This novel is a delightfully raunchy tale. If you crave raunch; to be torn open and fucked up, The Death of Bunny Munro delivers.
Munro has all the elements I love. I love surprises. I love pussy. I love beautiful words. I love the tension. I read it to escape and wound up connecting very sadly with every character.
Cave carries a steady hand throughout, offering each of his characters a high level of honesty and flashing their worried selves, fallible selves, sincere selves three dimensionally on the page. Cave also seamlessly slips from the mind of an Avril Lavigne vagina obsessed salesman to the tender naïve mind of his nine-year old Encyclopedia enthralled son. If I had more time, and the copy of the novel I borrowed was actually mine, I would have liked to map out all these transitions, as I think Cave reached a level of mastery with them.
Another gem was Cave’s beautiful metaphors: the curtains hanging like “strips of uncooked meat”; the once totemic quiff that lies as “limp and insentient as roadkill.”
The downloadable enhanced ebook features video clips, Cave’s laconic narration, and Warren Ellis’s music; and will no doubt further enliven the engorged, vivid language. Whichever way you come to it, you’ll struggle to think of Avril Lavigne in quite the same way again.
4 responses
Hello, I read the book, I found it funny in some situations, and yes it contains nice/rock n roll metaphors!
But to tell the truth not a great book, the story is nothing new, I would not recommend this to anyone…
would we read the book if the author was not Nick Cave?… Do we expected more from an artist like him…?
I’m with Lorenzo. It’s an ugly story about three-generations of loser men (there are three Bunnies, after all).
Yes, Cave comes up with some interesting metaphors, but who could possibly like this protagonist? He’s an arrested-development, narcissistic misogynist and a horrible, horrible father. I was waiting for Child Protective Services to swoop in and rescue his poor son.
Now that I’m “of an age,” I’m finding that there are lots of books written by/for younger people that totally lack a certain dimension of humanity. Maybe it’s because they haven’t lived long or much. Although in this case, Cave has no excuse.
Blech. Five Blechs. No stars.
I want to tongue Nick Cave from his neck to his knee caps, but I don’t love his books. His lyrics are vicious, delicious and true and his music is macabre but I found “And the Ass Saw the Angel” tiresome. “King Ink II” was sloppy but satisfying because it contained his lyrics.
This book review on “The Death of Bunny Monroe” is beautifully written, no matter what you think of the book. Maybe it sucked, but the review has spunk. I wanted to read more from the reviewer, and skip the book.
I am completely entertained by the review as well as the comments. The whole thing warms my heart, in that way that raunch, angry discourse, and wit can do sometimes.
Click here to subscribe today and leave your comment.