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A Singular Man
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What will happen to George Smith? Mysteriously rich and desperately lonely, George appears to be under attack from all quarters: his former wife and four horrible children are suing to get his money; his dipsomaniacal housekeeper is trying to arouse his carnal interest; his secretary, the beautiful, blond Miss Thomson, will barely give him the time of day. Making matters e
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Paperback, 408 pages
Published
January 14th 1994
by Atlantic Monthly Press
(first published 1963)
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This is another book that had a profound influence on me when I was younger.
Just out of interest I recently went back and read it again.
It is easy to read this book as just about the content, malarky, high jinks, sex and wealth. But there is a poetic melancholia that runs underneath everything in this book. I think it was the first book that resonated within me as in someone had given a name to something that I had felt at the core of me ever since I can remember.
I feel a bit different these day ...more
Just out of interest I recently went back and read it again.
It is easy to read this book as just about the content, malarky, high jinks, sex and wealth. But there is a poetic melancholia that runs underneath everything in this book. I think it was the first book that resonated within me as in someone had given a name to something that I had felt at the core of me ever since I can remember.
I feel a bit different these day ...more
A sophomore novel of absurdities and crudities, a plotless rambling meander in the realm of a loathsome rich philanderer named George Smith. Donleavy’s narrative technique of mashing staccato third-person omniscient with internal monologue creates waves of bristling and vital prose, and thickets of nonsensical and irritating nonspecificness. The humour is more strained and wackier than The Ginger Man—a choice that ultimately makes this novel a chore to complete, as pleasurable are its first coup
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I was on the fence about including Donleavy's second novel on my 1963 reading list. I guess it was seeing somewhere on the web that his first novel, The Ginger Man, was Hunter S Thompson's favorite book that decided me. I know that does not make much sense, being the raging feminist that I am, but I am also a bit of an intellectual anarchist plus I don't hate men.
So I read A Singular Man and it was good, maybe almost amazing. George Smith is another character, like Sebastion Dangerfeld in The ...more
Donleavy's great accomplishment in his second novel is to make the reader sympathise with one of the 1%. And it is sympathy, rather than envy. Everyone wants a piece of George Smith and, while he may have more cash than the average Donleavy lead, as well as the usual quota of impossible yearning, he seems lacking in some crucial quality - call it gumption? Thus rendered something of an eternal victim, without the lunatic vigour of a Schultz whereby to convert upward from passivity to heroism. Fo
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Jan 30, 2020
Sue Dounim
added it
On a recent rare late winter evening, sitting in my firelit cavernous library, a brace of Borzois at my feet, my fingers playing over the leather spines of my choice library, I happened upon the 24 inches or so of Donleavy's works that I so cherish. At random I drew down this novel, not having read it for lo these many decades. And what a delight it is again. To once again immerse myself in the wistful elliptical impressionistic sentence fragments of a truly unique writer.
I wonder what a younge ...more
I wonder what a younge ...more
One of the oddest of the late author's many odd novels. No one does urban sadness and desolation - the kind of unpopulated Saturday morning we all wish we'd never experienced - quite like Donleavy, and A Singular Man is studded with the tiny details that make life, love, loneliness so unbearable. Sally Tomson (a.k.a. Dizzy Darling) is one of 20th Century literature's great leading ladies and her existence on the page proves J.P.D. could easily shake off charges of misogyny and stereotyping when
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The 1960s were a prime time to be an experimental fiction craftsman, apparently, and if I’d read J. P. Donleavy’s A Singular Man when it came out at the end of 1963, I might have zipped through the dense, blurred, stiff and precise exercise in stylized vagueness in a hurry to move on to the next Donald Barthelme book. As it is, this novel consumed ten days that seemed like more. All the while, I was thinking Virginia Woolf did this better and sooner. A Singular Man’s titular male protagonist has
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Very comforting book, relaxing. A kinda of enjoy the ride book. George Smith is dealing with an empty life whilst trying to chase his dream girl. Building a memorial grave site for himself and having to deal with the press and a mysterious persona threatening him. The book really invest you in George and these wacky side characters but the ending really made it all worth it.
Love Donleavy's writing style. Short, sharp sentences. Doesn't pad things out with unnecessary verbiage that many writers seem to think is required. Despite the brevity he paints a vivid picture. And rather than using grand themes he uses the ordinary in a unique way.
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elibrary
Havent had so much sex in a book in a while
Read back in the 70s
Sad but funny. Colourful but absurd. Engrossing but irritating. Rich and poor. But ultimately memorable and brilliant!
Hilarious as always, but also harsher in the glaring light of day, more pessimistic than the other Donleavy I've read, despite having much of the same set-up; our hero is an orphan, a gentleman - even when falling in shite - and finds himself the sexual object of just about any and every attractive female who falls across his path. This should be objectionable, but as always is written with such self deprecation, even smatters of self loathing, that I fell for poor not-so-sweet George Smith. Old
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Another nice and original novel of an author I like quite a lot. Donleavy has the virtue of creating rare characters and equally rare plots that no matter, work out pretty well. He manages the stories so well that they never lack in interest. And often, they are a mix of poetry and fun. This one goes about an excentrique millionaire who while planning (and make it being built) his mausoleum, starts receiving odd letters vaguely threatening. But this is just a pretext to tell us a quite crazy and
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So it seems (on the basis of this and The Ginger Man) that Donleavy's a genius, and I wish it hadn't taken me so long to get into him. Drags a bit in the middle, where it feels like he's just stretching, but beyond that it's both wildly funny and desperately sad. Toward the end, as it's just beautiful line after beautiful line, I felt pretty wrung out. Now to go through all of JPD's books and hope that they continue to approach this level.
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how could one review a novel such as this. the plot is loose and at times absurd. there is really no beginning middle an end. our protagonist finds himself in constant conflict, albeit no always resolved. but the writing is terrific. heavy and at times must be reread to truly understand. oh so worth it. donleavy is one of the most fun authors i have read.
Jan 23, 2014
Mike Marsbergen
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
books-i-own
Still a favourite. It's got one of his most creative premises, some of his funniest moments, as well as one of the saddest scenes I've read in a book. If you have to read one Donleavy book, this might be the one.
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Not one of Donleavy's best, but still pure Donleavy. Rather odd, but also likable.
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This is so good.
Mar 28, 2012
Lysergius
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
contemporary-irish-fiction
Hilarious!
I loved this once some time ago too; will read again and assess my feelings....
Jun 06, 2012
Gabriel Thayer
added it
If you loved Ginger Man there is more here to love. Great book and as quirky as always!!!!
started off entertaing. dropped off. weak book
I was really surprised that while almost everyone who read this book on Goodreads liked it, nobody reviewed it. Oh well, no reason to buck the trend.
Oct 10, 2010
Corby
added it
Love everything J.P Donleavy...
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James Patrick Donleavy was an Irish American author, born to Irish immigrants. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II after which he moved to Ireland. In 1946 he began studies at Trinity College, Dublin, but left before taking a degree. He was first published in the Dublin literary periodical, Envoy.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.P._Don... ...more
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.P._Don... ...more
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