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Manifesto
by
Anonymous
Manifesto accomplishes two things that books like James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces could not – using experimental format to show one man’s raw life. Opening up the blank casing, a very unapologetic page one sports nothing but black text that starts at the top of the page and small numbering printed on every bottom corner. There are no chapters and there is no chronolog
...more
Paperback, 200 pages
Published
1980
by Dedrabbit International Artists Collectives
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Community Reviews
(showing 1-30)
Oct 30, 2011
Flesheating D-Ray
rated it
did not like it
Recommends it for:
people who have their minds set on being sad about nothing.
Oh my god how many times can you say that you hate life?
Turns out, a book's worth.
Turns out, a book's worth.
An interesting piece of work: not so much a novel as a series of terse personal-statement paragraphs, not in any real order or structure. The narrator is an upper-middle-class kid from the Midwest who got into a big-deal East Coast college or two (the text mentions Harvard and Middlebury) and dropped out, alienated and fed up, to wander the country, but it doesn't present the decision - or anything else - as redemptive or revelatory. The mood of alienation carries throughout, which makes it a bl
...more
This book is American, anarchistic and important.
(I'm copying this from my review I posted on my blogspot here)
I found Manifesto stuck between bright, colorful titles I was already familiar with in a Boston Newbury Comics. The whole marketing strategy here is brilliant: a completely blank cover, spine, no publishing info on the inside, just a blank white shell full of white pages with black text.
There are no chapters, it has no plot. Arguably, there are no characters, besides the anonymous narrator. The paragraphs don't even connect. Most of ...more
I found Manifesto stuck between bright, colorful titles I was already familiar with in a Boston Newbury Comics. The whole marketing strategy here is brilliant: a completely blank cover, spine, no publishing info on the inside, just a blank white shell full of white pages with black text.
There are no chapters, it has no plot. Arguably, there are no characters, besides the anonymous narrator. The paragraphs don't even connect. Most of ...more
This book came to me at a time of sadness and introspection, it is itself a sad but true introspection, a meditation on the terrifying lightness of being and the terrible choices that modern life offers. This life is yours, and may be impossible to "waste". What you do is what you do, whether you're acting selflessly or being obsessively self-absorbed, embracing society or rejecting it or coexisting in some tortured manner as this anonymous did. He resisted doing what society prescribes for peop
...more
just started it, intrigued but not earth-shattering yet. it's like a modern "On The Road" or "Catcher In The Rye". Still waiting to see how it might depart from those antecedents in any real or innovative way.
Get lost in another life.
This book manages to both mesmerize and bore. It is essentially a catalog: a two-hundred page list of disappointments, confusions, rejections, contradictions, desires, and existential observations. The book moves between what saddens us to what merely annoys and distracts, yet it struggles even so to discover what is good in the world. The considerable power of this book is weakened by its own relentless persistence: cut in half the book, which is more prose poem than novel, would have been a wo
...more
If I wrote down a post it note for every random thought and action I made and any little thing I'd ever witnessed, and taken all those scraps and put them in a binding in somewhat of a chronological order, it would be this book.
This may be one of those books that is impossible to put down when you are in a slum in your life and feel the common ache, but one you can't make yourself pick up when you are feeling content with life.
It is disorganized and lacks a plot, but it's personal, identifiable, ...more
This may be one of those books that is impossible to put down when you are in a slum in your life and feel the common ache, but one you can't make yourself pick up when you are feeling content with life.
It is disorganized and lacks a plot, but it's personal, identifiable, ...more
Will you be my friend? Please be my friend.
I am not your friend.
I am not your friend.
I gave up reading after thirty or so pages. Because it repeats the same basic thoughts every other paragraph.
Because it repeats the same basic thoughts. Over and over again.
It's the kind of project, apparently undertaken by a whole collective otherwise identified as derabbit something-something, that believes it represents the whole of the counterculture, but it ends up reading like an event less coherent version of William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch. I read Naked Lunch months ago, famous for bei ...more
Because it repeats the same basic thoughts. Over and over again.
It's the kind of project, apparently undertaken by a whole collective otherwise identified as derabbit something-something, that believes it represents the whole of the counterculture, but it ends up reading like an event less coherent version of William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch. I read Naked Lunch months ago, famous for bei ...more
This book reminded me of On The Road by Jack Kerouac; a book I picked up in high school that I just couldn't bring myself to finish.
I enjoyed the stream of consciousness writing style because it reminded me of my own thought pattern, and it didn't require focus or concentration to follow. The vivid descriptions of seemingly insignificant items, such as a piece of trash on the side of the road, brought the author's world to life for me. I found his experience and world view completely relate-able ...more
I enjoyed the stream of consciousness writing style because it reminded me of my own thought pattern, and it didn't require focus or concentration to follow. The vivid descriptions of seemingly insignificant items, such as a piece of trash on the side of the road, brought the author's world to life for me. I found his experience and world view completely relate-able ...more
Only two hundred pages, but it took about three months of picking it up, reading a page, putting it down, forgetting that I had it, finding it stuffed somewhere, reading large chunks at once, forgetting about it again, and rediscovering it to finally finish. Each paragraph is non-sequential (not entirely true, there were two or three times when a thought/event was carried over), and there is no real plot to connect everything. It is just a series of snapshots of someone's life; at times relatabl
...more
As a concept this was an ambitious work and no doubt a very heavy undertaking that made for interesting discussion- however the book itself struggled to tell a narrative and instead read like a string of thoughts and ideas. Although this may have been the intention, and may great works are written as a stream of consciousness, this work in particular read more like it was trying to develop a sense of it's own plot as it went along.
It has been a good while since I have read it so perhaps a second ...more
It has been a good while since I have read it so perhaps a second ...more
I probably wouldn't have kept at this book if my brother hadn't recommended it. The writing style it tedious, although after plugging along for a while you kinda fall into its rhythm.
(view spoiler) ...more
(view spoiler) ...more
It wasn't a waste of my time, but it pretty much had no plot and the main character lacked so much personality. You hate life so badly? Boohoo, go out and do something about it. Don't spend your life soaking on your misery. I liked the writing and the special way the world is portrayed, yet I didn't like this book at all. Guess I learned not to buy a book with a blank cover in the future.
this is such a weird book. As someone struggling with depression, if you have depression I don't suggest you read it because it will pull you under until you are finished. If you don't have depression but what to know what it's like I suggest you do read it. Super monotone.
Its a really interesting looking book because the cover is completely white. It is written as if it is the narrators train of thought for the entire book. It's basically a long complaint about life, but it's easy to relate to and insightful.
Necessary.
I wouldn't put my name on this either.
Seriously though, there were a few moments of blunt poeticism, but not nearly enough to sustain the scant 200 pages. Xanga in book form.
Seriously though, there were a few moments of blunt poeticism, but not nearly enough to sustain the scant 200 pages. Xanga in book form.
Only read about 2 pages and then got sidetracked by life before packing it in a box. Seems like it'll be at least interesting even if it doesn't blow my mind.
This book seemed like a recycling of what has been written/done before on existential angst. I waited for the main character to get unstuck and he never did.
I wrote the author a postcard and he never wrote me back.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Like "Manifesto" the book? Now check out the movie! | 1 | 13 | May 14, 2011 07:13AM |
Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:
* They are officially published under that name
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* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author
Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.
More about Anonymous...
* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author
Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.
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