New Directions Classics: The Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer (Paperback)

from Big_Bang_Gorilla

This book bears some resemblance to a novel, but I personally approach it as a series of prose poems. To the extent that it contains a plot, it revolves around the naive antics of an obscurity who has a genius for recording everything that he encounters in an extremely credulous and literal-minde...

from meggyday

A beautiful, often times zany, story of a modest and honest man.

from Big_Bang_Gorilla

This book bears some resemblance to a novel, but I personally approach it as a series of prose poems. To the extent that it contains a plot, it revolves around the naive antics of an obscurity who has a genius for recording everything that he encounters in an extremely credulous and literal-minde...

from meggyday

A beautiful, often times zany, story of a modest and honest man.

from HarryMacDonald

Basic problem: it isn't amusing, either in the conventional reckoning, or some more involved ironic sense. Fact is that Patchen, though a great spirit and richly gifted writer, did not thrive as a writer of prose. So, some one in the back of the class immediately raises her hand and demands, "But...