Manifesto: The Anonymous Novel
by anonymous Author
“I hated school. I hated work. I hated boredom. I had no interests. I had a happy childhood. There was school, growing up, questions about the future. I was 21. I had no dream.” So begins a book with no title, no author, no description of the contents, and no blurbs. The unnamed narrator goes to college, drops out, hangs out and reads, moves on, gets loaded at parties, despairs over women, hitchhikes, sleeps under bridges, walks along trashy roadsides and explores duplicated suburban towns, runs out of money, spends a few days at home, despairs over his parents’ sincere efforts to get him to get a hold of himself, goes to Europe, finds life there just as dead-end as here, returns, increases his chemical intake, and finds himself snared deeper and deeper by a whirlpool of drug dependency and hopelessness. He renders up his self-horror with such energy and aesthetic care that we have no choice but to see into the American muck. (Short Discount)
by anonymous Author
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Comments & Reviews
I bought this book ten years or so ago at the Lucy Parsons Center in Boston but didn't have the time to give it a close read. It looked very mysterious and intriguing . So I bought it again recently from Microcosm.
The narrator sees himself as a modern-day Don Quixote, but my impression was that he was really more of a blithering ice queen. I should know, I'm a bit of an ice queen myself.
This is the longest book I ever read, longer than "Atlas Shrugged" and "Lord of the Rings".
This book is really more of a testament than a manifesto, but to truly reflect the book's contents it should be titled "Peter Pan's Crystal-Palace Underpants".
Favorite quote: "My penis were retarded."
This is the most beautiful book I've ever read. It changed my life.
Having a total jerk for a protagonist isn't an excuse to write a book like this - Lolita and American Psycho work just fine and are fun to read, just to come up with a couple of obvious examples.
I can only think of one way this book works, and that's as a parody. This guy thinks he's the ultimate individual snowflake, seeing through all the BS everyone else is too thick to understand, and how does he express this? By hating on fatties, exaggerating his girl problems and whining about his teachers. Sounds like nearly every 13-yr-old bully I've met. Nice parody.
I beleive this book is simply the authors only way of explaining himself for who he is. He records his brain activity along with his actions so we can in a way, become him by reading the book. It isnt exactly meant to be read like a story. He doesnt feel understood. He states it throughout the whole book. I think this book is his method of connecting to people. If you find this book boring, it is probably because this book isnt meant for entertainment.
To those that think the book is boring, try again.
You aren't supposed to sympathize with him,
that would ruin the complete point the author is trying to get across.
He honestly doesn't care or notice empathy towards him,
so why would his book portray that.
Get past what he's "doing" in the book and look at the actual WRITING of the book.
The line breaks in the books don't signify a different idea,
they CONTINUE the ideas he previously states.
And if you find the connection there..
To put it simply, he's a genius.
I agree with le_quash. The author comes across like a spoiled brat, which is not a very likable trait. On the flip side, maybe he was trying to openly explore some of his less appealing personality flaws so he chose to remain anonymous? The book is honetsly pretty boring.
This book was ridiculous. I barely got 20 pages in before being bored to tears with it, putting it down, and feeling absolutely apathetic for the author. I tried to understand what he was going through but if he wasn't getting anything out of that lifestyle, why didn't he take his life into his own hands and at least do something he perceived as positive or productive? IMHO this was worse than evasion (which i enjoyed) because all the kid in Manifesto does is feel sorry for himself.
A great read, the author is very honest on his journey to find his dream