Shamp Of The City-Solo
Here is one of the finest comic novels to appear in the last half century, deserving comparison with that of the best of Flann O'Brien, Angela Carter, or Witold Gombrowicz. Shamp of the City-Solo is also the cornerstone of McPherson & Company, first appearing in 1974 under Bruce McPherson's first imprint, Treacle Press. It very quickly became an underground sensation.This "fantasy novel" occurs in what may be thought of as a dystopian parallel-universe, a world recognizable to ours but set in an odd remove where the hero's hunger for fame shows its mythic origin. Hughbury Shamp is the reluctant teen-age hero who becomes apprenticed to three "masters" at the West Poolesville Depot on the Sumpsky Prospect, across the River Sump from Big Yolk, the City-Solo. His education involves a series of preposterous and hilarious misadventures with the likes of the impresario Sergei Shipoff, Dr. Harry Analarge, and the World Friar Tapsvine, all the while he is being propelled toward stardom as prize-winning speaker at the murderously competitive Arslevering Ox-Roast.
"Something new in the great free-wheeling tradition of Petronius, Rabelais, Swift. Fantasy and good sense blended in a laughing satire on the state of the arts today, with as outrageous a cast of rascals as ever lied the truth. . . I like it immensely." — Hayden Carruth
| Weight | 0.310000 |
|---|---|
| ISBN13/Barcode | 9780929701349 |
| ISBN10 | 0929701348 |
| Author | GORDON, Jaimy |
| Binding | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 12th March 1998 |
| Pages | 0 |
| Publisher | McPherson & Company,Publishers |
"To say Ms. Gordon is fertile with metaphor is to only hint at her abilities; examples burst with prolific abandon from every page... Gordon's novel remains foremost a comic triumph." — Aspect
Here is one of the finest comic novels to appear in the last half century, deserving comparison with that of the best of Flann O'Brien, Angela Carter, or Witold Gombrowicz. Shamp of the City-Solo is also the cornerstone of this publishing house, first appearing in 1974 under Bruce McPherson's first imprint, Treacle Press. It very quickly became an underground sensation.This "fantasy novel" occurs in what may be thought of as a dystopian parallel-universe, a world recognizable to ours but set in an odd remove where the hero's hunger for fame shows its mythic origin. Hughbury Shamp is the reluctant teen-age hero who becomes apprenticed to three "masters" at the West Poolesville Depot on the Sumpsky Prospect, across the River Sump from Big Yolk, the City-Solo. His education involves a series of preposterous and hilarious misadventures with the likes of the impresario Sergei Shipoff, Dr. Harry Analarge, and the World Friar Tapsvine, all the while he is being propelled toward stardom as prize-winning speaker at the murderously competitive Arslevering Ox-Roast.
"Style is what matters most here...but the clear and simple lines of the plot reinforce and emphasize the style...Even at its most visual, Jaimy Gordon's style goes beyond, or beside, the visual and achieves its most remarkable tones, not so much in our mind's eye, as where the intellect dances among words...I think it gloriously funny. I think it also wise, both under and on the surface -- after four or five times through it I begin to suspect it may be inexhaustible." — Keith Waldrop, Margins
"Something new in the great free-wheeling tradition of Petronius, Rabelais, Swift. Fantasy and good sense blended in a laughing satire on the state of the arts today, with as outrageous a cast of rascals as ever lied the truth. . . I like it immensely." — Hayden Carruth