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Oct 01, 2009

karen rated it:

look we are best friends!

okay now it is time to actually review the book. and im having an off day so im not sure what form this review will take, but im writing it and thats what is happening. i was trying to remember the other day where i was the first time i encountered nick cave. not in person, - i remember that quite well. before the above picture was taken i had tried, many years ago, to flirt on him and was rebuffed. REBUFFED! but the first time i heard his More...

183 comments like (40 people liked it)

Oct 12, 2009

RandomAnthony rated it:

Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Monro is a novel about a delusional sex addict/beauty products salesman and his reserved, thoughtful nine year old son in the fateful days after the suicide of their wife/mother. The novel’s quick 278 pages include (without giving away too much, I hope):

• At least a dozen references to Arvil Lavigne’s vagina,
• The same amount of references to Kyle Minogue’s vagina (and remember, Mr. Cave sang with her a few albums back),
• A sex scene betwe More...

5 comments like (30 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2009

Greg rated it:

After reading this book I can not think of Avril Lavigne without automatically thinking about what her vagina would look like. The "Complicated" singer's cooter will probably forever be a purple elephant to me, and I'll be 90 years old and "Skater boy" will come on the "Good Times Oldies" podcast, or whatever we'll be listening to then, and the question of what her box looked like 60 years ago will jump into my head.

Sadly that is probably what is goin More...

6 comments like (10 people liked it)

Feb 04, 2012

Agathafrye rated it:

Hmmm. Mr. Cave has a knack for writing about the wretched among us. The topics that I love in his music can be a hit or miss when he's writing prose. I deeply loved his first novel, "And the Ass Saw the Angel" even though it was profoundly disturbing and a total bummerfest. Cave's protagonist Bunny Munro is a traveling salesman of beauty products, serial womanizer, and terrible father. I often have difficulty enjoying a book when I can't stand the main character, and that was defi More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 10, 2010

Ethan rated it:

Nick Cave. Songsmith, Poet, Artist, Screenwriter, Performer--of all his great talents and larger than life artistic abilities novelist seems to be the one area that he just doesn't shine quite so much. And I love Nick Cave. I wouldn't quite say "worship" as many do, but certainly "idolize" is appropriate for my feelings toward him. As an idea "Bunny Munro" is prime Cave material and perhaps would ring with greater resonance and deeper human truth and tragedy as a so More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2011

Shantell rated it:

Jesus, how is this even a book. Its like they grabbed the horniest 15 year old boy they could find, gave him a playboy, and told him to try and right a fiction novel. I'm no prude, far from it in fact, but saying "her tits are nice like peaches or something"...does NOTHING for me. The descriptions are awful, full of "or something" and "or whatever"...spending long lengths talking about a street FULL of women. Tell me about one or two hot chicks-their hair, their eye More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2012

Elvis rated it:

I like Nick Cave's music so I naturally came to this with some pre-conceptions. I liked it but not as much as I wanted to.

The thing I liked was how seedy it all was, like everything is seedy, the main character is seedy, the locations are seedy, the action is seedy. I guess it's that English thing about squalor. I lived in Amsterdam for a few years and people occupied empty houses (squats or kraakhuis). The Dutch occupied beautiful empty apartments overlooking the canals while the En More...

0 comments like

Jul 31, 2011

Cameron added it

Coincidentally I read this straight after "Voices from the Street" by Phillip K Dick. Both are about unlikable "womanising" alcoholics and devastating affect they have those around them. However unlike Dick, Cave has very little sympathy for Bunny and leads him into a realistic unhappy ending - the things that I wanted to happen to Stuart Hadley!

The book is very readable - the blurb about Cormac McCarthy, Kafka, etc is spot on. Though the content is sicko-sexual (Bunny is a More...

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Jul 02, 2011

Kirstie rated it:

This book should really garner more like a 3 1/2 but that is impossible with Goodreads rating system and I don't feel it deserves 4/5 stars. I'd recommend it to Nick Cave fans but that's probably as far as the recommendation would extend. It's a far cry from what he achieved in his novel And the Ass Saw the Angel, for instance. Still, it's not completely devoid of positives and it's definitely easier to read in terms of its language than the predecessor.

What Nick Cave does well is More...

4 comments like

Jun 21, 2011

Sarah rated it:

i gave this book to a friend after i read it and he said something that stuck with me forever: "this would've been better as a short story."

there's a lot at work here - the protagonist is an asshole, addicted to sex and booze and fantasies about the vagina of a canadian pop singer. as a woman, reading this, i was both amused and disgusted at turns. i also felt myself urging bunny munro to "get it together, get it together," and that felt odd, that i wanted to moth More...

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Mar 19, 2011

Sarah rated it:

Following his wife's suicide, cosmetics salesman and sex addict Bunny Monro takes to the road in his seagull-dropping covered car, together with his nine-year-old son, Bunny Junior. As we follow their tragic journey through Brighton's bleaker suburbs selling lotions and potions, we encounter pre-pubescent girls and giggling housewives, blind pensioners and erotically-dressed policewomen.

Having grown up with Cave's music and been a long admirer of his lyrics - many of which have stor More...

0 comments like

Jan 09, 2011

Sun rated it:

Bunny Munro is a sleazy sex-obsessed door-to-door salesman who is left in charge of his 9-year old son after his wife kills herself.

As a song writer, Nick Cave's lyrics are hypnotic, potent, and excruciating. As a novelist, Cave doesn't stray from this distinctive style: "Bunny Munro" alternates between the horrific and the tender. Cave's writing is visual, pungent, vivid and immediate but it's the whip-cracking pace and the humour that sucks you in.

Bunny's predat More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 12, 2010

Jesse rated it:

After a 20-year intermission Cave's back with his second foray as a novelist. I haven't had the chance to plow my way through all of his first outing just quite yet (And the Ass Saw an Angel), but its on my list. Nick Cave is hands-down, far and away my favorite songwriter. I've greedily eaten up all his back-catalogue from his early days in the Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party, through to the Bad Seeds, and recently, Grinderman. The Death of Bunny Munro is a strange beast, originally penne More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 04, 2010

Craig rated it:

Following on from his critically acclaimed debut novel, And The Ass Saw The Angel, Nick Cave’s second novel tells the story of Bunny Munro, a traveling salesman who, after the suicide of his wife, takes his son on a road trip around the South coast of England in attempt to forsake his demons and outrun the Devil.

As previously stated in my blog entry, "Drinking Panther Piss", this book was the only publication I truly wanted to read this year. I loved And The Ass Saw The An More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 22, 2010

Lizzie rated it:

A major disappointment.

Given that the title makes the ending somewhat obvious, you'd've thought Bunny's journey toward meeting his maker would offer some kind of dramatic tension. You'd be wrong. Character, plotting and setting are weak, and for a tragedy (which I guess we could label the book,) there is no dramatic arc, just a never ending stream of vaginamania and the rampant misogyny of a man who has no demons to confront - he's already dead man walking. Where is the conflict? Th More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 21, 2010

Melissa rated it:

Cave, Nick, (2009),The Death of Bunny Munro , Faber and Faber, NY, NY

This novel was a delightfully raunchy tale. If you crave raunch; to be torn open and fucked up this novel delivers. This novel has all the elements I love, I love surprises, I love pussy, I love beautiful words, I love the tension. I read it to escape and wound up connecting very sadly with every character. It’s a very quick and easy read but you may feel perverted while your doing it (reading I mean).
Cave More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 21, 2009

Andrew rated it:

It's clear that Nick Cave is a disturbed man. His songs, screenplays, novels--they are all clearly written by someone who has a strong taste for the morbid. And that is exactly what I love about his work. While it can be overwhelming at times, and at the second of having finished Bunny Munro, I felt a deeply punched hole in my heart for the characters (despite how unlikeable as some of them were) and couldn't help but think about the book for several days afterwards. In a word, it is incredible, More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 30, 2009

Ian rated it:

Of course i am going to like this. The man is a genius who can possibly turn his hand to anything. Upteen great albums, a previous book 20 years ago, a screenplay and soundtracks for several films. Unbelievable.

This is a deceptively simple tale. You can tell it was written at the time of grinerman with similar themes of aging lotharios. Here we have bunny munroe - one of the truley great literary creations. And similpy unforgetable.

The book starts in a hotel room wh More...

0 comments like

Jun 23, 2009

Nichole rated it:

Hypnotically Sleazy! Dark but not really twisted, just dark in a mundane way and yet brilliant in the minutia of a life gone down hill. I can't decide if I really liked it or not. I'm glad that I read it, but I'm still uncertain of what it left me with.

You get drawn into Bunny's world, and you find this little spark of sympathy for him when you see just how much of a victim he is to his own impulses. The more you come to understand how his mind works and the further down he spirals, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Clint rated it:

I didn't know what to expect going into this book, but would never have guessed what it was. If you are looking for a follow-up to And the Ass Saw the Angel, this is not it. This is not the Nick Cave of Henry's Dream, this is the Nick Cave of Dig, Lazarus, Dig!, which makes sense, given the release dates and whatnot. Gone is the super-gothic William Faulkner-esque writer, with odd phrasings and observations giving away the fact that he's not American. This is the equally verbose, but funnier More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 01, 2011

Karen rated it:

For a number of years' birthday or Christmas, my husband has been buying me a Nick Cave CD or DVD, despite 'The Boatman's Call' being the only album I really like. So why, when I dropped many unsubtle hints that I was very intrigued by the idea of the audiobook of this, narrated by Cave himself, did I get a bloody Mighty Boosh DVD? Anyway, I bought the bog-standard hardback myself in the sales.

Is it possible to have too much sex in a book? Yes, yes it is. This is positively pornographic. Su More...

0 comments like

Aug 22, 2010

Jeff rated it:

What a shame. Cave's first book was a triumph of imagination, an excellent read. This was hopeless, purile and ultimately boring. Why did he bother?

It made me think of Chuck Palahniuk, in particular 'Survivor'. But what Cave is missing is that Palahniuk, on his day, is a very talented writer, using repetition, banality and repetition to create exactly what he needs to create explosive conclusions. But for every 'Survivor' there is a 'Choke' or 'Diary' where it simply does not wo More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 21, 2010

Jade rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 21, 2011

MonsterMan rated it:

Now I finished this one about a week and a half ago - but I wanted it to fester away in my gray matter for a bit. My initial reaction when I started the book was that it’s early chapters read like masturbation fodder for a teenage boy. The detailed references to Kylie Minogue’s ass, daydreams of spanking Madonna’s bottom and the pure admiration of Avril Lavigne’s looks came off a bit odd and seemed more like name dropping than anything relevant - which would all be fine if this story was about M More...

0 comments like

Jun 12, 2010

Jesse rated it:

Twenty years after And the Ass Saw the Angel Cave proves yet again what we already knew since The Birthday Party days--he is a master of language, and an unflinching student of human frailty. Simultaneously hilarious and devastating, Cave manages to turn the most depressing circumstances imaginable into wince-inducing comedy, and the biggest piece of shit on the planet into a protagonist the reader is able to follow through a hell of his own making. Anchoring the characters is Cave's gift for la More...

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Oct 30, 2009

Cody rated it:

A raunchified Don Giovanni, *The Death of Bunny Munro* is yet another—perhaps darker and nastier but equally as comical—retelling of the Faust myth. While the text is a bit thin and descends to pulp at times, Cave best displays his lyricism when setting the scene and tone—he renders Brighton and environs into a sort of kitschy Hades—and when employing vivid, often absurd, yet almost always spot-on metaphors (“ the moon an alabaster balloon”; “teeth chattering like some clockwork skull”; “a wat More...

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Mar 11, 2011

Brad rated it:

Nick Cave is a better song writer than novelist. And that's OK, cuz he's a hell of a song writer. If he was that good of a novelist, I'd resent him deeply.

Irvine Welsh, in the blurb on the back cover, compares Nick Cave to Cormac McCarthy and Franz Kafka. That's a tad misleading. But, I'll offer perhaps an even more unlikely comparison: Thomas Pynchon. No, not the deep, paranoid, and paradoxical Pynchon, but Pynchon at his most slapstick and lucid.

Here's a quotation I pu More...

0 comments like

Jan 19, 2011

Alissa rated it:

I'm not sure where to rate this. It was a marvelous read but left me feeling absolutely disgusting and horrified with humanity.
I'm not sure if this was the intention.
I can only assume it was given the audacity of Nick Cave's lyrical endeavors in acts like Grinderman and the Birthday Party.

The book revolves around the completely morally degenerate and borderline criminally insane Bunny Munro. Sex obsessed (particularly with Avril Lavigne's vagina) and completely irresponsi More...

2 comments like

Oct 04, 2009

Erik rated it:

This is a book that the sexually insecure, rape victims, and the quasi-academic Anglophiles will hate. I am so inspired by Nick Cave's courage to explore predatory male sexuality (perhaps one of the more hushed topics by the politically correct). The human libido is often a vicious, evil one and he makes a comical use of language to drive the point home. It may be no Lolita, but similar themes coincide. I didn't like the ending until waking from a nap, and sorting out the demons and angels N More...

0 comments like

Jan 21, 2011

James rated it:

I finished Bunny last night and wrote a review but for some reason it was not saved through the app on my ipod. Damn technology!
I really liked this book. Bunny is not a likeable character by any means. But that does not seem to matter. Nick presents us with a man who is a dinosaur, and an unrepentant one at that (until... well). I wanted to finish but at the same time didn't - hey, we know he is going to die, right - the clue is kind of in the title - but I did not necessarily want th More...

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