'Stupidity is among the most effective means available to reduce existential terror to a tolerable disquietude.'
Robert Levin's collection of short stories and commentary had me laughing out loud with its societal quips and lashes. I had published a story of Levin's previously in Sein und Werden. Dog Days is about a man who is caught in flagrante delicto with his girlfreind's dog. So I kind of knew what to expect with these stories. Yes it's bawdy. It might be toilet humour. But it's very intelligent and it spares no one. It takes the piss out of society.
'"Sylvia," Helen said, "why are we talking about your ass now? You know your ass isn't the issue... I told you what it is; it's your ankles. They've started to make me cross. I can't help it."'
Mostly it takes the piss out of its own protagonist.
'A subversive I may be, but I've never been of the militant variety. When the SDS was blowing up banks in the early '70s, I was expressing my displeasure by intentionally omitting zip codes - that'll jam their gears!'
I enjoyed the stories. But I loved the essays. Levin has written for Rolling Stone. He's written for the Village Voice. He knows about music. He's co-written a book on jazz. He's also slightly bitter. A little bit twisted. Someone I can relate to. He talks about sex and death ie. fear of the unknown, fear of dying without having really lived, fear of pain and terror. He has something to say on the subject of non-smokers: 'Like you I'm dealing with an out-sized fear of dying' where the smoker seizes control of his emminent cut-off point by taking the risk of cancer, heart-disease, stroke etc out of the hands of death and into his own nicotine-stained fingers,
people who recycle:
'These people are coming from the secret hope that if they suck up to nature by not wasting any of it - and get the rest of us to follow suit - nature will return the favor and arrange to perpetuate their existence in some other package once their current status expires.'
and general stupidity...
'Let me hasten to say that I value stupidity as much as the next man. I do. Stupidity is, after all, one of the best solutions we've come up with to the problem of being mortal.'
This is a brilliantly entertaining book, which will have you nodding in agreement whilst feeling slightly guilty for laughing so hard.To conclude this short review, I'll let the author himself say a few words:
