A Bar in Brooklyn: Novellas & Stories, 1970-1978

by Andrei Codrescu

Since emigrating to the U.S. from his native Romania in 1966, Andrei Codrescu has blazed a rocket-bright trail across the cultural landscape of his adopted country, gaining a national audience as public radio commentator, television personality and editor of the radical literary journal Exquisite Corpse . He has also commanded considerable critical recognition for his poetry ( Alien Candor , Black Sparrow, 1996), and fiction (most notably, his novel about his Transylvanian homeland, The Blood Countess , 1995).

Genres: Fiction

237 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1999

About the author

Andrei Codrescu is a poet, novelist, essayist, and NPR commentator. His many books include Whatever Gets You through the Night, The Postmodern Dada Guide, and The Poetry Lesson. He was Mac Curdy Distinguished Professor of English at Louisiana State University from 1984 until his retirement in 2009.

Reviews

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 3 out of 5]

When speaking of the collected output of a writer one of the terms used is the word "work". However much Andre Codrescu labored to produce the stories in this collection: A Bar in Brooklyn, it will be work for the reader.

Given that these stories were first penned between 1970 and 1978 some readers will conclude that much of it drug inspired. With Andre Codrescu this is possible. Given Codrescu's interest Dadaism, some who know him may conclude that this was the younger man's effort to introduce Americans to Dadaism. This is also possible. My reading of Andre's 1998 introduction to this volume leads me to suspect that he was experimenting with a prose version of poetry. My theory does not preclude the effects of advanced chemistry or a fascination with things surreal. But I found the poetry as prose concept a useful tool to help me wade through it.

The 11 short stories in this volume begin with Monsieur Teste In America, and Samba de los Agentes. Together these two stories cover about 100 pages almost half of the book. If you can finish them you will have performed the heavy lifting and will find the remaining stories mostly easier going. Recurring themes throughout the volumes are the problems of immigrants, illegal aliens, materialism and a variety of other themes well-known to followers of Andre Codrescu. Most of these stories include the types of unlikely word combinations that are a signature of Codrescu. An interesting convention in several of the stories is the decision of the use of first person from a female perspective. Something about this is also classically Andre Codrescu.

Why did I plow through this volume? For one I am a fan of Andre Codrescu the essayist. His book: The Hole in the Flag is significantly insightful and prescient. It was written about the aftermath of the Romanian Revolution in 1992, and much of what he saw there we are likely to see again before the end of the Arab Spring. His book and movie: Roads Scholar are fun in the classical Codrescu ironic way. I know nothing of his poetry and can only endorse the rest of his prose in a manner similar to the three stars posted here.

The notes in the back of this book suggest that there are approximately 400 paperback copies. My copy - under two dollars sold through Amazon, is all you need to know about the popularity and anticipated popularity of this book. I cannot encourage this for the general reader. folks who count themselves fans of this remarkable writer will want A Bar in Brooklyn.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have liked to tell him a totally made-up story that had nothing to do with anything, a story that was perfectly simple and yet contained everything in the world.
A story that was mindless and went on forever.
—"Three Simple Hearts: a youthful farce," p.157

I walked for kilometers beside Andrei Codrescu along the border fence that separates California and Romania. Codrescu kept reaching through the rusty links to pick the brightly-colored mushrooms—little pink Clitorides; engorged purple Ithyphalli; pale, slender Onanisti—that grow only there, in the fecund fecal filth of transplanted imagination. The guards we saw at intervals ignored us. I'm not sure why—they had little enough else to do, these days—but to a man (or woman) they rested their arms on the rickety railings of their guard towers, each tower punctuating the chain-link fence like brackets in a different, clunkier font, and gazed resolutely over our heads into the future that never happened.

You wanna hear the truth, kid?
What's da matter mister doncha know any stories?
—"Perfume: a tale of Felicity," p.179

For the longest time Codrescu and I walked and said nothing, nothing at all; his little grunts of satisfaction as he straightened up from plucking each fungus were the loudest sounds.

{...}my "love affair" with the American language is somewhat one-sided, as if I'd lost her phone number."
—"Samba de los Agentes," p. 88.

As we neared the next set of gates and the weary sun began setting to the east, Codrescu suddenly turned and thrust his harvest at me, saying:

"Take, eat. Grow strong and healthy, and remember a time when feckless youth fought to free their Federal files, and wandered fearless through a foreign land...."

{...}a place unlike any other: the countryside of northern California, that gothic slumber of prehistoric ferns slowly shaking their scales upward toward trees so tall the clouds had to tear their bellies going over, that place of mysterious murders, bodies floating down the swollen river, sudden red moons, hysterical and ancient inhabitants exchanging gasoline bombs with new but brutal settlers.
—"Monsieur Teste in America: an arrival and the necessity of it," p. 49

I chose the plumpest, ripest pink mushroom from Codrescu's arms and held it up to my nose. It smelled like... it smelled like A Bar in Brooklyn. I started nibbling at it, tenderly... but then a panteră leaped from the bushes and consumed me, instead.

"What a panther eats is withdrawn from circulation. That is the ultimate review."
—"Samba de los Agentes," p.119

[Zack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Catch my review of this one here: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-83...

[Dave Draghi · Rating 3 out of 5]

very little to do with a bar in Brooklyn but an enjoyable ride