The Living End (Audible Audio Edition) Stanley Elkin George Guidall Recorded Books Books
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Stanley Elkin's The Living End is a marvelously funny novel about life and death, heaven and hell. In it, the National Book Award-winning author sets into motion a divine comedy that will have you chuckling at his wry visions of celestial affairs. Ellerbee, the unassuming owner of a small liquor store, is fatally shot in a holdup. First, the Angel of Death ushers him into a wondrous heaven, but St. Peter has other, more infernal plans for this hero. After his transfer, Ellerbee discovers that hell is a busy place. Even God pays an occasional visit there. But the pep talks God delivers to its tormented residents aren't anything like what he gave to Job. Veteran narrator George Guidall provides the perfect voices for the baffled Ellerbee, dutiful angels, and tattered souls who gather before God. He'll make you feel right at home in this spirited world of sight gags, one liners, and cosmic pranks.
The Living End (Audible Audio Edition) Stanley Elkin George Guidall Recorded Books Books
This is one of the best books ever written. Elkin hilariously dissects and explodes every tenant of Christianity by slamming the contradictions into one another with perfect timing and accuracy. He paints the dilemmas faced by all believers through the incredibly credible characters he creates : Ellerbee is a good man who didn't believe and so goes to hell, for that and some other petty omissions and indiscretions, while God, thoroughly imperfect as well as a pompous egotist, is a supreme being who likes to be idolized and entertained certain he does not have to defend his inhumanity to man. In Heaven, Joseph does not believe his son, the cripple, is the messiah. This and so many other contradictions and paradoxes roll lightly across the eyes in this little book leaving you to believe you just read a book bigger than any bible. It is a book that you can read in a sitting, but I guarantee you will sit again and again as you reread it finding something new and delightful every time you turn a page.Product details
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The Living End (Audible Audio Edition) Stanley Elkin George Guidall Recorded Books Books Reviews
Stanley Elkin's short novel The Living End should be a book I'd like. I'm a fan of satire and I find religion to be an interesting topic. But for reasons beyond this, this book falters and never recovers.
The story starts promisingly enough. Ellerbee is a good-natured man who maintains his optimism and kindness even when confronted with all sorts of bad luck. His business fails, but he looks forward to his next enterprise. His wife nags him, but he is certain that the love is still there. When employees of his are injured or killed, he gives money to the families out of his own wallet.
When Ellerbee is gunned down in a robbery, he is happy to find himself at the Pearly Gates, at least for a moment until St. Peter tells him to go to Hell. That is literally where Ellerbee winds up, suffering all the eternal agonies that have been promised. For a long time, he will remain upbeat, but even he is worn down, especially after a rather unpleasant discussion with God.
To this point, all is well in the book. I'm entertained and amused and waiting to see how Ellerbee will cope with the injustices heaped upon him. Unfortunately, he soon disappears from the story, which now focuses on a different character who is forced into a limbo state. Things begin to get more unfocused as eventually the story meanders to yet another character, and the second character pretty much disappears.
Essentially, I went from pleasure to confusion to boredom, but stuck with it in hopes of a grand conclusion which isn't all that grand. Religion (in particular, Christianity, which seems to be Elkins's focus) is fair game for criticism and satire, but that doesn't mean all criticism or satire is worthwhile. If you want some criticism of religion, read Richard Dawkins (among others). If you want some good satire, try Christopher Moore's Lamb (among many others). They are much better than this book.
Every so often there is just a book that profoundly doesn't work for you. This is one of those books. And it's frustrating, because judging by reviews this is a much loved and appreciated work from a much loved and appreciated author and the description was propitious and the first third of the book was too and then...it just sort of dissolved into a stylistic language exercise on eschatology. William Gass (the perfectly named critic) once compared Elkin's writing to jazz riffing and it's actually a perfectly apt comparison, I seem not to care for both. This is a short novel and it took just over an hour to read, but it was neither enjoyable nor rewarding, maybe only good for ruling an author out of a reading repertoire. It's the sort of thing that definitely has its audience, much like jazz, but not for me, cover and description promise aside. Lesson learned.
Not my kind of book..... The first chapter or so was an interesting narrative, but the story gets very weird very quickly. It's not often that I don't finish a book, but this one was just that awful!
I would never recommend to anyone.
I started this book three or four times. It didn'thold my interest. I've tried going back to it but again I can't get into it.
This is the worst book I have ever read. It made no sense whatsoever.
I tried to read what appeared to be sentences, (they started with a capital letter and ended with a period), out loud to see if they made any sense and they didn't.
It's as though the writer was given a bucket of words and he attempted to use them all whether they meant anything or not.
The sad part of this is I paid $2.99 for this pile nonsense.
The book started out fairly well....well enough to keep me reading and then after the lead character wound up in hell the whole plot just went off the rails. In fact I felt as though I were in literary hell as I tried to glean some meaning from this strange collection of various words.
This must be the book that was created by 100 monkeys, each with a typewriter.
I just can't get over it...how did this horrible snarl of written gabble ever get published.
Maybe the author's meaning was couched in allegory meant only for the super elite reader. That's probably it. I, being only the average reader who needs a book to have a beginning and an end and hopefully a plot somewhere in between was unable to understand the writer's lofty style.
Imagining God, the Afterlife, Heaven and Hell, plus humor. Big challenge! The only hope such an effort can get is in being funny about it. He does fine, but often lost me amongst his details.
This is one of the best books ever written. Elkin hilariously dissects and explodes every tenant of Christianity by slamming the contradictions into one another with perfect timing and accuracy. He paints the dilemmas faced by all believers through the incredibly credible characters he creates Ellerbee is a good man who didn't believe and so goes to hell, for that and some other petty omissions and indiscretions, while God, thoroughly imperfect as well as a pompous egotist, is a supreme being who likes to be idolized and entertained certain he does not have to defend his inhumanity to man. In Heaven, Joseph does not believe his son, the cripple, is the messiah. This and so many other contradictions and paradoxes roll lightly across the eyes in this little book leaving you to believe you just read a book bigger than any bible. It is a book that you can read in a sitting, but I guarantee you will sit again and again as you reread it finding something new and delightful every time you turn a page.
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