Gilligan’s Wake: A Novel by Tom Carson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I was just reminded of this novel by a friend who posted that today (9/26/2014) is the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast episode of ‘Gilligan’s Island,’ so I dug into Amazon where I see that my 1/31/2003 review of ‘Gilligan’s Wake’ – probably the first Amazon review I wrote – was featured. Here it is:
(Five Stars) Joycean ride for nondubliners
I just finished this guilty pleasure on the train to work this morning. I read and enjoy a lot of books, but I never feel the need to comment immediately to the Amazonian public about them. This is one that I’d hate to see slip quietly below the radar in the flood of new novels.
It’s not just a pop culture pastiche I’ve seen it described as; it’s a very heartfelt picture of the world for those of us who grew up in the second half of the American century. If you’ve ever read Ulysses wishing that you had more firsthand experience with the streets of 1904 Dublin, or tried to read Finnegans Wake wishing that you had a better working knowledge of Norwegian puns, this is the book for you (assuming of course, you owned a TV, were aware of current events and maybe read some T.S. Eliot and had a few years of French).
Here’s proof once again that St. James of Dublin (Trieste, Paris and Zurich) was not a dead end for literature, but a new beginning.
Now I want to read it again.
R.D. Mumma 