Plch read and liked Hannah Eiseman-Renyard's review of The Dice Man:

"Author Too in Love with his Own Concept to See the Gaping Blindspots

This is a novel which was recommended to me by friends as "if you liked Fight Club you'll love this." Though I can see the comparison, I liked Fight Club and I ...more Author Too in Love with his Own Concept to See the Gaping Blindspots

This is a novel which was recommended to me by friends as "if you liked Fight Club you'll love this." Though I can see the comparison, I liked Fight Club and I really didn't like this one. Fight Club was lean and taut, this was bloated and outdated - like some lecherous late middle-aged guy you run in to at a party, who proceeds to trap you in a conversation you’d rather not be in.

Once I started reading I discovered that my friends' explanation of this book made more sense and appealed more than the book itself does. Yes, if you decide to assign random actions to different sides of dice and throw them - you will (by your own made up rules) have to go do the thing it lands on. But don't you dare lose track of the fact that you're the one who put those six outcomes on that die. You're still in control, stupid.

Psychologist narrator decides one day to just play with possibilities. His very first one is "if this die is a one, I'll go rape my neighbour." It is. He does. Lovely. How very free.

I'd been told about this bit, but I'd always assumed it was further along in the book, something dark and disturbing which he builds up to. But nope - it happens straight away, which doesn’t strike me as very good plotting. Also, the neighbour loves it, so it's not really rape. Women are always gagging for it, aren't they?

Rad, dude.

The problem at the core of this book is that narrator Luke Reinhart and the author Luke Reinhart are, (I’d venture) pretty much one and the same in their viewpoints . And it's a one-dimensional, pseudo-revolutionary viewpoint with no regard for other human beings. They both think that living randomly is awesome. Like, so totally awesome that the narrator throws away most of his established life in the process of following this dumb idea of the roll of the dice. He loses his job, wife and family along the way but it's cool, 'cause now he's living wild and crazy and free and doing stuff he’d never normally do. Well, it’s definitely wild and crazy, but I fail to see why that's the stated aim, and I don’t believe the new experiences are worth what each ‘Dice Experiment’ character throws away in the process.

Frustratingly, the plot does light on all my counter-arguments (always put forward by the narrator's psychologist colleagues), but they're always just brushed aside as unhip. Nevermind this square life where you don't rape your neighbours - this dude's living free! They fired him at work? Great: now he can really get on with his work! It's the same dumb TV logic which sees cops only catching the murderer once they're suspended from the case.

This book is a big-assed brick of a novel, and if you're not charmed and amused by the narrator, or if you're not into the machismo - yet lack of sense of self (ie personality or scruples) - which the narrator character enthuses about for most of the book, it's going to be a trudge.

I wonder how different my reading of this might have been if I'd read it in social context when it came out in 1971 (the same year as the Stanford Prison Experiment, as it so happens). It seems to be bourne of that same Stanford Prison Experiment thinking which is willing to risk treading on people en route to gaining a deeper psychological understanding of human nature. I also wonder how different this novel would be if it hadn't been written in the early 70s. The two seem inextricably linked, and not in a good way. Like I said – think bloated middle-aged guy at a party. Oh, and he’s just bought his first motorbike and wants to tell you all about it. “It’s really powerful, sensual, raw. You should try it some time, come for a ride with me.”

All in all - Luke Rhinehart - you're icky and please take your midlife crisis elsewhere.(less) "

Plch read and liked tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's review of Wildsmith:

"I was turned onto Goulart by my friend John Sheehan - who gave me a collection of Goulart's books. As such, I'll forever associate Goulart w/ John - & I can appreciate how their 2 peculiarities coincide. John also exposed me to 2 inventions of his ...more I was turned onto Goulart by my friend John Sheehan - who gave me a collection of Goulart's books. As such, I'll forever associate Goulart w/ John - & I can appreciate how their 2 peculiarities coincide. John also exposed me to 2 inventions of his own: balloon fishing & slow-bowling - but that's a story for elsewhere.

I'll probably never read anything by Goulart that I'll be able to bring myself to give more than a 3 star rating too. "Liked it" sums my response. Goulart's too much of a gimmick writer - nothing that I've read by him tries to accomplish anything beyond short books w/ recurring themes & style. NONETHELESS, I've enjoyed them all! A few obvious pseudo-critical clichés come to mind: "guilty pleasure", "book to read at the beach while on vacation", "escape fiction"..

&.. yet.. somehow I think he deserves more credit than that. His gimmick, in most, or all, of the 28 books I've read by him, is dysfunctional technology &/or technology imbued w/ human failings - elevators w/ limited artificial intelligence that have opinions about the people who ride in them, robots as racist as their inventors, shoe dispensers that don't pop out matching shoes.. that sort of thing. AND there's more to it than that. His books are satires, somewhat outspoken about sex, race, revolution..

Take "Wildsmith": an android secretly built by a publishing company to crank out best-sellers - & very successful at that. BUT, in order for the android to have the appropriate personality it's had quirks built into it - like apparent alcoholic behavior. Since the public isn't supposed to know that Wildsmith's an android, all the aberrant behavior has to be kept in check enuf by his PR man to keep this a secret - wch means preventing Wildsmith from unscrewing his hands in public & such-like.

This being not only a satire of the publishing industry but also of the political atmosphere of the time there's an apparent parody of Al Capp & his "Li'l Abner" cartoon - in this case as Joe Chuck, creator of "Tiny Boob the Hillbilly Midget". In Goulart's rendering, Chuck is a nasty stereotyping creep whose comic is banned in Mexico b/c Chuck expresses such sentiments as:

""These amusing greaseballs come from a distant planet and they landed right in Tiny Boob's hillbilly home town of Hogwallow. They resemble wax basketballs and have amusing little legs and wear sombreros. They've come to our poor, plundered portion of this planet because they've heard you can get a handout quicker here than anyplace else in the universe. If there's one prick things these greaseballs hate, it is working for a living.""

NOW, that's somewhat the way I remember Capp as being - so imagine my surprise when I skimmed thru his Wikipedia bio & found naught but praise for the guy. It's even claimed there that John Steinbeck (who I have deep respect for) "called Capp "the best writer in the world" in 1953, and even earnestly recommended him for the Nobel Prize in literature"! AND Marshall McLuhan (who I'm beginning to think was a bit of an idiot) was reputed to be a fan. Contrast that to the footage of Capp's hostility to John Lennon & Yoko Ono as presented in Paul McGrath's movie "John & Yoko's Year of Peace".

At any rate, Goulart's satire seems just as pungent & pointed as, eg, Terry Southern's "Candy" - but "Candy" was made into a movie w/ prominent stars & I don't know of any Goulart movies (wch doesn't mean that they don't exist - eg, he's somehow connected w/ "Battlestar Galactica"). In fact, "Wildsmith" is somewhat reminiscent of Woody Allen's "Broadway Danny Rose" - but 13 yrs earlier - & w/ the Sci-Fi touches lacking in Allen's story. Funny, I often feel the same way about Allen's movies as I do about Goulart's books - they're clever but gimmicky - & they usually don't go far enuf.

STILL, I recommend Goulart - it only takes a few hrs to read one of these so it's easy enuf to whiz thru one - & if you don't get anything out of it there's no great waste of time. Besides, he seems worthy of recognition as a precursor to Jonathan Lethem, eg, & as a prominent figure in the shaping of the fusion of detective & science fiction. For me, the dysfunctional technology is enuf of a hoot to make it worthwhile - given that tech-heads often act like technology is some sort of perfect savior - rather than just another product of imperfect humans.

I note that Goulart has a series (?) of books w/ Groucho Marx as a "Master Detective" that I've never seen. That seems like perfect grist for Goulart's mill. (less) "