Guest Review (3): Got to Love That Dentist

For those that walk to work, it is probably wise not to read on the journey. We all know how annoying it is to have someone looking at their "me-machine", to quote Ferris' O'Rourke, walk slap bang into you because they are not looking where they are going. Somehow my mind would rather someone do this to me if they were to be reading a book. I'd rather know they were indulging in literature rather than checking Facebook. Walking and reading proves to be a health hazard, should this be the case, like our third guest reviewer, the advice would be to don the pjs, shut the world out and get turning those pages.

 Guest Reviewer: Ravi Pau
Occupation: Senior Account Manager, Insider Communications and Editor-In-Chief, Pints and Plates

In Joshua Ferris' To Rise Again at A Decent Hour, we follow our protagonist Dr Paul O'Rourke in a first person perspective.  This helps provide an unique insight into the character. But it does come with an almost infuriating meandering tone that dances around just a tad too much.Whilst slightly infuriating at the beginning,  it does become charming and almost charismatic after a while, in the way that I'd imagine American's find English people. 

It gives Ferris the opportunity to put in these fantastic lines like  'I don't get pussy whipped. I get cunt gripped. I get cunt gripped and just hope to get out alive'. But to read that means dancing through the other bits that Ferris feels, and generally are, important. They just don't feel it at the time. 

Without trying to give too much away - as it is a book you should try. When I first began reading it, I was baffled. I struggled to understand where it was going and I couldn't possibly fathom a link between a New York Dentist, the state of Israel and the history of Zionism and other related Jewish history... Then suddenly, it clicked and I realise the symbolism between the Dentist, his personality and so on and had demolished half the book in what felt like five minutes. 

The book uses comedy to to ask some very serious, interesting, questions about life at it's core. It just takes too long to get there for my personal preference though.... I can think of a few people that might have put it down by the time it begins.

Worth noting that this point, Ferris incredibly struggled on this book. I understand that he spent nearly a year writing it and binning it before considering quitting writing. In the time between starting it and finishing it, he had written two other books and the birth of the internet gave him that click to finish.  I think that the gap is pretty evident, which is why it takes so long to get started...