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101st out of 404 books
—
466 voters
The White Boy Shuffle
by
Paul Beatty
Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a "divided, downtrodden people."
Paperback, 240 pages
Published
May 4th 2001
by Picador
(first published 1996)
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this book is crazy. i just put it down so his voice is still strong in my head, i can hear exactly what he would say about my review, in fact he basically already said it in his book... whiteys praying for their black poet-god to absolve them of their sins, crying "i understand! i finally understand!" paul beatty is hilarious. and smart. and deep and loving even if he only wants you to catch glimpses of his whole heart when he's just about to sprint away and leave you in the dust. but it's there...more
I wanted to love this book. Thinking back on the elements of it that worked and the playful language that resonated with its themes and content, I still want to love this book. But, ugh. . . I just don't. I don't even really like it. I don't hate it. I guess I am mostly just severely disappointed with it.
There were moments, strong moments that I hoped would blossom into something more than a sketchy, jokey run through Gunnar's life, but they never developed. The prologue and introduction were so...more
There were moments, strong moments that I hoped would blossom into something more than a sketchy, jokey run through Gunnar's life, but they never developed. The prologue and introduction were so...more
1 like · like · see review
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This lyrical, poetic, and otherworldly tale of being a Black male in America had me alternating between states of hysterical laughter and melancholy. Every line was funny but sad. Gunnar, the protagonist, had me on a roller coaster of emotions with his clever ghetto life metaphors and his painful realizations that the perennial struggle against white supremacy is an exercise in futility. That futility begs the question of how a person of color is to escape the hopelessness, sense of defeat and f...more
I originally read this in 8th grade. It wasn't assigned (if you read this book you'll see no school would assign this book).
The discussions in this book between friends are intimate, relatable, and accessible. The story is a little crazy, and if I read this now I'd probably only give it 4.5. Still, it's a great book.
The book is hilarious, touching, sentimental, serious, angst-driven, and socially conscious all at once. I still remember my favorite parts (the only part seared into my mind that di...more
The discussions in this book between friends are intimate, relatable, and accessible. The story is a little crazy, and if I read this now I'd probably only give it 4.5. Still, it's a great book.
The book is hilarious, touching, sentimental, serious, angst-driven, and socially conscious all at once. I still remember my favorite parts (the only part seared into my mind that di...more
Wow. You know that quote about a book leaving you exhausted and feeling like you lived several lives? Well, this book did that for me. It was beyond absurd in parts and I understand that was part of the style. A satire, hyperbole galore. At times I felt like I was being smacked in the face with this unrealistic yet somehow accurate portrayal of growing up black. The vocabulary (part of the exaggeration) was fun, challenging, and ridiculous. Definitley helpful for anyone studying for the GRE or j...more
I started out hating this book, but by the time I was done I loved it. It's why I think of Christopher Walken when I see the moon.
2 likes · like · see review
The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty is an outstanding novel. The author begans the book by connecting the protagonists' life with all the stereotypes that surrounds an African American family. The main character, Gunnar Kaufman is an individual who has the brains for Harvard, the basketball skills like an NBA player and has a very charismatic personality as a teenager gangster. However, all of these occured to him as he moved from a white populated location to a hispanic and black neighborhood....more
A beautiful, shambolic, half-true mess. Lovable, bone-crunchingly dumb, lovable. Has some great stuff about growing up smart and alienated in between the braggadocio and the self-hatred.
One thing: the mary-sue protagonist and his Japanese mail-order bride name their child Naomi, which is a nod to Junichiro Tanizaki, the granddaddy of faux-faux-racial self-essentialism, and which is so earth-shatteringly ironic as a literary gesture that my head almost exploded.
No wonder the guy moved to Berl...more
Gunnar Kaufman is the "funny, cool, black guy" on a quest to acclimate when his mother moves the family to a new neighborhood. He writes poetry, discovers his unusual talent for basketball, and gives his eighth grade class (and us) a detailed account of his unusual family tree.
When Gunnar's about to graduate high school, there's a left turn. A *sharp* left turn. Things go a bit funny. Gunnar leaves the west coast for Boston. After a thought-provoking, intense speech, the story finds its path ag...more
When Gunnar's about to graduate high school, there's a left turn. A *sharp* left turn. Things go a bit funny. Gunnar leaves the west coast for Boston. After a thought-provoking, intense speech, the story finds its path ag...more
*** Almost spoiler alert... maybe a foreshadowing alert?***
This book was dancing right at the 5 star range for me for the first 3/4. It is FUNNY. And then just when you're cracking up the hardest Beatty will hit you with a well placed one-liner that brings you back to your senses and makes you wonder what the hell is wrong with this world. I adore the way he talked to his mom. Hysterical.
But, obviously, you'll see that I'm rating it only 3 stars. Why the down grade? Because after that first 3/4...more
This book was dancing right at the 5 star range for me for the first 3/4. It is FUNNY. And then just when you're cracking up the hardest Beatty will hit you with a well placed one-liner that brings you back to your senses and makes you wonder what the hell is wrong with this world. I adore the way he talked to his mom. Hysterical.
But, obviously, you'll see that I'm rating it only 3 stars. Why the down grade? Because after that first 3/4...more
I've been privy to the "what does it mean to be a person of color" conversation on many occasions. To POC, it's a belabored issue without resolution. To those white friends who've been subjected to my ramblings on how growing up on the border imprints one with an indelible and symbolic dividing line right down the middle of your personality, taste in food, music, even your political disposition, it's just another confusing topic.
Beatty deftly delves into the substance of the POC "Who and what am...more
Beatty deftly delves into the substance of the POC "Who and what am...more
Sep 30, 2010
Shawn
marked it as to-read
This has been on my "Currently Reading" list since I endeavored to make it my current read a month or so ago. I've not decided, yet, whether I will give up trying to get into this or not. My initial feeling as that this novel suffers from what I call "The Maya Angelou/Spike Lee Syndrome" -- a convoluted, unintelligible, confusing piece of work that is in reality crap (for lack of a better word), but critics and others have deemed it "genius" and are too afraid to be counted among the dissenting...more
There's a lot of bad language, so if that discourages you, avoid this book. The further you get into this book, the more you realize what a brilliant piece of work it is. The start seems to have little to do with the end (especially the hilarious family history part), but I guess the main character's life before moving provides good contrast. But a smart, sporty black dude in the streets of L.A. has such interesting things to philosophize about.
Overall I found this book to be a welcome challenge intellectually, but I don't know that I would recommend it to many people. There were sections where I was engrossed and others that bordered on boring, although I think folks who wrote more favorable reviews found those passages to be "poetic." When Beatty delves into story and character (what I look for in a novel), he is an artist. When he pontificates about politics, the story becomes muddled, which is unfortunate. While I agree with much o...more
The humor in this one was just too broad and some of the plot turns too far-fetched for me to get involved in it as a story rather than a treatise. The stuff I did love was when we were pressed down into what felt like actual lived experience (the down-and-dirty urban kid-life portions were great). Lots of trenchant observations about race and celebrity, some funny moments and really clever turns of phrase, but the main character's growing all-knowingness and the author's showboating way with la...more
Simultaneously erudite and street smart. The author is well read and has a tremendous ear. I'm huge fans of the characters: Gunnar is genetically gifted yet clearly a product of his environment. Nick Scoby should have been my best friend. Ending up with Psycho Loco as a friend is the equivalent of having a tiger as a pet--constant protection at a cost of feeling constantly endangered. I read this at least once each year.
Beatty's style of writing could have easily turned me off after the first chapter. It's very, very, descriptive and metaphoric. He pulls it off beautifully, though. I laughed out loud several times, and was mostly shocked at how insightful Gunnar was. I grew up in Santa Monica and his description of that yuppie town and its failure at multicultural education was right on point. Great read.
I was unable to read this entire book because of school, but what I did read I really liked. Beatty has a knack for discussing disturbing things in such way as to make them seem ridiculous and funny. Of course the situations in this novel are funny because they are sad and true. I think having some understanding of African American history will help a person appreciate this book.
like spoken word put in a novel.
"..i think poems are echoes of the voices in your head and from your past. Your sisters, your father, your ancestors talking to you and through you. Some of it is primal, some of it is hallucinatory bullshit. That madness those boys rapping aint nothing but urban folklore. They retelling stories passed won from chicken coop to apartment stoop to Ford Coupe."
"..i think poems are echoes of the voices in your head and from your past. Your sisters, your father, your ancestors talking to you and through you. Some of it is primal, some of it is hallucinatory bullshit. That madness those boys rapping aint nothing but urban folklore. They retelling stories passed won from chicken coop to apartment stoop to Ford Coupe."
Beatty is viciously clever sometimes, and unbelievably funny. Judging The White Boy Shuffle as a novel, however, I didn't love it, or particularly like it. The satire is too heavy-handed, too constant. A few times, the humor is way too on the nose.
Again, Beatty's brilliance is obvious. So too is the social commentary.
Again, Beatty's brilliance is obvious. So too is the social commentary.
Even though this book is nothing like the types of books I like to read, I kind of enjoyed it. It was very funny! But came to a depressing conclusion. A lot of things confused me about this book, but at least it wasn't one of those books that make me wonder why I decided to major in English. It's probably one of the better books I had to read for my Black Novel class.
This is my favorite book that no one else has read; I recommend it to people constantly.
It's lovingly, compellingly detailed despite being slightly larger-than-life. (The protagonist's best friend never, ever misses a shot.) It's intensely personal and soaringly metaphorical; scathing, incendiary, imaginative, observational and, oh yes, hilarious.
Every sentence crackles-- I found myself putting it down to catch my breath occasionally.
Oh, and it will probably change your position about at least...more
It's lovingly, compellingly detailed despite being slightly larger-than-life. (The protagonist's best friend never, ever misses a shot.) It's intensely personal and soaringly metaphorical; scathing, incendiary, imaginative, observational and, oh yes, hilarious.
Every sentence crackles-- I found myself putting it down to catch my breath occasionally.
Oh, and it will probably change your position about at least...more
Plus twenty million for a book set in LA!!! Pretty brilliant, clever, funny, etc. You should read it. But, wtf with a mail order bride, you know? Not cool even if it serves as a plot device for all this suicide nonsense. In general, I'm not that impressed with the portrayal of women.
Wasn't really into the beginning, felt it was a little too self referential/cliche. All in all though it was definitely a dope read and i'm really thankful I was a stubborn reader and moved past the first few pages. One of the best books literally found on a brooklyn curb.
Apr 09, 2007
Charlie
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
People willing to read poetry-like prose, anyone looking for a tale told in a new way.
This was a great book. It took me a few days to really get into it because the voice is different than most novels, but once I got into it's rhythym, I loved it. It was like spoken word on the page. Or a Jazz tune played by Thelonious Monk in his heyday. This book flowed and the main character reverberated in my head.
WBS is the story of a black boy who grew up in California and ends up being the voice of his people (I'm not giving anything away here. He says that on the first page of the book)....more
WBS is the story of a black boy who grew up in California and ends up being the voice of his people (I'm not giving anything away here. He says that on the first page of the book)....more
Nov 29, 2010
Mbakwe Okafor
added it
Real, funny, and a quick read. If you like stories about young people searching for who they are and who they want to be then this is the book for you. Try to get past the first 10 pages then it is all good from then on...
Phil Jackson gave this book to Kobe Bryant. I stumbled upon it in Engl472. It does not need praise. Infinite Jest squeezed into 200 odd pages with a message that makes Aaron McGruder look like Wayne Brady. Everything you ever need in a book is here: a Gang of Four reference, suicide, a Japanese Mail Order bride, slavery/basketball. If you're tempted to say that Beatty is better than Ellison and Baldwin fused with some Morrison on top, the book will still eat you alive and leave you painting a ta...more
I loved this book. This book was really a great read. Funny, smart and while I know there is quite heavy strokes used in composing the tale, I have to say that for the first time in a long while I felt that the "other" black experience was truthfully depicted. What does it mean to be Black and smart and yet be valued by the establishment for the skills that they want to value, and even when you are that amazingly talented everyone is still waiting for you to fail. I know this sounds kinda melodr...more
If you don't like this book you may have no soul.
This book bombards readers with the ridiculousness of racial stereotypes. Beatty's character's are exaggerated and unbelievable, yet you can't help but recognize the counter part in real life. It's a story of family history, social history and individual history founded on survival and endurance at the cost of conformity.
The inevitable fear that we are bound to repeat generational mistakes even when we are aware of them.
Brilliant analysis of indi...more
This book bombards readers with the ridiculousness of racial stereotypes. Beatty's character's are exaggerated and unbelievable, yet you can't help but recognize the counter part in real life. It's a story of family history, social history and individual history founded on survival and endurance at the cost of conformity.
The inevitable fear that we are bound to repeat generational mistakes even when we are aware of them.
Brilliant analysis of indi...more
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| The White Boy Shuffle - YA? | 2 | 5 | Dec 30, 2012 11:51pm |
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“It's corny, but I think poems are echoes of the voices in your head and from your past. Your sisters, your father, your ancestors taking to you and through you. Some of it is primal, some of it is hallucinatory bullshit. That madness those boys rapping ain't nothing but urban folklore. They retelling stories passed down from chicken coop to apartment stoop to Ford coupe. Hear that rhyme, boy. Shit, I could get down and rap if I had to. MC Big Mama Osteoporosis in the house.”
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2 people liked it
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Feb 14, 2008 03:19pm