European soldier from the countryside sitting in the audience of an avant-garde American play about their views on foreigners. The soldier becomes enraged and storms the stage only to find he is part of the play - or is he? Madness and reality merge masterfully in this short but brilliant story. Colm Toibin's novella "The Street" is the highlight of this issue for me. The story of two Muslim barbers in Barcelona who fall in love and pursue a clandestine gay romance was very touching, well written, captivating and ultimately very moving. A less dramatic "Brokeback Mountain", I'll definitely read some of Toibin's other work. Also a highlight was a booklet from McSweeney's "Voice of Witness" series titled "Masu Mon", an oral account by Masu Mon, a young girl fighting against the military junta in Burma by trying to bring freedom of the press into her country and promoting democracy. Far too short for what was a compelling account, and far better than most of the other books featured here, but I will buy the book when it's released later this year. Two more to go! Oh but before that, there is a roll of fortunes included. Some funny, some clever, it's a nifty touch only to be found with the McSweeney's bunch. All is forgiven! I thought after 2 good books and a roll of fortunes. But then I got to Wajahat Ali's dreadful "The Domestic Crusaders" - a two act play about a day in the life of a Pakistani-American famiily. It reads like a bad cliched 80s American sitcom. The kids are overly sarcastic and the adults are idiots. Absolute rubbish, I threw it back in the head disgusted. And so the finale - Michael Chabon's lost novel "Fountain City". This was an abandoned novel by Chabon from 1992 when he wrote 4 chapters then left it to write what would become "Wonder Boys" instead. I'd say it was the right choice. The novel is alright but having never finished a Chabon novel before, this "wrecked novel" didn't dissuade me from my opinion that Chabon is just not a good writer. His commentary throughout though with footnotes was more entertaining than the novel. Also the book features a fold out picture of the "Fountain City" which was another nice touch. And that's what this issue was - a series of nice touches, stylistically. I'd say for book lovers it's worth buying just for the tactile experience. However if you're a fiction fan like me, you'll be disappointed by the poor fare within these excellently produced books. I give this eagerly awaited but ultimately disappointing issue 2 stars for the production and 1 star for the Colm Toibin and Ismet Prcic. Too little content but plenty of style. less

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