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Short Lean Cuts
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The surreal, morbidly amusing novella of a narcissistic, hypochondriac ex-academic living in present-day America. Follow his musings, rants, and wacky encounters with savage characters during his day job as a house cleaner, as he heads toward what he believes is a resolution to his life.
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Aug 13, 2012
Richard
rated it
really liked it
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review of another edition
Recommended to Richard by:
Alex Pruteanu
Review copy kindly provided by author and GR friend Alex M. Pruteanu.
2012 is definitely the year of reading dangerously. There was 1Q84, Absalom, Absalom!, and Travel To the G-Spot -- The Guide Book! At least this one wasn't a sprawling epic novel like With Fire and Sword which I had to cram down in three weeks because I had it on inter-library loan. (The things I read for friends. Just kidding!) I read it in one sitting. But it has plenty of food for thought to sit down to.
First, the title. Sh ...more
2012 is definitely the year of reading dangerously. There was 1Q84, Absalom, Absalom!, and Travel To the G-Spot -- The Guide Book! At least this one wasn't a sprawling epic novel like With Fire and Sword which I had to cram down in three weeks because I had it on inter-library loan. (The things I read for friends. Just kidding!) I read it in one sitting. But it has plenty of food for thought to sit down to.
First, the title. Sh ...more
Short Lean Cuts is a knife-fight of a book, and as the title suggests, the story is served up to you in a series of slices, each one exploring the rank, odious disease that we call the modern world. Darkly comic, scathing in its world view, this is nonetheless a book that engages with you on a philosophical level, and for such a short book, provokes your preconceptions about society and how we live. Alex Pruteanu's prose is taut and very musical - the sentences seem deliberately crafted, very rh
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i've followed http://swine.wordpress.com/ for a couple years now? alex consistently bangs out bits of short flash that immediately rip and plunk the reader into another mindset, another scene. he writes the common line of the too self aware: being the banality of both hope and despair. capturing such inversion isn't an easy feat in writing. to break it down and bleed it out is an entirely brittle process and alex m. pruteanu has mastered such constructive nihilism with "short lean cuts".
"It has ...more
"It has ...more
Short Lean Cuts is a novella that blasts through the concrete of the brain from the first page. Alex M. Pruteanu is a master of language and the never ending subterfuge of americana that hides itself like a kid pretending to be a tree. Every chapter slices another slab of fat from the globular bullshit that keeps all truth draining into the liposuction bags as they are discarded and a leaner cut is sent out into the world wearing a girdle to obscure the flabby flesh that is held hostage behind s
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There are some books that no amount of description, no matter how well worded or wise, can prepare you for, or even make you understand. You can read all the reviews you want, but it won't do any good...you just need to read it. "Short Lean Cuts" is definitely one of those books. Don't take my word on how amazingly fluid the language and ideas are, how raw and yet finely-tuned the prose is. Reading my thoughts on "Short Lean Cuts" will give you none of the experience of reading the book. Just re
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This is a hard review to write for two reasons: I know the author; I didn't read the book correctly.
Let's get the "knowing the author" out of the way first. I don't *know* him in the biblical sense. I've read a lot of Mr. Pruteanu's work before, some of it fiction, some of it non-fiction (I will be saving those emails for when he is rich and famous and I can use them in a "kiss-and-tell" moment...maybe there was something biblical?). All of this means that any review is automatically coloured by ...more
Let's get the "knowing the author" out of the way first. I don't *know* him in the biblical sense. I've read a lot of Mr. Pruteanu's work before, some of it fiction, some of it non-fiction (I will be saving those emails for when he is rich and famous and I can use them in a "kiss-and-tell" moment...maybe there was something biblical?). All of this means that any review is automatically coloured by ...more
This author is one part poet and one part killer; plus two parts existentialist. As an aside, I flunked math in high school, but I know a great book when I read one. "Short Lean Cuts" is 96 pages of brilliant flash fiction, centered around the same intriguing, self-destructive, anti-helvetican narrator. The themes here are post-modern nihilism, anti-consumerism, and cultural narcissism; the humor is dark and incisive. But more than anything, what stays with you long after are the narrator's shar
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Took me long enough to get to this, seeing as the author's autograph and personal note to me are dated 2013. So it goes.
There were some highs and lows for me with this feverish, punk-rock-lyrical indictment of consumerism and American corporate hypocrisy. The clearest theme in Pruteanu's first book is the monetization of suffering at the hands of mainstream media, pharmaceutical companies, next-door neighbors. The chapters that go after these entities head-on are the best. Good luck getting your ...more
There were some highs and lows for me with this feverish, punk-rock-lyrical indictment of consumerism and American corporate hypocrisy. The clearest theme in Pruteanu's first book is the monetization of suffering at the hands of mainstream media, pharmaceutical companies, next-door neighbors. The chapters that go after these entities head-on are the best. Good luck getting your ...more
Swift and dark ... and the minute I wrote "dark" I regretted it because that is an over-used word when describing books and maybe does this one a disservice. This book is better than that and deserves a better word than "dark." Let me try this again.
The sentences Short Lean Cuts are drunken slashing scalpels and by the time you finish reading this story you will be in shreds. And who doesn't want a story to do that? ...more
The sentences Short Lean Cuts are drunken slashing scalpels and by the time you finish reading this story you will be in shreds. And who doesn't want a story to do that? ...more
This tale is no three little pigs nursery rhyme, or Babe. This is closer to Piggy in Lord of the Flies.
Looking at the darker side of life and characters this book is as strong and shocking as it is well written. Dark in places it is probably not going to be everyone's cup of tea but it does come recommended. ...more
Looking at the darker side of life and characters this book is as strong and shocking as it is well written. Dark in places it is probably not going to be everyone's cup of tea but it does come recommended. ...more
This is a dark, funny and brilliantly written novel, at moments weirdly surreal and at other times painfully realistic. The writing was really a pleasure to read.
Razor sharp snap shots
America dissected
Into short lean cuts
America dissected
Into short lean cuts
Review forthcoming!
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Since emigrating to the United States from Romania in 1980, Alex M. Pruteanu has worked as a laborer, movie projectionist, record store clerk, journalist, television news director, freelance writer, and editor. He is the author of novella Short Lean Cuts, (self-released, 2011) the short story collection, Gears, (Independent Talent Group, Inc., 2013) and novel The Sun Eaters. (Cervena Barva Press,
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