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Feb 06, 2012

Joshua Nomen-Mutatio rated it:

Throughout my reading, this book transformed within my perceptual apparatus from a darkly hilarious (and loosely historical) farce to a viscerally felt chunk of despair-engaged-with-directly-as-despair rather than despair-with-silver-(in-between-the)-linings. By about the halfway point I shifted from mainly chuckling and appreciating Sharpe's inventive and highly synesthesiac prose into grimly and silently accepting that there's ultimately nothing truly redeeming about anything, ever. That the w More...

54 comments like (39 people liked it)

Jul 12, 2007

Jason rated it:

(Full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE: I am personal friends with a number of staff members of Soft Skull Press, publishers of Jamestown, even to the extent of sometimes staying on their couches during past trips to New York. It should be kept in mind while reading this review.)

Is it just me, or has there been just a whole slew of high-profile, so-called "high literature" novels about the Apoca More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 26, 2007

Jim rated it:

"Jamestown" is a wild, violent, mordantly hilarious retelling of how the first permanent English colony in the New World came into being and unlike the version extolled in countless middle-school textbooks, Matthew Sharpe doesn't gloss over its influence on those who were already there. Indeed, the Indians' perspective on the events of 400 years ago is what gives Sharpe's satire such ferocious bite.

Set in the indeterminably near future, a ragtag band of employees of the Ma More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 19, 2008

Cheryl rated it:

It was an alright telling of the Jamestown story. There were interesting spins, such as warring sections of New York and idiosyncratic injections of motor vehicles and computers. It is in an unspecified post apocalyptic time period that could be any time period you would imagine (many think it is post-9/11 New York). There is a great deal of humor in Sharpe's writing; quite a lot of one line puns and quite a lot more descriptive sexual material. As the young Pocahontas was likely a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 06, 2009

Nick rated it:

(From now on I'm going to try and tie in the appropriate music I listen to while reading a selected book.)

Hope, social commentary, a post-apocalyptic wasteland, black humor and raunchy humor...You will find all these things within these pages.

Recommended soundtrack to your reading experience:
Explosions in the Sky-All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone,
Ween or a Monty Python Soundtrack.

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 07, 2008

Kevin rated it:

I didn't know I could like any kind of "historical fiction" but this is some crazy shit. Sharpe has engineered a new kind of epic with alternating characters and language that's as tight and ready to burst as an overinflated tire. Almost a 5-star read, and maybe it could have been if I would have been better schooled in the Jamestown story (I did much of my studying up on the story after I was finished). This Pocahontas is maybe my favorite character in fiction so far this year. See my More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 29, 2011

Mark rated it:

Jamestown is a funny, smartass book with more heart than most novels that try to be the exact opposite of funny, smartass books--if that makes any sense. The characters are brightly colored cartoons for the most part, but both Pocahontas and Johnny Rolfe frequently astounded me with the enlightened truths that spilled from their mouths.

As with the movie Children of Men (and, presumably, the novel--though I never finished reading it, shame on me!), what makes these end-of-the-world wor More...

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Mar 17, 2011

Lori L rated it:

Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe is an odd, modern-day dystopian novel. Sharpe calls Jamestown, "an ahistorical fantasia on a real event." What he has done is take the historical Jamestown story, added Disney's Pocahontas to it, as well as other more diverse elements, and set it in an uncertain future USA.

Chapters are each told from a different character's point-of-view. At the beginning, the story alternates between Johnny Rolfe and Pocahontas, while later sections add the first More...

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Aug 03, 2009

Marvin rated it:

This wonderfully quirky novel is a post-apocalyptic novel drawing on the Pocahontas story. With New York City mostly in ashes, a delegation is sent down what used to be I-95 to what used to be Virginia to steal a presumed supply of oil from the natives. The delegation nearly starves while the natives marvel at how inept they are and alternate between helping them and undermining their survival, even attacking them. The delegation includes Jack Smith, who's saved from execution by the chief's dau More...

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Sep 27, 2007

Jerah rated it:

i already reviewd this book but the internets ate my goodreads account so here it is again.

i want to eat this book. funny, violent, post-annihilation cleverness.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 15, 2011

A.J. rated it:

The dreaded one star review. Let me explain myself. Some parts of Jamestown featured the most insightful use of sardonic wit this side of Joe Heller. But other parts I found annoyingly grating as anything I've ever red. Unfortunately, almost the entirety of the second half of the book was closer to the latter experience. On several occasions I had to put the book down because it was just completely failing to connect with me. Yet, I'm willing to bet that I wouldn't have found certain parts as More...

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Sep 22, 2008

Malini rated it:

I read Jamestown for post-apocalyptic book club. It's definitely an interesting interpretation of the founding of Jamestown. It has a lot in common with other books that explore the cyclic nature of human history, like A Canticle for Leibowitz and Cloud Atlas. There was something genuine in the flippancy of Rolfe's and Pocahontas's attitudes, but it went a little too far for my taste. I think the novel would have been better balanced if Sharpe had given more face time to Stickboy or even some of More...

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Jun 18, 2008

Ben rated it:

Sporadically brilliant. I like it a ton, mostly because it's the closest thing I've found to a Barthelme novel/story that wasn't actually written by Barthelme. Reminded me quite a bit of "Cortes & Montezuma," in particular, and for reasons beyond the superficial associations.

I'll be very interested to see what he does next.

***

"All right let me take a guess as to what a guy like you could possibly want when you steal into my tent at midnight, giv More...

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Jul 26, 2009

Ed rated it:

Enjoyed the dense blantantly self-aware dialogue and structure up until the last 50 pages, at which time it just seemed to compete with the actual story. Read it all in one go if you can, so you don't have time to start thinking about the story vs. writing.

Ultimately, it felt more like self-indulgence than entertainment. Some of the self-indulgence was impressive, but I was too often thinking about the author writing the words rather than the characters thinking or saying the wor

0 comments like

Jul 02, 2009

Amber rated it:

This book was not suspenseful, but it was the oddest book I have ever read, which kept me going.

The book was gross, absurd, violent, comedic, and even touching at times.

It gave me a new look on books and stirred a new interest in me about Indians and early colonization.

If the book had had more suspense it probably would have received a higher rating from me. I enjoy a page-turner.

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Jun 03, 2009

Emily rated it:

this book is all about the most base of human urges - the bad ones. that's the whole focus. the world has been annihilated and everyone has turned to their instincts to survive... kind of like what we see on the news everyday - and definitely not what i'm looking for in my entertainment. if i wanted to read/listen/visualize evil people in my novels - i would just watch the news.

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Apr 25, 2011

Jonfaith rated it:

This originally to be read a month ago aspart of what I deemed the Calamity Song detor, then the tsunami happened and I didn't find it clever any longer. I dove into this last night and read half of it. the concluding half was digested today as the rain returned. The author's composure is promising, there is better work ahead once he outgrows his snark.

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Aug 21, 2007

Glenn rated it:

Another recommendation from my weirdo friends, but another fruitful read nonetheless. The book was recommended due to it's highly scatalogical content, but what I found captivating was the painting of a picture without revealing all the details at once. Nothing was ever explained outright, but the picture nevertheless came into focus: specifically, a post "apocalyptic" world, where government as we know it has collapsed, replaced by tribal allegiances and a nasty, brutish and short l More...

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May 06, 2010

Rita rated it:

I loved The Sleeping Father. It was one of the funniest and saddest books I've read.

I just can't get into this book though. I tried the first two chapters and I can see where it's supposed to be funny, but it's just not in my vein of humor. I flipped forward a few chapters to see if it changes and it doesn't, so I'm setting it aside.

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Jun 28, 2008

Ian rated it:

Those four stars should be taken with four corresponding grains of salt. For each thing this book gets right, there's a lot that it doesn't. Characterization is spotty at best, and the plot itself affords only the weakest of structures. That the book is a "fantasia" on historical occurrences is an interesting conceit, but the fantastic elements seem loose, only mostly thought out, and gimmicky. However, Sharpe succeeds incredibly with his use of language to convey pathos, humor, depth More...

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Jul 18, 2009

Ben rated it:

Like others, I wanted to like it. I enjoyed the Pocahontas character but beyond that I can't say I enjoyed the prose or the plot. Maybe I am not smart enough to "get it" but I did not get it. I finished it but did not enjoy the book.

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Jul 03, 2009

Danielle rated it:

I am still thinking about what to think about this book. I think three stars is the average of loving it/hating it/being pissed off by it in ways that were sometimes thought provoking and sometimes less so.

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Jul 27, 2011

Angela rated it:

I'm not certain what I expected. . .but it wasn't delivered. I'm not the point, the story. . .maybe it was completely lost on me. I just kept waiting for something. . .that I never got.

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Dec 16, 2009

Katie rated it:

I approached this novel with equal excitement and skepticism - the story/myth of Jamestown reimagined in the near-future? Sign me up. But. Would it be too clever and pomo? And sure, there are plenty of "clever" jokes I could do without, but the writing here is most often brilliant and fun and he knows when to pull back and balance the pomo cleverness with true insight and seriousness. Saunders-esque language, Shakespearean scenes of betrayal and bloodshed, Joycean sex-driven females (P More...

1 comment like

Nov 13, 2011

Katharine added it

I love Christopher Moore's books and was hoping this would be similar - not quite what I expected. Definitely not bad, but not quite what I was in the mood for. Shelving for another time.

0 comments like

Aug 23, 2011

Nat rated it:

I really did think I was a fan of this title until I was about half-way through. This was the point at which it soured under the weight of its own contrivance. It felt, by the end, as if this was a novel trying desperately to be as pithy as its post-modern friends. It failed, it knew it had failed, and so resorted instead to experimenting with drugs. In the end, even the trippy overcompensation didn't turn out rewarding to read.

The worst part about these kinds of books is that they in More...

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Mar 02, 2009

Leeyanne rated it:

Post-apocalyptic retelling of Jamestown story. Sort of like George Saunders meets Mad Max. Love works by Soft Skull Press too.

0 comments like

Apr 29, 2010

Blaise rated it:

A more complete and truthful history of Jamestown than any I have read. Very interesting stuff.

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Nov 01, 2007

Alexis rated it:

So far I'm loving it. I put off reading it for so long because it's about a post-apocalyptic U.S. (and there's been a lot of that lately), but Sharpe is hilarious. He alternates between two characters, which sets a swift pace. The voice of Pocahontas is brilliant--teenager, wickedly smart--her pronouncements about the English language are enough to recommend the book.

"Oh English! How I love to write to you in English, even though it is so slow to do anything in English, be More...

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Aug 01, 2011

dragynlady rated it:

I liked this dark and funny and interesting. I am always down for post-apocalypse genre.

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