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katietozer's review against another edition
2.0
Goofy, irreverent, and rambling. Seems like a writer for writers. I think a patient writer with a sense of humor would love this, but I’m not great with patience. Life is too short!
shoba's review against another edition
4.0
“…he wished Sylvie’d admire him. He doubted she was even aware of it, though, the generosity of his intentions….She gave no indication of being aware of it, and there wasn't any way he could think of to make her aware of it without undermining his claim to generosity, if not the generosity itself. If you ask that your generosity be acknowledged as generosity, did that not transform it into something— or reveal it to be something-other than generosity?
Enough fucking Talmud.”
Gladman, a comedian and writer, loses his entire family to a sinkhole. A benefit concert and Mount Chicago, a monument commemorating the dead, are in the works. Apter, from the Chicago mayor’s office, asks Gladman to perform. He agrees but first Apter must agree to take Gladman’s Quaker parrot, Gogol, for a few days.
“‘The goal of every memorial should be to be as moving as Auschwitz, but at the same time, that does not necessarily mean that the goal of every memorial should be to be as depressing. So what I want, I'm saying, is I want Mount Chicago to achieve that level of being moving, but also, at the same time, to be less depressing.’
‘Than Auschwitz,’ said Apter.
‘I want it to be a less depressing Auschwitz.’
‘A less depressing Auschwitz,’ said Apter.
‘Our less depressing Auschwitz,’ said the mayor.”
ryjandi's review against another edition
4.0
I love meta-fictional shit so much and the way he is so clearly ripping on the current landscape of the novel is interesting.
brandoninvergo's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
Moderate: Death, Drug use, and Sexual content
Minor: Antisemitism
gregzimmerman's review against another edition
5.0
First appeared at https://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.com/2022/10/mount-chicago-by-adam-levin-one-of.html
I have some questions for you, Mr. Levin. You're a very good writer. You KNOW you're a very good writer. You're also a very self-aware writer. So when you're as good a writer as you are, and you fully understand what you're doing and its effect on your reader as well as you do, why do you insist on aggravating your reader just to the point where he wants to throw your novel across the goddamn room? Why? Why why why why why?
Is it because it helps the other 90 percent of the novel, which is truly a marvel, stand out in even more stark relief? Is it because you're just a prankster? Do you just like keeping your readers on their toes, making sure they're paying attention? Or is it because you truly like to inflict a small measure of pain on people?
It doesn't matter. I'll still read every damn word you ever write if the remaining words you write in your career are even one-third as f#%king incredible as the good 90 percent of Mount Chicago.
To my readers, most of whom I've probably already lost: Mount Chicago is one of the funniest novels I've ever read. That's the first time I've ever bolded a sentence in a review. Because that's really the one thing you need to know about this book. And when you consider it's sort of kind of tangentially about a massive tragedy that kills thousands of people, that's a pretty neat trick. And that's not the only trick. There's no line between author and novel here. As the kids say, so meta. Except maybe there is a line? Who knows? I'm not smart enough to try to figure that out. And I don't think Adam Levin wants you try.
To describe it further, and I fully realize this is an absolutely ridiculous analogy, and I have no doubt Adam Levin would hate this, but this is my small measure of payback for making me read pages and pages about behavioral psychology and parrots and that really, really long duck (yes, duck) joke: Mount Chicago is what would happen if Kurt Vonnegut on speed, a baked and giggly Philip Roth (can you imagine?!), and David Foster Wallace on...well, no, just normal DFW...had a book baby.
I can't find the passage or the interview now, and maybe I'm imagining this but, I think DFW said something really smart once about reader aggravation: That a good novel must have parts that aggravate the reader, but a good novelist knows just the right amount to antagonize his reader before he can pull back just in time, and entertain again. And so if you think about it, this novel's 575 pages, so 90 percent (again, my approximation for the non-purposefully-aggravating parts) of 575 is 517.5 INCREDIBLE pages. I like those odds. You probably skim over - whether on purpose or because you drift - 10 percent of every novel you read anyway, right?!
All right, so anyway: I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. You don't need to know what it's about, you can read that anywhere. But whatever you read that it's about, it's actually about Entourage (the HBO show) and metafiction and Chicago politics and psychology and cryptocurrency and other get-rich-quick-scams and the author's face and stand-up comedy and writing and depression and tragedy and love and coming-of-age and parrots.
READ THIS.
I have some questions for you, Mr. Levin. You're a very good writer. You KNOW you're a very good writer. You're also a very self-aware writer. So when you're as good a writer as you are, and you fully understand what you're doing and its effect on your reader as well as you do, why do you insist on aggravating your reader just to the point where he wants to throw your novel across the goddamn room? Why? Why why why why why?
Is it because it helps the other 90 percent of the novel, which is truly a marvel, stand out in even more stark relief? Is it because you're just a prankster? Do you just like keeping your readers on their toes, making sure they're paying attention? Or is it because you truly like to inflict a small measure of pain on people?
It doesn't matter. I'll still read every damn word you ever write if the remaining words you write in your career are even one-third as f#%king incredible as the good 90 percent of Mount Chicago.
To my readers, most of whom I've probably already lost: Mount Chicago is one of the funniest novels I've ever read. That's the first time I've ever bolded a sentence in a review. Because that's really the one thing you need to know about this book. And when you consider it's sort of kind of tangentially about a massive tragedy that kills thousands of people, that's a pretty neat trick. And that's not the only trick. There's no line between author and novel here. As the kids say, so meta. Except maybe there is a line? Who knows? I'm not smart enough to try to figure that out. And I don't think Adam Levin wants you try.
To describe it further, and I fully realize this is an absolutely ridiculous analogy, and I have no doubt Adam Levin would hate this, but this is my small measure of payback for making me read pages and pages about behavioral psychology and parrots and that really, really long duck (yes, duck) joke: Mount Chicago is what would happen if Kurt Vonnegut on speed, a baked and giggly Philip Roth (can you imagine?!), and David Foster Wallace on...well, no, just normal DFW...had a book baby.
I can't find the passage or the interview now, and maybe I'm imagining this but, I think DFW said something really smart once about reader aggravation: That a good novel must have parts that aggravate the reader, but a good novelist knows just the right amount to antagonize his reader before he can pull back just in time, and entertain again. And so if you think about it, this novel's 575 pages, so 90 percent (again, my approximation for the non-purposefully-aggravating parts) of 575 is 517.5 INCREDIBLE pages. I like those odds. You probably skim over - whether on purpose or because you drift - 10 percent of every novel you read anyway, right?!
All right, so anyway: I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. You don't need to know what it's about, you can read that anywhere. But whatever you read that it's about, it's actually about Entourage (the HBO show) and metafiction and Chicago politics and psychology and cryptocurrency and other get-rich-quick-scams and the author's face and stand-up comedy and writing and depression and tragedy and love and coming-of-age and parrots.
READ THIS.
jspain's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
1.0
DNF
h2oetry's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars. Incredible writing, hilarious and oftentimes taking a joke right up to the boundary between hilarity and "uh-oh" -- docked half a star by (probably unfairly) comparing this to [b:The Instructions|13810258|The Instructions|Adam Levin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1356128472l/13810258._SY75_.jpg|13237247], which I thoroughly enjoyed. There were just a few areas where I sped through the text to get through it, but I was glad to read another [a:Adam Levin|29694|Adam Levin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1288572127p2/29694.jpg] novel with a shorter turnaround between Bubblegum and Mount Chicago than there was between The Instructions and Bubblegum.
jsj's review against another edition
4.0
If Goodreads would allow partial stars, this would be 4.25.
If you are not yet familiar with the word "logorrhea," you will be after this novel.
If you are not yet familiar with the word "logorrhea," you will be after this novel.
ccfrostybits's review against another edition
3.5
Would have loved to have loved it more, but this one didn't grab me nearly as hard as Bubblegum or The Instructions. My biggest gripe with it is a seeming lack of purpose, which I do think is intentional. Adam Levin does a great job at writing larger than life characters that more or less are going about their business. But in this particular case, maybe I just haven't been in the right headspace for it, but several times I found myself wanting him to just get on with it. But then again that's what I knew I was getting into, and I did definitely enjoy it despite a few bits that dragged. One of the largest problems I think was just that it wasn't as punchy with it's story as The Instructions and not as personal and human as Bubblegum. He's such a strong writer and you can absolutely bet the farm that I will be picking up any and all books he continues to write going forward, but as far as my interest and taste, this is going to have to rest at a 7/10.