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Madness is Better than Defeat

door Ned Beauman

LedenBesprekingenPopulariteitGemiddelde beoordelingAanhalingen
1275213,150 (3.18)9
"A wild, astonishing novel (by arguably England's most accomplished young writer) about Manhattan and Hollywood in the 1930s, Mayan gods, and a CIA operation gone terribly wrong--and the Booker short-listed Ned Beauman's magnum opus thus far. In 1938, two rival expeditions descend on an ancient temple recently discovered in the jungles of Honduras, one intending to shoot a screwball comedy on location there, the other to disassemble the temple and ship it back to New York. A seemingly endless stalemate ensues, and twenty years later a rogue CIA agent sets out to exploit it for his own ends, unaware that the temple is a locus of conspiracies grander than anyone could ever have guessed. Shot through with insanity, conspiracy, ingenuity, and adventure, showcasing Beauman's anarchic humor, spectacular imagination, and riveting prose, Madness Is Better Than Defeat teases, absorbs, entertains, and dazzles in equal measure"--… (meer)
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Toon 5 van 5
Ned Beauman is a fascinating author. I love his books, but I just couldn’t get into Boxer, Beetle for some reason, even though it has a similar feel to both this and The Teleportation Accident.

Beauman seems to alternate between madcap ensemble pieces and solo adventures, all populated with weirdos and scumbags. Madness is Better than Defeat is an ensemble piece with a generous helping of metafiction thrown into the mix to keep things interesting.

It’s a novel about an investigation into a failed expedition to make a movie about a failed expedition, and the layers of self-reference only increase from there.

Considering Beauman’s batting average so far, I’ll probably give Boxer, Beetle another chance some day. ( )
  unsquare | Feb 16, 2021 |
It was only a few pages into Madness is Better Than Defeat that I realised I'd made a mistake. This was just terrible. It's perhaps the closest I've ever come to breaking my iron-clad rule to finish every book I start; it was only by dipping into it in short doses over the space of a month – while reading other, actually competent, books as a restorative – that I could finish it. My iron-clad rule has always been based on the idea that some books take a while to warm up, that otherwise I might get lazy and never commit to anything remotely challenging, that even bad books have lessons (even if only in what not to do). But from first page to last, Ned Beauman's book gave me absolutely nothing.

It is remarkable that Beauman can write in English and make it seem like you, the reader, are an alien trying to decipher a strange language. The book has no plot, no protagonists for orientation, no character or flair or sense of place, no anything – just a grey slab of words forcing itself against your skull. About three-quarters of the way through (by which point most people will have given in), there is a slight whiff of method in the madness, but it is still buried in Beauman's verbose, tedious, contrived word fungus. There is not one genuine moment of fillip for the reader; only the sort of zany, oh-so-clever prosing that makes you wish harm upon the writer. I began to look at the author photo on the book jacket in the way you might look at a photo of a serial killer or mass murderer, trying to fathom how such an unassuming and mild-looking person could bring such pain and misery into the world.

I'm really thankful this is over. I don't even want to dissect the book to show how bad it is; I only want to write my review (another iron-clad rule for every book I read) and kick it to the kerb. When the coronavirus lockdown started and people were hoarding toilet paper, I joked that, given how many books populate my shelves, if it ever really came down to it, it shouldn't become a problem for me. It was a joke, but with this book it might be an improvement in its utility. I would put the book into a time capsule of things to survive the end of the world, if only to show the race of beings that comes after us that we deserved to fall. ( )
1 stem MikeFutcher | Jun 30, 2020 |
I tried, I really tried. This book seemed to have everything I love in it - the weirdness, the far-flung locations, the mysterious circumstances. But alas, I just didn't care enough to finish it.
  ouroborosangel | May 22, 2018 |
Reading Madness is Better Than Defeat by Ned Beauman is like playing with a kaleidoscope. The book is made many tiny pieces. At first, I try to keep the pieces distinct, and that is truly challenging. I finally decide that for me, keeping the details straight does not matter in this book. I step back to let go of the details and enjoy the bigger picture of this completely unbelievable, outlandish, but at the same time entertaining situation.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2018/03/madness-is-better-than-defeat.html

Reviewed for Penguin First to Read program. ( )
  njmom3 | Mar 25, 2018 |
It's difficult for me to convey how disappointed I am in this book. Unusually, I haven't finished this book, and I don't intend to.

For me Ned Beauman is by far the most exciting writer of novels in the last decade. The Teleportation Accident is one of the best novels I've read, certainly one of the funniest. Boxer / Beetle is great, Glow is mainly strong (with some flab). His skills of arrangement, time proxying and incident creation are acute.

But this book unfortunately is evidence he needs to learn when something has not worked. This source for this book, obviously Fitzcarraldo and jungle adventures, just hasn't provided material to stoke the engine. The setup is potentially fine, but oddly not dealt with very well.

And then we are into one long I'm a celebrity Get Me Out of here that hints and titters but neither provides moving narrative or any construction. The writing quality is still high, but it is to no real avail, either comedic or otherwise. We are not provided with any protagonists. To some degree, we are not really provided with any jeopardy. We venture into Douglas Coupland territory, with light touch observation but there is no zeitgeist kick.

I stopped reading because I felt like I was on a diet of celery. I hope this proves to be the one bad meal in his career. ( )
  eastmad | Nov 9, 2017 |
Toon 5 van 5
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"A wild, astonishing novel (by arguably England's most accomplished young writer) about Manhattan and Hollywood in the 1930s, Mayan gods, and a CIA operation gone terribly wrong--and the Booker short-listed Ned Beauman's magnum opus thus far. In 1938, two rival expeditions descend on an ancient temple recently discovered in the jungles of Honduras, one intending to shoot a screwball comedy on location there, the other to disassemble the temple and ship it back to New York. A seemingly endless stalemate ensues, and twenty years later a rogue CIA agent sets out to exploit it for his own ends, unaware that the temple is a locus of conspiracies grander than anyone could ever have guessed. Shot through with insanity, conspiracy, ingenuity, and adventure, showcasing Beauman's anarchic humor, spectacular imagination, and riveting prose, Madness Is Better Than Defeat teases, absorbs, entertains, and dazzles in equal measure"--

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