The Magic Christian edition by Terry Southern Literature Fiction eBooks
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The Magic Christian edition by Terry Southern Literature Fiction eBooks
The magical insanity of Guy Grand; the last of the big spenders. I must confess that I do not view the book based upon the thin thesis of 'everyone has a price' rather I look at it from the more over the top place of a rich man testing the limits of polite society and proving that money can buy the toleration of any obnoxious thing imaginable. Grand has no qualms with anyone, he seems to have almost no real malice in him at all. He's a class conscious billionaire who loves messing with people, who, he doesn't care, it is interesting to note that, of the people whom he pranks, he seems to leave those of lower status than himself better off for their troubles, while those of the more high class rubes, he leaves high and dry in bewilderment. Grand is like Jay Gatsby if he had lived to old age, alone, and without anything to pass the time other than his money and creativity; bored by the garish over the top parties and now searching for something more eccentric to amuse himself with. Guy Grand, for all his annoying behavior, never harms a soul. I think, in the end, this book is just an overlooked America classic.Product details
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The Magic Christian edition by Terry Southern Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
***Warning - Spoilers abound****
It's not a horrible book, but really is pretty tame and predictable. The author seems to line up the right targets, generally looking to scratch off the paper-thin veener of class and respectability paraded around in 1950's American culture (like the affectations of gourmands, dog shows, and safari hunters; the self-seriousness and self-importance of TV and movie dramas; and the supposed luxury and exclusivity of huge cars and expensive cruises). However, the schemes that the author comes up with feel mostly like just one ham-handed misfire after another.
The big tricks are just kind of obvious and stupid. As an example, there is a lot to smack away at with the pretensions of 1950s gourmands (and their current-day "foodie" equivalents), but I fail to see how eating sloppily and then running around a restaurant screaming is much of an indictment of anyone other than the perpetrator. As another example, yes, people who conspicuously consume luxury goods to lord over others (such as extravagant sea voyages) certainly deserve ridicule and some sharp satire pointed in their direction, but the scheme the protagonist comes up with (holding them hostage on an increasingly failing ship) really doesn't apply much acid to those it is looking to satirize. In contrast, the targets appear to react pretty reasonably to having been inconvenienced and tricked; most of the pranks utterly fail to advance the book's theme of everyone having a price.
There are also a couple of tricks that just don't make any satirical sense (e.g., smashing crackers with a sledgehammer?). I guess that's kind of funny in a 1950's Bob Hope/ Peter Sellers way, but it doesn't really translate very well half a century later.
In any case, it's not horrible and I did catch myself laughing pretty well once in a while. Just don't expect anything too insightful or cutting.
What would you do if you had the resources to buy anyone or anything you wished? Guy Grand acts immediately and directly on this premise, and the results are, on the surface hilarious. But it is Southern's quiet, subtle, and expertly woven satirical narrative and incisive comment on 1950s America amid the vignettes of money-fueled chaos that are the true gems, and the heart of this wonderful novel. The best example of this is the book's final lines, where Southern closes gently yet pointedly with a description of "the strange searching haste which can be seen in the faces, and especially the eyes, of (American) people in the (American) cities, every evening, just about the time now it starts really getting dark" (parenthesis added).
A comment of this book is not complete without a nod to the 1969 movie of the same name. Believing that most readers of this book will come to it by way of the film, I think there may be some disappointment. This is no massive epic (the novel is only 148 pages) that had to be pared down for screenplay treatment, so there's just not that much more to enjoy. Most of the sketches from the movie are directly out of the book, the only real change being the story's placement in late 1960s mod Britain, not 1950s Eisenhower-Middle America. This change of venue works very, very well for the film, with its English cast and contributors, including lead Peter Sellers, hippie Beatle Ringo Starr, Monty Python studs John Cleese and Graham Chapman, and ubiquitous party-boy Who drummer, Keith Moon as an addled nun. The only thing missing from the film is the novel's quiet satire.
The is one of the most cynical, biting and hilarious books I have ever read. You will either laugh until your sides hurt or you won't get it at all and find this book silly.
Not as funny as it seemed 60 years ago. A fabulously wealthy sadistic man buying his way out of consequences was off-beat humor then, but too close to reality now. The book didn't change but I did.
The magical insanity of Guy Grand; the last of the big spenders. I must confess that I do not view the book based upon the thin thesis of 'everyone has a price' rather I look at it from the more over the top place of a rich man testing the limits of polite society and proving that money can buy the toleration of any obnoxious thing imaginable. Grand has no qualms with anyone, he seems to have almost no real malice in him at all. He's a class conscious billionaire who loves messing with people, who, he doesn't care, it is interesting to note that, of the people whom he pranks, he seems to leave those of lower status than himself better off for their troubles, while those of the more high class rubes, he leaves high and dry in bewilderment. Grand is like Jay Gatsby if he had lived to old age, alone, and without anything to pass the time other than his money and creativity; bored by the garish over the top parties and now searching for something more eccentric to amuse himself with. Guy Grand, for all his annoying behavior, never harms a soul. I think, in the end, this book is just an overlooked America classic.
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