book data
48 ratings, 3.71 average rating, 9 reviews
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published
June 20th 2006
by Olympiapress.com
binding
Paperback, 212 pages
isbn
1596542853
(isbn13: 9781596542853)
description
Durrell's third work, the original angry young novel, was first published by his good friend and long-time correspondent Henry Miller as the first tit...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 81)
Read in November, 1988
recommends it for:
any angry man coming of age...
The Black Book has come back to me over and over in my life. I first read it in Amsterdam living in a squat in a drizzly november; it is angry and taut and magnificent—terribly flawed and scarred in a way that first novels rarely are these days. Durrell sent the only copy of his MS to Henry Miller, saying that he didn't know what to do with it, and asking Miller to throw it in the Siene when he was done with it; instead Miller took it to Jack Kahane, the founder of Oberlisk Press in Paris an...more
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recommends it for:
Anyone
I found Lawrence's prose to be utterly immersing, initially I only got so far into it and then had to start again as so dense is the painted word used by Lawrence that I found myself losing track, or smudged in. However the second attempt from scratch was continuous and I gave up noting words down to look up in the dictionary as Lawrence tends to fill entire sentences with wonderful words for the job that although not knowing half the meanings, I got the picture.
The story is wonderfully cras...more
The story is wonderfully cras...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
to Durrell freaks
Durrell is a master of the modern (20th century) novel, supposedly. This was his coming out party, published with help by his friend, mentor, and lifelong pen pal Henry Miller. Their correspondence is one of the better surpises I've stumbled upon in the last few years, and I thought it would help me get a little more out of Durrell than I have in the past.
Black Book is a fearless piece of writing, a high-minded expression of the lowlife, fucking the novel form six ways to Sunday. There are p...more
Black Book is a fearless piece of writing, a high-minded expression of the lowlife, fucking the novel form six ways to Sunday. There are p...more
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Read in January, 1997
recommends it for:
Tommy...
Ah, 1938 gets no better, uh, unless you add Murphy, or, uhm, The Death of the Heart, and maybe Three Guineas. Okay, not Three Guineas.
Durrell third book is a wild romp, starting with the Vivari flooding into the harbour, and showing off all the surrealist i...more
Durrell third book is a wild romp, starting with the Vivari flooding into the harbour, and showing off all the surrealist i...more
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I guess being called The Black Book and having it banned at some point somwhere and it being written by Lawrence Durrell all came together to make me read this, and it was really disappointing. I think he was really trying to be Henry Miller when he wrote this, but no one can really dow Henry Miller but Henry Miller. Durrell got much much better with age (I think this was his first book), so just skip this one.
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Read in October, 2007
An amazing first book! And he asked Henry Miller to throw it into the Seine after reading the only manuscript! Thank God that isn't what happened. This book changed my perceptions of modern fiction forever.
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I am fond of this book for the shear expressionistic brilliance. comparisons with joyce and William Bouroughs come to mind but it is different from both sensibilities which are in some ways opposites.
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Read in January, 2007
I'm taking a break from this one, I think. so far it's good, but I'm just not in the mood for it - hence, the three stars.
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