The Grass Arena: An Autobiography (Penguin Modern Classics)

£4.995
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The Grass Arena: An Autobiography (Penguin Modern Classics)

The Grass Arena: An Autobiography (Penguin Modern Classics)

RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.995
£4.995 FREE Shipping

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Description

At times the British slang can be confusing (nick meaning to steal as well as being arrested, for example).

This was a book that I really came across by chance and its a rare, rough, gritty, carefully told autobiography of a life that is not usually told. So economy I'll leave to him, a master storyteller with an ear, an eye and a voice that should be the envy of many men with weightier reputations. The story starts with Healy's abusive childhood and follows his descent into homelesness and alcoholism. Think William Burroughs's Naked Lunch (5 stars) and then add chess as the turning point of the story.OK I’ve changed the 4 stars to 5, mainly because I’ve been sat thinking about this again, and can’t get the voice, its insistence on truth and its brutal depiction of the world of the vagrant alcoholic out of my head. This is a used book in good condition, meaning that it shows signs of wear but has no major defects. Not only were there opportunities in these narratives but more so in the grass arena part of the book where it would have added a much-needed texture to the prose, and a varied pace to the writing. If anyone expects to find that Healy and his fellow savages are ‘victims of society’ then forget it.

No, the decisions to drink and sleep rough (for those that did) were life decisions underpinned by alcoholism. However I was wrong, the prose picked up a momentum and was actually quite beautiful in its pared-to-the bone way.I don't think I have more sympathy for the homeless - some of their crimes are appalling - but I don't have less sympathy - their lives are more hideous than I had imagined. Healy dangles short sharp sentences to amuse, shock or disgust as though he might have thought this was all he had to do. Sober and precise, grotesque, violent, sad, charming and hilarious all at once'Literary Review'Beside it, a book like Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London seems a rather inaccurate tourist guide'Colin MacCabe 288 pp. The book is deadly effective at bringing the reader into the bowels of life in the underworld in an almost life changing way.



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
  • Sold by: Fruugo

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