Pushkin and the Queen of Spades: A Novel

Book Description

Windsor Armstrong has a problem: her brilliant boy, Pushkin X, has become a football superstar and is planning to marry a Russian lap dancer. In Windsor's opinion, Pushkin is throwing away every good thing she has given him. When she was an unwed teen mother, Windsor attended Harvard, leaving her shady Detroit roots behind. She raised her son to be fiercely intelligent, well-spoken, and proud. Now he lives for pro football and a white woman of no account. Outraged by her son's decisions but devoted to loving him right, Windsor prepares to give up her last secret: the identity of Pushkin's father.

Customer Reviews:

"Tis time, my friend, tis time!.......2006-11-18

For rest the heart is aching;
Days follow days in flight, and every day is taking
Fragments of being, while together you and I
Make plans to live. Look, all is dust, and we shall die."
Alexander Pushkin

Alice Randall's "Pushkin and the Queen of Spades", is a terrific novel. Beginning with the double entendre of its title the book is rife with meaning and food for thought. The issues addressed in the book, our internal and external lives at the intersection of race and culture and the long term impact that our relations with our parents have on our own children are often discussed in solemn, ponderous and often overly contentious tones. Randall will have none of that. Rather, she embarks on a graceful, biting and often hilarious tour de force that should leave the reader laughing out load while at the same time soaking in the powerful ideas set out neatly inside the pearls of laughter. Mary Poppins once said a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down. In this instance a while lot of sugar and down right great writing helps open our minds to the sometimes provocative issues she sets out.

The story line itself is simple. Windsor Armstrong is an African American woman, graduate of Harvard, a professor at Vanderbilt University and the holder of a PhD in Russian literature. Her son Pushkin X is named after the great Russian poet and playwright, Alexander Pushkin (author of a famous book The Queen of Spades) whose own African ancestry formed the emotional basis of his work and life including his tragic death in a duel. Pushkin X has dashed Windsor's hopes that he would follow in his mother's academic career. He turned down Harvard and played football, at the University of Michigan. Even worse, Pushkin's football skills have resulted in his becoming a star in the NFL. The book's plot is revealed in the opening paragraph, perhaps one of the funniest opening paragraphs I have read in recent memory. Brief excerpts follow:

"Look what they done to my boy! . . . Fifty million people have watched him on a single Monday night. He has given a Russian girl a diamond ring. He means to get married. My son is a football player engaged to a Russian-born lap dancer, a girl named Tanya who danced at a club call Mons Venus. There is a God and he's punishing me. This much bad luck cannot happen by accident."

It soon becomes apparent that Pushkin X has withdrawn his mother's invitation to his wedding after she expresses opposition to the marriage and, more importantly, after she once again refuses to reveal the identity of Pushkin X's father, long a source of contention between mother and son. The rest of the book is devoted to Windsor's internal dialogue in the days leading up to the wedding. She touches on her early childhood in Detroit up to 1968 and the impact of her relationship with her father, whom she adored, and her mother, whom she did not adore, who took her away from Detroit and her father to D.C. They arrive in D.C. soon after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Despite her unhappiness in D.C. the city (and her mother) provides her with the opportunities that take her on her life's journey to Harvard, to Russia and a career as a scholar. Her internal dialogue continues. Like a river, her dialogue takes many twists and turns. Randall's words emerge as a beautiful stream of consciousness that leads us to many new and unexpected destinations. She is never boring and often profound. She is also funny and downright sassy at times as she embarks on riffs that touch on such diverse topics as her sex life, Malcolm X, `the souls of black folks', and writers such as Colson Whitehead and others. She touches on the meaning of being a mother and how the love of a mother (or father) for a child can bring more pain than we sometimes think we can endure. Simply put, in a context that Windsor Armstrong might enjoy - Curtis Mayfield may have had Windsor Armstrong in mind when he wrote the words "the woman's got soul".

The identity of Pushkin X's father and the nature of his conception gradually emerge as the book reaches it climax. That climax includes Windsor's wedding gift to Pushkin X - which gift is worth the price of the book standing alone.

In many respects the structure of Randall's dialogues are reminiscent of James Joyce's Ulysses. This is not to compare Randall to Joyce necessarily but I think it is no small compliment to the power of Randall's writing to even be thought of with Joyce in the same paragraph. As Christopher Hitchens once said about a writer once compared to Tolstoy, to be even compared to Tolstoy (or Joyce in this instance) is no small achievement even if one hasn't quite reach that stature (yet). I enjoyed the book tremendously and encourage anyone with an interest in good books to pick this up and read it. It is a book to be enjoyed and savored.

Pushkin and the Queen of Spades: A Novel

Average customer rating:

Long, Boring and annoying
A mother's love
Top Draft Pick of 2004
Informative, thought provoking and entertaining
A Great American Novel

Pushkin and the Queen of Spades: A Novel
Alice Randall
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Wind Done Gone: A Novel

ASIN: 0618433600

Amazon.com

The unacknowledged boom in African-American fiction continues with Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, a second novel from Alice Randall, author of the nearly banned Gone with the Wind parody, The Wind Done Gone. Windsor Armstrong is a Harvard-educated professor of Russian literature whose son, Pushkin--named after the great Afro-Russian poet--defied all her hopes for him by becoming a star football player. Any other mother would be proud, Windsor reflects. But she had wanted her son to transcend the narrow roles allotted to him as a black man in America. She had wanted more for Pushkin--a place in black bohemia, a place carved out by the writings of Dubois and others. And now, he rejects her again by choosing a Russian lap dancer as his wife.

Windsor's musings--by turns angry, conflicted, wistful, and eccentric--are among the most penetrating comments on race and mother love in contemporary fiction. She recalls her Motown childhood; her cruel, self-hating mother's climb through white society in Washington, D.C.; and the refuge she found at Harvard, slowly uncovering the roots of her racism and her shock and sadness that Pushkin has fallen in love with a woman who does not look like her. And what does Pushkin want from Windsor? Only the truth about who his father is.

Though the novel is a little longer than it needs to be, readers who stay with Randall through the switchbacks and cul-de-sacs of her narrative will be rewarded with stylistic fireworks and an unparalleled examination of black racism. --Regina Marler

Book Description

Windsor Armstrong is a polished, Harvard-educated African American professor of Russian literature. Her son, Pushkin X, is an exceedingly famous pro football player, an achievement that impresses his mother not at all. Even more distressing, however, her beloved son has just become engaged to a gorgeous white Russian migr who also happens to be a lap dancer. For Windsor this predicament is no laughing matter. Determined to get to the bottom of it, she embarks on a journey into her own rich past: to her Motown childhood, where the Temptations danced across the stage and love came disguised as a sharply dressed gangster; to Harvard, where she endured the humiliation of being an unwed black teen mother; to St. Petersburg, where the verses of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, great-grandson of an African slave, moved through her head as she made love to her own white Russian. The urge to protect her son has been Windsor's only goal, but as she draws ever closer to the secret that has cast a shadow over her life, the identity of her son's father, she discovers that the half-lies she has fed her boy don't add up to the beauty of the truth. Balancing sharp-witted humor with profundity, sexiness with psychological depth, this is an exhilarating ride straight through the racially divided heart of contemporary America , which also probes the universal question of what it means to be a good mother. Pushkin and the Queen of Spades is a provocative, enormously entertaining novel that will change the landscape of literary fiction.

Customer Reviews:

Long, Boring and annoying.......2005-10-06

I have to admit that I gave up on this book at the half-way point. I just could not read any more, although I was mildly curious to find out who Pushkin X's father was. It wasn't worth the pain, though, so I gave up.

In the first place, the book is written somewhat in the manner of Toni Morrison's "Beloved", with one big difference-Morrison is a great writer and Randall is not (based on this book, at any rate). The result is that this book goes on and on in circles. It's deadly dull.

Second, I developed a hearty dislike for the protagonist. Instead of coming off as sympathetic, having had a tough childhood and adolescence, the protagonist comes off as self serving and selfish. Her disappointment in her son, with whose conduct and life I could find little fault, irritated me to the point that I simply could not stand another moment of the protagonist's harangues against him and his girlfriend (who struck me as an intelligent and thoughtful women and no weirder than the mother!).

Third, the idea of connecting the author Pushkin's life and works to contemporary black life is very intriguing (and was the reason I launched into the book in the first place), but the author does nothing with it. She skims over the clichés of Pushkin's life, but never digs into any original connections between him and black identity.

Fourth, what does this book really say about black identity? Granted, I am not black, so there may be some subtle message I am missing, but I learned nothing about black life in the US. The protagonist's life, in any case, is atypical, since she is a professor - hardly mainstream either in black or in white culture. Her childhood struck me as far from typical also.

I really found nothing in the first half of the book to suggest that I ought to invest the effort into reading the second half; so I didn't.

A mother's love.......2005-01-15

After her controversial debut The Wind Done Gone, a parody of Gone With The Wind, Alice Randall is back on the literary front with PUSHKIN AND THE QUEEN OF SPADES, a work of art presenting deeper observations on race, classism, interracial relationships, motherhood, family, and love. Embedded in these themes are strands of humor, literary references, and a mother's love and frustration in protecting her son from the realities and cruelties of the world.

Windsor Armstrong is a professor of Russian literature and has named her son Pushkin X after Alexander Pushkin, the Afro-Russian poet and Malcolm X. She raised Pushkin with the hopes that he would one day follow in her footsteps, as an intellectual, not boxed in the same stereotypical class of many other black men. Unfortunately, Pushkin has his own ideas and goals in life. He excels in football, turns down a scholarship to Harvard, and eventually advances to the NFL, to the horror of Windsor. When he announces his marriage to a white Russian lap dancer, Windsor finds herself lost in a myriad of emotions.

"Pissed" would be the forefront emotion as she takes his announcement personally, wondering why he didn't choose a black woman, why he chose the life he lives, and how she can continue to love him, considering all of the issues she finds with him. Tossing back and forth from the past to the present, she relives her life, her troubles, pain, and happiness, as she creates a wedding gift for Pushkin -- a narrative of her life. Through the revelation of her disappointments, we're able to further understand her anger and the love she has for Pushkin. In addition, we're given a multifaceted view of her character and her past.

PUSHKIN AND THE QUEEN OF SPADES is an exploratory journey for Windsor as she searches for identity and reconciliation. It is at times moving, hilarious at others, but, nonetheless, adeptly addresses many concerns faced by parents. It is definitely a book to be read slowly, up close and afar, to catch exactly what's going on throughout the pages. It is an exciting look into contemporary fiction with a literary edge.

Reviewed by Tee C. Royal
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Top Draft Pick of 2004.......2005-01-05

In Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, Alice Randall mixes a spicy gumbo of Russian literature, Motown, and hip-hop that glides across the palate of the mind to rave culinary reviews. It's funky, hip, and sexy, yet sophisticated, cosmopolitan, and righteously poetic. When a Harvard-educated professor's football superstar son decides to marry a Russian lap dancer, her life becomes a retrospective of "where did I go wrong as a single black mother?" Windsor Armstrong thought she had raised her son, Pushkin X, to be a perfect reflection of herself: educated, erudite, and worldly, and sees his taste for the common as a direct rejection of everything she has ingrained in him, including her place in his life. Rather than retreat and wait for him to come to his senses, she writes a hip-hop elegy of epic proportions as a wedding gift in hopes of culling his forgiveness while desperately trying to respect his choices.

Informative, thought provoking and entertaining.......2004-06-18

Randall's latest novel, "Pushkin and the Queen of Spades" covers a lot of territory. On one level, it's the story of a mother's love for her son and her attempt to protect him from a truth that she feels may crush him. Windsor and Pushkin X - mother and son - are the focal characters in the novel. When Windsor learns of her son's plans to marry a Russian lap dancer, she is forced to reckon with aspects of her past that she has tried desperately to forget. Not only must she find a way to accept her future white daughter-in-law, but she must also find a way to tell her son who his father is. Within this story line, the author demonstrates the current and historical complexities of black/white racial relationships.

On another level, the story examines class and culture conflicts within the African American community. Windsor comes from a family with "all of the vices except those that are unforgivable and none of the virtues except those that are absolutely necessary". It is within this context that Randall explores the difficulties that Windsor has with integrating all facets of her life after a legitimate shift in class and cultural status. ". . . Negroes who survive to thrive exhibit highly original adaptations to life", Windsor tells Pushkin X; and she adapts by compartmentalizing her life in an effort to keep the criminal and abusive aspects of her family background from bleeding into the highly intellectual and academic life she now has as a Russian studies professor at Vanderbilt University. Is it possible to jettison what was then for what is now? Is it necessary? I found this aspect of the novel comparable in many ways to my life experience and the author captures the character's psychological conflicts with apt clarity and clinical insight.

Then there's the literary relationship between the text of Randall's novel and the work of Alexander Pushkin. Although I wasn't familiar with Pushkin's work I had heard of him at some point during my academic career. What I don't recall hearing is that he is of African descent. This bit of knowledge did for me on a small scale what it did for Windsor enormously - it sparked an interest to know more about the African-Russian. It's because of Randall's work that I've recently read Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades", that I've read a little biographical information about the author and his work, and that I will read "The Negro of Peter the Great." There is nothing more beautiful, more powerful, than a novel that entertains, uplifts, and educates; "Pushkin and the Queen of Spades" does all three.

And then there's the rhythm of the story, the beat. Poetic passages and skillfully crafted phrases reflect the author's command of language and knowledge of literary history. "Pushkin and the Queen of Spades" is a monumental accomplishment. Randall packs the story with African-American history and tradition as well as literary creativity and complexity. You'll have to put your thinking hat on for this one but its well worth the effort.

A Great American Novel.......2004-06-07

Alice Randall's Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, is, simply put, a great novel. Beginning with the hilarious double entendre of its title the book is rife with meaning and food for thought. The issues addressed in the book, our internal and external lives at the intersection of race and culture and the long term impact that our relations with our parents have on our own children are often discussed in solemn, ponderous and often overly contentious tones. Randall will have none of that. Rather, she embarks on a graceful, biting and often hilarious tour de force that should leave the reader laughing out load while at the same time soaking in the powerful ideas set out neatly inside the pearls of laughter. Mary Poppins once said a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down. In this instance a while lot of sugar and down right great writing helps open our minds to the sometimes provocative issues she sets out.

The story line itself is simple. Windsor Armstrong is an African American woman, graduate of Harvard, a professor at Vanderbilt University and the holder of a PhD in Russian literature. Her son Pushkin X is named after the great Russian poet and playwright, Alexander Pushkin (author of a famous book The Queen of Spades) whose own African ancestry formed the emotional basis of his work and life including his tragic death in a duel. Pushkin X has dashed Windsor's hopes that he would follow in his mother's academic career. He turned down Harvard and played football, at the University of Michigan. Even worse, Pushkin's football skills have resulted in his becoming a star in the NFL. The book's plot is revealed in the opening paragraph, perhaps one of the funniest opening paragraphs I have read in recent memory. Brief excerpts follow:

"Look what they done to my boy! . . . Fifty million people have watched him on a single Monday night. He has given a Russian girl a diamond ring. He means to get married. My son is a football player engaged to a Russian-born lap dancer, a girl named Tanya who danced at a club call Mons Venus. There is a God and he's punishing me. This much bad luck cannot happen by accident."

It soon becomes apparent that Pushkin X has withdrawn his mother's invitation to his wedding after she expresses opposition to the marriage and, more importantly, after she once again refuses to reveal the identity of Pushkin X's father, long a source of contention between mother and son. The rest of the book is devoted to Windsor's internal dialogue in the days leading up to the wedding. She touches on her early childhood in Detroit up to 1968 and the impact of her relationship with her father, whom she adored, and her mother, whom she did not adore, who took her away from Detroit and her father to D.C. They arrive in D.C. soon after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Despite her unhappiness in D.C. the city (and her mother) provides her with the opportunities that take her on her life's journey to Harvard, to Russia and a career as a scholar. Her internal dialogue continues. Like a river, her dialogue takes many twists and turns. Randall's words emerge as a beautiful stream of consciousness that leads us to many new and unexpected destinations. She is never boring and often profound. She is also funny and downright sassy at times as she embarks on riffs that touch on such diverse topics as her sex life, Malcolm X, `the souls of black folks', and writers such as Colson Whitehead and others. She touches on the meaning of being a mother and how the love of a mother (or father) for a child can bring more pain than we sometimes think we can endure. Simply put, in a context that Windsor Armstrong might enjoy - Curtis Mayfield may have had Windsor Armstrong in mind when he wrote the words "the woman's got soul".

The identity of Pushkin X's father and the nature of his conception gradually emerge as the book reaches it climax. That climax includes Windsor's wedding gift to Pushkin X - which gift is worth the price of the book standing alone.

In many respects the structure of Randall's dialogues are reminiscent of James Joyce's Ulysses. This is not to compare Randall to Joyce necessarily but I think it is no small compliment to the power of Randall's writing to even be thought of with Joyce in the same paragraph. As Christopher Hitchens once said about a writer once compared to Tolstoy, to be even compared to Tolstoy (or Joyce in this instance) is no small achievement even if one hasn't quite reach that stature (yet). I enjoyed the book tremendously and encourage anyone with an interest in good books to pick this up and read it. It is a book to be enjoyed and savored.

Average customer rating:

Make sure the reviews correspond to the edition!

Six short stories - Good Introduction to Alexander Pushkin

Excellent Introduction to Pushkin

either fantasy or reality

Teachers (and others): Avoid this edition!

Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, The Queen of Spades, The Captain's Daughter, Peter the Great's Blackamoor (Oxford World's Classics)
Alexander Pushkin
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0192832131

Book Description

This volume contains new translations of four of Pushkin's best works of fiction. The Queen of Spades has long been acknowledged as one of the world's greatest short stories, in which Pushkin explores the nature of obsession. The Tales of Belkin are witty parodies of sentimentalism, while
Peter the Great's Blackamoor is an early experiment with recreating the past. The Captain's Daughter is a novel-length masterpiece which combines historical fiction in the manner of Sir Walter Scott with the devices of the Russian fairy-tale. The Introduction provides close readings of the stories
and places them in their European literary context.

Customer Reviews:

Make sure the reviews correspond to the edition!.......2007-09-01

I wish to make it clear that the 2001 review published below when I was at Oberlin College is NOT of this Oxford World Classics edition-- with which I am unfamiliar-- but rather of a previous Dover Thrift Edition.

I am shocked that Amazon places reviews of different translated editions of the same title(s) interchangably.

-David Shengold
Philadelphia PA

Six short stories - Good Introduction to Alexander Pushkin.......2007-08-11

This Dover Thrift edition - The Queen of Spades and Other Stories - offers an enjoyable introduction to Alexander Pushkin, an early nineteenth century Russian poet and writer. This collection includes Pushkin's popular The Queen of Spades and his five short stories published under the title The Tales of the Late P. Belkin. The translation was by T. Keane, originally published in 1894 by G. Bell & Sons, London.

The Queen of Spades is a haunting story of one man's obsession with gambling. Hermann, German by birth but a young officer in the Russian military, is notable among his fellow officers in St. Petersburg for his restraint: "He has never had a card in his hand in his life; he never in his life had a wager, and yet he sits here till five o'clock in the morning watching our play". Hermann becomes intrigued with a tale of a closely held secret, one that reveals a bidding sequence that always wins.

Unlike the title story, the other five stories have settings in rural Russia at great distance from cosmopolitan Moscow and St. Petersburg. Apparently Pushkin originally published these stories under a pseudonym. P. Belkin, supposedly a somewhat mysterious individual that liked to collect tales.

An Amateur Peasant Girl: The wealthy landowner Ivan Petrovitch Berestoff, feuds with his nearest neighbor, Gregory Ivanovitch Mouromsky. Unknown to either, Mouromsky's daughter, Lizaveta Gregorievna, while dressed as a peasant girl, has attracted the attention of Berestoff's son, leading to considerable confusion.

The Shot: In a formal Russian duel one duelist, chosen by chance, fires first from a fixed distance at the other. If the first duelist misses his opponent (or does not critically wound him), the second duelist now fires. In this tale the second duelist, a superb marksman, holds his fire, but with the understanding that at some future time he will return and kill his opponent.

The Snowstorm: This highly contrived story is singularly Russian. Love, chance, and honor ultimately mitigate the unexpected consequences of a senseless prank by a young military officer.

The Postmaster: This story is perhaps less contrived, and yet it still relies heavily on coincidences. The postmaster is not a postman, but is one that manages a way station for resting horses and travelers.

The Coffin Maker: In what appears to be a dream, an undertaker is harassed by his previous clients, now all dead and buried, who return to his home for festivities. The ending is somewhat ambiguous.

Excellent Introduction to Pushkin.......2006-04-16

From what I can learn this present volume ISBN 0192839543 from 1999 replaces ISBN 0192832131 from 1997.That volume is almost identical but is just 273 pages versus the present. I am not clear on all the changes but the books contains similar material and identical covers.

Roughly, here is the contents:

Introduction
Bibliography
Life of Pushkin
Milestones of the Pugachev Uprising

The Puskin Stories:

Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin
- The Shot, 12 pages
- The Snowstorm, 12 pages
- The Undertaker, 7 pages
- The Stationmaster, 12 pages
- The Lady Peasant, 18 pages

The Queen of Spades, 29 pages

The Captain's Daughter: a novella, 108 pages

Peter The Great's Blackamoor, 35 pages, an unfinshed work.

Then summary Notes.

Comments:

The book contains a very long introduction to the works and has many notes at the end. In reading just the present book, you will receive a good idea of the general works of Pushkin - abbreviated - and a lot of detail on the present works.

The stories are excellent, well written, and one is instantly converted to being a Pushkin fan. I am not a literary expert but I have read works by Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, etc, and clearly one sees the connection in style and subject matter. It is easy to see how Tolstoy drew inspiration from these works.

The stories are grounded mostly in realism and 18th and 19th century historical events although there are romantic touches and Queen of Spades has elements of the supernatural.

Overall, these are excellent stories that bring a smile to one's face.

either fantasy or reality.......2003-06-06

If someone comes to me and asks what I think true Russian

spirit is, I would say, "duel" is. Russian duel is very reckless

and even absurd because the percentage of survival is only 50%.

Each load their gun and go to the opposite end and they shoot

from distance in turn until either one is shot.

In the book, German,the main character, is a half-bood of

Russian and Germany. Due to his birth,mixed with German blood,

he is usually very realistic and doesn't believe in magic or

tricks. In numerous gatherings German never participates in the

card games but always watches people play. When he hears that

an old woman knows how to win the game he sniffs and ignores

it. But ironically it is he who arrives at the gate of her

house. However, it is not his intention but he himself is

dragged by some magical power.

As quite an ordinary and poor man, German believes in

diligence and reason, but not fantasy or fate. That's why he

never participates in any games. Their game is like a duel. The

players say some number and they take cards until either of

them get to reach the number and he wins. Then a new game

starts as if they already forgot about the former game. Usually

the loser loses a huge sum of money, which means that the

winner becomes enormous rich. In other words, the game actually

changes their lives in totally different ways.

Everyone who has read this book would never forget the last

scene of the Queen of Spades. Perhaps she really does say so,

or he only dreams or imagins. No one knows except Pushkin.

Bytheway, he is not telling something moral to persuade or

teach us. All he shows is something like Matrix, I guess. Maybe

the whole story is just a trick or magic or some parts are. The

judgement is up to the reader. We all are German in a way.

Teachers (and others): Avoid this edition!.......2001-03-13

I had been happy to read about a supposedly unabridged and very inexpensive edition of "Queen of Spades" and the Belkin tales, as (as a college instructor) I often assign "Queen of Spades" in courses on opera or Petersburg, or in which one would not neces sarily need the student to order a whole compilation of Pushkin's fiction, such as Norton's very solid COMPLETE PROSE TALES.

However, this edition is *far* from unabridged. The editor has taken it upon himself to cut not only ALL the epigraphs from ALL t he stories (an absurd economy which distorts the tone of these parodic stories) but also fails to provide the two-page "From the Editor" frame without which the purpose of the Belkin tales is obscured.

Customer Reviews:

Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03

Parallel universes are certainly not a stretch, when you think about
all the bizarre stuff that Robert Anton Wilson comes up with. Here we
have another Illuminati trilogy style collection, even with some of the
same characters. However, these are alternate universe versions of
these people, hence the title of the trilogy.

If you don't like that original trilogy, you are probably not going to like this.

Operation MF continues..........2006-03-02

After reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy, I stared at my copy of Schroedinger's Cat and wondered how the hell Bob could top the 800-page work of lunacy he had created with Robert Shea. Of course, I shouldn't have doubted Bob; anyone who has read his books knows how he can construct the most meaningful anecdotes and stories from seemingly random and uninteresting information. This book is no different.

When I started reading this book, I assumed that the story would have to do with Schroedinger's Cat (obviously), but I didn't understand the novel's structure until I reached page 80 and the book ended, only to start again in a different world (which I know sounds strange; read it if you want to understand). The plot of this novel seems entirely random, and up to a certain point it is, but it has more structure than would seem at first glance. Like Illuminatus!, it would require a great deal of analysis and scholarship to unravel the ever-knotted threads of Schroedinger's Cat, and I know few who have the time to do that. Still, it's quite an enjoyable read, even if you never know fully what the hell is going on.

As is usual for Robert Anton Wilson books, Schroedinger's Cat is side-splittingly funny. Perhaps the funniest part of the book is how characters change from world to world. For instance, in one world, Epicene Wildeblood is a debonair ladies' man. In a different world, Epicene is now a she, Mary Margaret Wildeblood, after a sex change. Even historical figures in the novel change depending on the world. James Joyce, in one world, was a minor composer. In another, Ezra Pound was not a famous poet; he was a famous folksinger. In yet another, Aleister Crowley was not an infamous occultist, but instead a British general who was the first person to reach the North Pole, which he claimed was inhabited by little green people when he got there (if you laugh at that, you will appreciate the book's humor).

It's hard to put together a review of this book, because there's no continuous plot (at least not in the ordinary sense). Characters disappear for (sometimes literally) hundreds of pages, then reappear as if nothing happened. It's very disorienting and why I waited several months after reading the book to actually review it. I thought that "sitting on my thoughts," allowing them to formulate, would help. Instead, I find that I've forgotten half of what went on in the book. Oh, memory, how thou hast robbed me!

Anyway, before I start to ramble, let me say that this is a good book for all science-fiction fans to read, since it is actual SCIENCE fiction (i.e. it involves quite complicated issues of quantum mechanics). I would recommend it to anyone with an IQ of 250 or a Ph.D. in rocket science. If you're like me and have neither, it's still a great novel. It just won't make full sense until you understand Bob's philosophy of neurological model agnosticism and quantum mechanics.

Don't Read This Book! .......2005-11-23

We like to believe, in these enlightened times, that reason and science are all that matter. This, though, is simply not true. Words, thoughts, ideas, and images creep into one's mind insideously and, with each one, corrupts the essential self we desperately cling to. You think you are safe, there in front of your computer screen, reading this. You're not. In fact, it is already too late for you. You've been caught, infected, by an idea, a forbidden thought, that pulls you inexorably toward a knowing that most run from, screaming. You can't know, now, who or what you will become as a result of this, but know with perfect certainty that the you you are now will be gone, replaced forever with some other you, a you you don't even know. It starts in your mind, moves into your brain, then into your body, then into the whole universe. It is simply too late. You'd better read this book after all, otherwise you're screwed.

Review By Graham J. Farmer.......2005-09-20

Once again Robert Anton Wilson has written a novel that absolutely forces the reader to stand at attention - ready at all times for a multi-dimensional plot twist, sometimes through mirrored realities (almost!?) that humorously mock our own. His unique style effectively guides the reader into questioning his/her own thought processes and conciousness.

A few times while reading I had to remind myself to laugh - partly due to Wilson's superior intellect, evident in his writing, which had me studying each page as if hidden somewhere within was the meaning of life! However, rest assured once I got started it was a full body affair.

Always I look forward to Wilson's designs - in his novels there seems to be secret messages intricately woven within, maybe it is just me, but this type of writing is a blast to read. Literally this story will blow your mind.

everyone should read this.......2005-03-29

Trying to write a review about this book without trying to sound too grandiose is quite difficult. What's it about? Well, it's about everything... how we view life, politics, social interaction, sex, religion etc. Is it any good? This question is asking for a subjective judgement, but if you are the kind of person who likes original and unique philosophical views delivered in a creative style that will entertain, humor and sometimes scare you, than yeah it is good. In my estimation, the book is beyond creative. As far as his writing style, the man is brilliant. Every page blasts away at your preconceived notions of what writing, thinking, living should be and gives the reader an invigorated new sense of life's unlimited possibilities. Why this author is not listed among the upper echelon of literary dignataries is beyond me. I mean seriously, most "classic" novels are deemed as such because they have captured an audience because of their timeless content, advanced writing style, indvidualistic voice and perhaps inspirational,universal message. This being the case, I cannot think of a better way to describe this book.

Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy: the Universe Next Door, "The Trick Top Hat," & "The Homing Pigeons"

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Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy: the Universe Next Door, "The Trick Top Hat," & "The Homing Pigeons"
Robert Anton Wilson
Manufacturer: Dell Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N79A6U

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