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Lost In Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia
by
Mark Salzman
From the author of Iron & Silk comes a charming and frequently uproarious account of an American adolescence in the age of Bruce Lee, Ozzy Osborne, and Kung Fu. As Salzman recalls coming of age with one foot in Connecticut and the other in China (he wanted to become a wandering Zen monk), he tells the story of a teenager trying to attain enlightenment before he's learned t...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
December 14th 2011
by Vintage
(first published 1995)
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bookczuk
rated it
Salzman is a favorite author, and while there were parts of this I enjoyed enorumously, there were parts that I kind of felt my eyes glazing over and my brain numbing. But that may be what happens when you read about someone else's adolescence! However, the singlemindedness that Salzman has when starting a new love, be it kung fu or becoming an astronaut, is wonderful to read about.
However, there were two things that really cracked me up.
The dedication:
However, there were two things that really cracked me up.
The dedication:
For Joseph...more
If you came of age in the 70s (or are a fan of that lost decade), LOST IN PLACE should prove an amusing account of coming-of-age at a time when it seemed most every teenager was high or trying to get high. Only Mark Salzman's not your ordinary kid growing up in Connecticut. He's fascinated with kung fu, then cello, then Chinese culture, and so forth. His father is hilariously deadpan and filled with resignation before life's slings and arrows (of which his son provides many).
In ad...more
In ad...more
This was enjoyable partly because the author's adolescent years coincide with the same time period I was an adolescent. I knew exactly all the references he made to activities, music, tv shows and so on. Sometimes I found this memoir a little tedious, but just as I would be getting to a point where I thought, how much longer, the author would comment on or explore something that perked my interest. I wonder if it is a little dated now, though, for YAs who don't know the era well, unless it is fr...more
Barky
rated it
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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One thing going on in this delightful coming-of-age memoir is Salzman’s coming to terms with the idea that attaining enlightenment is one thing and life is something else. Americans have a hard time with this, because we are preoccupied with becoming more than we can be. (Perhaps this is because advertisements continually sell us the idea that our lives will be so much more wonderful if we just do whatever it is we’re being urged to do.) And so Salzman presents us with his younger self, a kid de...more
Tanya
rated it
Recommends it for:
painters, astronomers, the obsessed, and les ingenues
Shelves:
memoir,
pure-escapism
Hilarious! Endearing! The kind of kid you wished you could raise yourself.
I first encountered Salzman through his book, The Laughing Sutra, which was delightful and joyous and completely enthralled my early high school imagination. I'm glad to find that this, his memoir of growing up obsessed with kung fu, stays true to that absurdist, humorous, enchanting voice that was so fresh and necessary ten years ago.
Here, we meet young Mark--a kid so determined to master kun...more
I first encountered Salzman through his book, The Laughing Sutra, which was delightful and joyous and completely enthralled my early high school imagination. I'm glad to find that this, his memoir of growing up obsessed with kung fu, stays true to that absurdist, humorous, enchanting voice that was so fresh and necessary ten years ago.
Here, we meet young Mark--a kid so determined to master kun...more
Some things never really change, and growing up in middle-class suburbia seems to be one of them. This is a charming, if somewhat glib, story and the martial arts instructor Mark encounters is almost (but sadly not quite) beyond belief. I definitely felt some sympathy for the intelligent, restless kid searching for meaning, and while the book as a whole seems rather sanitized, it was definitely an entertaining read.
Just blew through this one. NOT a good book. Typical memoir nonsense. Basically he was a whiny, nerdy kid who had trouble "figuring out the meaning of it all". The book jumps at the end from him being in crisis, to resigning himself that life is a drag and that his dad's negative outlook on life was right all along. Typical whiny intellectual. Stop worry about the meaning of life and enjoy what there is.
An incredibly entertaining coming-of-age memoir with quite a few insightful tidbits. My only disappointment was wanting to read more about "growing up absurd in suburbia" (the book's subtitle) -- in other words, how others reacted to his weirdness and how he dealt with it -- as opposed to just the "growing up" story itself. Overall, a very enjoyable quick read that even gave me a little bit to chew on afterward.
It's a coming of age memoir that takes our nebbishy hero to the brink and back via kung fu! in Connecticut! The author's morose hobbyist astronomer father is memorable. It's all pretty likable, although his "synthetic pessimism" philosophy didn't leave me feeling especially enlighted at the end. Probably the author's point.
A really interesting book about a childhood gone bad (Continually). A few good quotes from the book:
"Today is the tomorrow I wished for yesterday. Now I know why".
"A society in which the individual feels responsible for his or her actions is more likely to work together and survive to spread it's values.
"Today is the tomorrow I wished for yesterday. Now I know why".
"A society in which the individual feels responsible for his or her actions is more likely to work together and survive to spread it's values.
Mark Salzman has a very down to earth approach to writing, is not pretentious and will easily bring you on a journey thru his youth. I found this to be more than funny, even cried laughing at certain parts. It was also very insightful about life in general.
Great read. Short, fast and should not miss.
Great read. Short, fast and should not miss.
Entertaining, especially for those born between 1957-1963. I just about died laughing in the first chapter of his boyhood aspirations to become a wandering monk like Kwai Chang Caine, the protagonist in the TV series "Kung Fu." Salzman is such a gifted writer! See also his excellent "True Notebooks."
Salzman writes with self deprecating humor about coming of age during the 1970s. He was a quixotic kid with varied passions: kung fu, Chinese culture, cello. I love the image of the 13-year-old Salzman in eggplant colored pajamas and bald wig. His father’s eternally gloomy outlook and love of astronomy provides balance throughout the narrative.
Mostly a tribute to his introverted, pessimistic father, who was a social worker and hated every minute of work-a-day. When he comes home between semesters at Yale and tells his father about his self-loathing and hopelessness, his father says, "Welcome."
This book is hilarious. It might be the best memoir/coming of age novel I've ever read. And it's a memoir that his family can be proud to read, very unusual in the memoir genre. I kept wanting to read bits of this aloud to people. And did I say, it's funny.
Growing up in the 70's, but so much more. Not for the faint-hearted - Mark deals with some themes that would make some uncomfortable. But his viewpoint is laugh-out-loud funny and I ended the book in love with him. How could I not? He made me laugh!
This memoir focuses on Salzman's teenage years and how his obsession with kung-fu during the 1970's affected him growing up. Myself, I could have done with a few less kung-fu stories and a bit more of Mark's relationship with his gruff but loving father... but it's an solid read.
One of the things I appreciate most about Salzman as a writer his his constant self-depricaiton about himself and his place in the world. Where this constant mystified perspective on his own talents and abili...more
One of the things I appreciate most about Salzman as a writer his his constant self-depricaiton about himself and his place in the world. Where this constant mystified perspective on his own talents and abili...more
A book about the adolescents in America. Not intentionally written about all of us but it really smacked of all the crazy times I experienced growing up in very similar times and places.
Alternately hilarious and touching, Salzman recreates what it was to be a short adolescent seeking an edge during the kung fu craze. The bits about his loving family are bonuses.
A down-to-earth story about a charming not-so-down-to-earth kid. Funny and touching, Mark Salzman is unafraid to be climactic about the anti-climactic events of suburban teenage life. This is a story that literally anyone will find themselves reading a passage, putting the book down and chuckling approvingly to themselves. We can all relate to this book. Cheers.
Good nonfiction. I grew up about the same time as the author, but my experiences were very different than his. Still fun to get another perspective and he is humorous.
One of my favorite fun reads ...
"Salzman's memoir of his Connecticut childhood tells of his early adolescent devotion to Zen and Kung Fu." Publisher's Weekly
"Salzman's memoir of his Connecticut childhood tells of his early adolescent devotion to Zen and Kung Fu." Publisher's Weekly
Alisha
added it
if you are only going to read one book by him, read Lying Awake. Lost is place is a wasted loss of time. Lying Awake completely redeemed him as an author for me.
Chose it as potential summer reading for incoming freshmen, but I'm afraid the content may be too questionable--also, it was written like 20 years ago, and I didn't realize that when I started it.
Another coming of age memoir. Nothing terribly insightful, but I did end up caring for the teenage Mark, his father and his friend.
I finished it, and it was entertaining while I was reading it. Not sure I was left with any great feeling one way or the other, though.
Courtney Anthony
added it
"The weirder I got, the more they seemed to like me."
-- Salzman, on his first girlfriend's parents
-- Salzman, on his first girlfriend's parents
Before I get down to the more lasting aspects of this book, may I first say that I laughed out loud?
It took almost 80 pages for me to get into this book, but once I got there, I found it to be completely charming. This was the story about an eccentric Ivy-League bound boy's childhood in Connecticut. The story took the reader through Mark's various obsessions: the cello, martial arts, pot, & Chinese culture. I found myself laughing out loud from time to time and really appreciating this person's life journey.
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Mark Salzman is an award-winning novelist and nonfiction author who has written on a variety of subjects, from a graceful novel about a Carmelite nun’s ecstatic visions and crisis of faith to a compelling memoir about growing up a misfit in a Connecticut suburb – clearly displaying a range that transcends genre. As a boy, all Salzman ever wanted was to be a Kung Fu master, but it was his proficien...more
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