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Julian Gough's Jude in London is a hard book to describe. It's a lot of things at once, and I'm pretty sure I missed a few. That's a good thing, though, because it means different readers with different tastes and desires can all find something to enjoy.
On the surface, it's the story of an Irish boy raised in a orphanage on a quest to find his True Love and the truth about his father. Things happen to him and around him with seemingly little rhyme or reason, Good, zany fun.
Along the way, he gets mixed up in advanced science, high art, and just about everything in between. I believe "lampoon" is the appropriate word.
Not just lampooning, though. Amongst the laughter is serious and thoughtful commentary. For a taste of that, you can read about The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble, a selection from the book which is still the best explanation I've seen of one of the main root causes of the global financial crisis.
There's more to it yet because the book drifts freely from place to place, topic to topic, and mood to mood. (One reviewer described it as an exploration of the subconscious, a view with which the author heartily agreed... in retrospect.) It is rather dreamlike at times.
You read about a boy raised in an isolated orphanage. Through his eyes, we get a taste of something quintessentially Irish. In many cases, it comes in the form of a sort of tongue-in-cheek nostalgia. It's something that seems to happen in just about every culture. That thing where you look back on your childhood and the things you grew up with and reminisce lovingly about the bad parts. Or what most people would consider the bad parts, but which you appreciate because they're the things you grew up with. (Even though, to some degree, you understand too that these were the bad parts.) There's got to be some German word for that. It's sort of akin to Jeff Foxworthy, I guess. At least, that's the most familiar American parallel I can think of off the top of my head. (Though I'm certain there are much better ones which are simply escaping me at the moment.)
I'm not doing it justice. I had better thoughts, but they're long since scrambled. (Having trouble getting my sleep apnea under better control. I've spent most of the last couple of months too tired to even read a book, let alone form a coherent review.)
So you've got that. Nostalgia over earning beatings at the orphanage so you could get a glimpse of the TV in the otherwise-forbidden room. And the TV itself is a whole story. And then there's the part where he gets to see the TV and completely misunderstands what's happening to the point where he mistakes a simple commercial for a terrifying horror movie.
Which brings me to something else the book is about. Our orphan boy experiences England and Western Civilization for the first time, with fresh, innocent eyes. It's like falling through the rabbit hole into our world. He points out the absolutely absurd (and sometimes self-destructive) things in our everyday life that we've come to take for granted. You might say that's been done. Indeed, if you're going to do it, you have to do it carefully, lest you fall into cliche or preaching or egotism or any of the other myriad pitfalls that lie along that path. It's a difficult needle to thread, but Gough manages it, seemingly effortlessly. I think the trick is that Jude accepts the confusing primitive chaos we've come to call "civilization" as a matter of fact. He observes, and lets us see it through his eyes, without making any judgment himself.
It's not just commentary, though. Not just holding a mirror up to our own silly insanity. There are the hijinks you might expect of an innocent wandering into our world. Getting in over his head. And, of course, the reverse - doing the right thing in the wrong world and thus putting himself over our collective heads.
All of which is bundled together in something of a stream-of-consciousness series of odd events. And then liberally sprinkled with brilliant and hilarious observations. Which are often followed by the worst sort of low-brow humor. Shakespeare did something like that, spicing his flights of artistic intellectualism with crude and ribald jokes aimed directly at the lowest common denominator. Appealing to an audience made up of both the nobility in their boxes and the masses down below.
It's not quite the same thing here, I don't think. Perhaps it's more a case of bursting his own bubble. Bringing the intellectualism back down to Earth. Or perhaps it's more about showing that the things we consider crude or taboo are a part of ourselves which shouldn't be neglected and shamefully swept under the carpets of our mind. Or maybe it's just plain funny.
I don't know. That's one part of the book I didn't enjoy so much, to tell the truth. A few times, it went a little too far for my tastes. But maybe you'll enjoy them. Or maybe it's good to be a little uncomfortable from time to time. In any case, I found the rest of the book to be well worth the price of being a little put off from time to time.
I still don't feel like I'm explaining it well. Like I said, it's a hard book to pin down. I tried highlighting my favorite passages. The moments of brilliance. The things that made me laugh. The really good bits. The gems in the rough (even if the "rough" isn't actually rough). I tried to keep the number down and still ended up with over 50 highlights before I gave up.
Here's the thing: I don't have to explain it. You can read it for yourself. Absolutely free. It's all explained here. In short: Download the PDF. Read it however you like: on the computer, on an e-reader, printed out on actual paper. Whatever works. See what you think. If you like it, whenever you get around to it, pay what you think it's worth.
It's strange. It's funny. It's surreal. It's brilliant. It's dirty. It's a lot of things thrown into a blender and served up fresh and cool. Check it out. It won't cost you a thing.
On the surface, it's the story of an Irish boy raised in a orphanage on a quest to find his True Love and the truth about his father. Things happen to him and around him with seemingly little rhyme or reason, Good, zany fun.
Along the way, he gets mixed up in advanced science, high art, and just about everything in between. I believe "lampoon" is the appropriate word.
Not just lampooning, though. Amongst the laughter is serious and thoughtful commentary. For a taste of that, you can read about The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble, a selection from the book which is still the best explanation I've seen of one of the main root causes of the global financial crisis.
There's more to it yet because the book drifts freely from place to place, topic to topic, and mood to mood. (One reviewer described it as an exploration of the subconscious, a view with which the author heartily agreed... in retrospect.) It is rather dreamlike at times.
You read about a boy raised in an isolated orphanage. Through his eyes, we get a taste of something quintessentially Irish. In many cases, it comes in the form of a sort of tongue-in-cheek nostalgia. It's something that seems to happen in just about every culture. That thing where you look back on your childhood and the things you grew up with and reminisce lovingly about the bad parts. Or what most people would consider the bad parts, but which you appreciate because they're the things you grew up with. (Even though, to some degree, you understand too that these were the bad parts.) There's got to be some German word for that. It's sort of akin to Jeff Foxworthy, I guess. At least, that's the most familiar American parallel I can think of off the top of my head. (Though I'm certain there are much better ones which are simply escaping me at the moment.)
I'm not doing it justice. I had better thoughts, but they're long since scrambled. (Having trouble getting my sleep apnea under better control. I've spent most of the last couple of months too tired to even read a book, let alone form a coherent review.)
So you've got that. Nostalgia over earning beatings at the orphanage so you could get a glimpse of the TV in the otherwise-forbidden room. And the TV itself is a whole story. And then there's the part where he gets to see the TV and completely misunderstands what's happening to the point where he mistakes a simple commercial for a terrifying horror movie.
Which brings me to something else the book is about. Our orphan boy experiences England and Western Civilization for the first time, with fresh, innocent eyes. It's like falling through the rabbit hole into our world. He points out the absolutely absurd (and sometimes self-destructive) things in our everyday life that we've come to take for granted. You might say that's been done. Indeed, if you're going to do it, you have to do it carefully, lest you fall into cliche or preaching or egotism or any of the other myriad pitfalls that lie along that path. It's a difficult needle to thread, but Gough manages it, seemingly effortlessly. I think the trick is that Jude accepts the confusing primitive chaos we've come to call "civilization" as a matter of fact. He observes, and lets us see it through his eyes, without making any judgment himself.
It's not just commentary, though. Not just holding a mirror up to our own silly insanity. There are the hijinks you might expect of an innocent wandering into our world. Getting in over his head. And, of course, the reverse - doing the right thing in the wrong world and thus putting himself over our collective heads.
All of which is bundled together in something of a stream-of-consciousness series of odd events. And then liberally sprinkled with brilliant and hilarious observations. Which are often followed by the worst sort of low-brow humor. Shakespeare did something like that, spicing his flights of artistic intellectualism with crude and ribald jokes aimed directly at the lowest common denominator. Appealing to an audience made up of both the nobility in their boxes and the masses down below.
It's not quite the same thing here, I don't think. Perhaps it's more a case of bursting his own bubble. Bringing the intellectualism back down to Earth. Or perhaps it's more about showing that the things we consider crude or taboo are a part of ourselves which shouldn't be neglected and shamefully swept under the carpets of our mind. Or maybe it's just plain funny.
I don't know. That's one part of the book I didn't enjoy so much, to tell the truth. A few times, it went a little too far for my tastes. But maybe you'll enjoy them. Or maybe it's good to be a little uncomfortable from time to time. In any case, I found the rest of the book to be well worth the price of being a little put off from time to time.
I still don't feel like I'm explaining it well. Like I said, it's a hard book to pin down. I tried highlighting my favorite passages. The moments of brilliance. The things that made me laugh. The really good bits. The gems in the rough (even if the "rough" isn't actually rough). I tried to keep the number down and still ended up with over 50 highlights before I gave up.
Here's the thing: I don't have to explain it. You can read it for yourself. Absolutely free. It's all explained here. In short: Download the PDF. Read it however you like: on the computer, on an e-reader, printed out on actual paper. Whatever works. See what you think. If you like it, whenever you get around to it, pay what you think it's worth.
It's strange. It's funny. It's surreal. It's brilliant. It's dirty. It's a lot of things thrown into a blender and served up fresh and cool. Check it out. It won't cost you a thing.