What do you think?
Rate this book
Blown Away
Boris O. Ccrab, a Hollywood astrologer and mentist, is determined to use starlet Clover Bottom to enact revenge on Rod Drackenstein, a film director
- GenresNovels
184 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1985
66 people want to read
About the author
Ronald Sukenick
32 books32 followersRonald Sukenick was an American writer and literary theorist.
Sukenick studied at Cornell University, and wrote his doctoral thesis on Wallace Stevens, at Brandeis University.
After Roland Barthes announced the "death of the author", Sukenick carried the metaphor even further in "the death of the novel". He drew up a list of what is missing: reality doesn't exist, nor time or personality. He was widely recognized as a controversial writer who, frequently humorously, questioned and rejected the conventions of traditional fiction-writing. In novels, short stories, literary criticism and history, he often used himself, family members or friends as characters, sometimes quoting them in tape-recorded conversations. He did stints as writer in residence at Cornell University, the University of California, Irvine, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. But his books were never best-sellers. Sukenick once commented that he had “only forty fans, but they’re all fanatics.”
He referred to his career as a university professor as his "day job". He taught at Brandeis University, Hofstra University, City College of the City University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, Cornell University, the State University of New York (Buffalo), and l'Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France. His most prolonged teaching career was at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was professor of English from 1975-1999.
He was actively committed to publishing and promoting the writing of other unconventional writers. He was founder and publisher of American Book Review, and a founder of The Fiction Collective (now Fiction Collective Two). Sukenick was chairman of the Coordinating Council of Little magazines, and on the executive council of the Modern Language Association and the National Book Critics Circle.
Sukenick studied at Cornell University, and wrote his doctoral thesis on Wallace Stevens, at Brandeis University.
After Roland Barthes announced the "death of the author", Sukenick carried the metaphor even further in "the death of the novel". He drew up a list of what is missing: reality doesn't exist, nor time or personality. He was widely recognized as a controversial writer who, frequently humorously, questioned and rejected the conventions of traditional fiction-writing. In novels, short stories, literary criticism and history, he often used himself, family members or friends as characters, sometimes quoting them in tape-recorded conversations. He did stints as writer in residence at Cornell University, the University of California, Irvine, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. But his books were never best-sellers. Sukenick once commented that he had “only forty fans, but they’re all fanatics.”
He referred to his career as a university professor as his "day job". He taught at Brandeis University, Hofstra University, City College of the City University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, Cornell University, the State University of New York (Buffalo), and l'Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France. His most prolonged teaching career was at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was professor of English from 1975-1999.
He was actively committed to publishing and promoting the writing of other unconventional writers. He was founder and publisher of American Book Review, and a founder of The Fiction Collective (now Fiction Collective Two). Sukenick was chairman of the Coordinating Council of Little magazines, and on the executive council of the Modern Language Association and the National Book Critics Circle.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Read
March 25, 2018review two of i=hate=reviews day.
mosaic man. that's the one i gotta get to gotta read. don't even have a copy yet. what am i waiting for? someone said it was the go=to sukenick. but i'm not remembering correctly. the go=to is up. that's what larry said. right there on his list of 100. and i agree. i was just about to rec to you that you read up if you are going to only ever read just one sukenick. and then i remembered that larry had said that already. the thing about ron though is that he's always just a little too much beat for me and i'll tell i know nothing about beat. i'd always swept ron into that room where everything is pomo this and pomo that and pomo out the nase. but he's really beat. is what i'm given to understand. which is totally fine. he's really out there. he won't take no shit from no one telling him how to write and what he should write and how his characters should be (you wanna talk body=shaming? don't shame no one for their stick=figure characters. i happen to like stick=figure characters. i don't like all those deep sticky 3-d characters that tear your heart out and get you down on your knees all whips and chains like. forget it). at any rate this is a book=cataloguing site and not a review site. we just vote books up and down (and out!) so i'm cataloging my sukenick here today. i've read quite a few. quite a few. not all of them yet. like i said i've not read mosaic man yet. and the death of the novel and other stories--unforgivable i've not read that gem yet (its a classic man). and i've not read his essay collection yet--in form--even though i usually really go for stuff like that. and the thing he wrote on wallace stevens? don't know nuthin bout that one. at any rate, i've read just about everything else. i first met ron back a few years ago when i read one of those reading=life changing collections of interviews done by larry and tom. that's where i also first met federman and katz. the three of them were kind of like literary chums. they even put together FC/FC2. wrote a lot of shit. pub'd a lot of shit. basically all forgotten by the literary landscape. you could do yourself a favor reading a little of all of them or all of all three or some combination thereof. katz. yeah, i've not read much of his yet but boy=howdy do i not have him beginning to weigh down the sagging shelves. so i hope you get a chance to pick up some ron even if it's not this ron (but i should in all fairness say that you might want a bit of a strong stomach for most his stuff ; he's not real delicate). this particular novel is about a film called blown away. i hope that little piece of information will convince you persuade you to tolle lege. peace=out!
mosaic man. that's the one i gotta get to gotta read. don't even have a copy yet. what am i waiting for? someone said it was the go=to sukenick. but i'm not remembering correctly. the go=to is up. that's what larry said. right there on his list of 100. and i agree. i was just about to rec to you that you read up if you are going to only ever read just one sukenick. and then i remembered that larry had said that already. the thing about ron though is that he's always just a little too much beat for me and i'll tell i know nothing about beat. i'd always swept ron into that room where everything is pomo this and pomo that and pomo out the nase. but he's really beat. is what i'm given to understand. which is totally fine. he's really out there. he won't take no shit from no one telling him how to write and what he should write and how his characters should be (you wanna talk body=shaming? don't shame no one for their stick=figure characters. i happen to like stick=figure characters. i don't like all those deep sticky 3-d characters that tear your heart out and get you down on your knees all whips and chains like. forget it). at any rate this is a book=cataloguing site and not a review site. we just vote books up and down (and out!) so i'm cataloging my sukenick here today. i've read quite a few. quite a few. not all of them yet. like i said i've not read mosaic man yet. and the death of the novel and other stories--unforgivable i've not read that gem yet (its a classic man). and i've not read his essay collection yet--in form--even though i usually really go for stuff like that. and the thing he wrote on wallace stevens? don't know nuthin bout that one. at any rate, i've read just about everything else. i first met ron back a few years ago when i read one of those reading=life changing collections of interviews done by larry and tom. that's where i also first met federman and katz. the three of them were kind of like literary chums. they even put together FC/FC2. wrote a lot of shit. pub'd a lot of shit. basically all forgotten by the literary landscape. you could do yourself a favor reading a little of all of them or all of all three or some combination thereof. katz. yeah, i've not read much of his yet but boy=howdy do i not have him beginning to weigh down the sagging shelves. so i hope you get a chance to pick up some ron even if it's not this ron (but i should in all fairness say that you might want a bit of a strong stomach for most his stuff ; he's not real delicate). this particular novel is about a film called blown away. i hope that little piece of information will convince you persuade you to tolle lege. peace=out!
August 28, 2019
That was fun. Not throbbing-life-altering-euphoria fun, but a groovy experimental buzz. Like Coover and Barth made a baby out of LSD, raised it according to the Tarot, and fed it cut-up metafiction and film reels. It's insightful, mildly acerbic, and utterly madcap. Yep, fun. I'll read whatever else I can get my hands on next.
April 8, 2025
HOUSEKEEPING 2025:
And how! Indeed, I was SO blown away that I don't believe I ever returned to Ronny. Fucking mess. It was this or some other piece of his too-easy pomo bullshit. All conspire to give the Fiction Collective/F2 the bad reputation it does not deserve. He was not alone (looking at you, Baumbach).
Stick with Up and Out; thems some damn good writin'. Unlike Baumbach, Sukenick has two minor masterpieces to his credit. Someday I may brave Long-Talkin' under the advisement of admirer Federer. If so...shame on me? Likelier than not.
And how! Indeed, I was SO blown away that I don't believe I ever returned to Ronny. Fucking mess. It was this or some other piece of his too-easy pomo bullshit. All conspire to give the Fiction Collective/F2 the bad reputation it does not deserve. He was not alone (looking at you, Baumbach).
Stick with Up and Out; thems some damn good writin'. Unlike Baumbach, Sukenick has two minor masterpieces to his credit. Someday I may brave Long-Talkin' under the advisement of admirer Federer. If so...shame on me? Likelier than not.
Read
November 6, 2024Rating: 3 1/2
A bit confusing. Not a bad read though.
A bit confusing. Not a bad read though.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews