Bodo

By John Bennett

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 070438034X
• ISBN13: 9780704380349
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Quartet Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant, Strengthening Novel

John Bennett's novel, Bodo, is a history of our time, via the life of a relatively normal youth traumatized first by invading and occupying forces in his native Germany, immediately after World War II, then by normal, dysfunctional family and community life in small city Texas, then by the implosion of the California hippie rebellion. I can't decide which is more impressive, Bennett's brilliant artistry--mostly acute naturalism, interspersed by superbly lucid short-hand imagery--or his understanding of a soul, and of the America in which that soul tries, first, to fit in, then to transform it for the better by single-handedly making a miracle, then, again, to fit in, then, one more time, to break through despite convention. The main character, Bodo, occasionally thrives, for instance as a popular and influential disc jockey in Louisiana, with a lover and possessions most youths would envy. But he drives away in a sport car, or rides a motorcycle away from success, just as he drives or motorcycles away, or escapes from his crashes into normal and abnormal failures or torment by people who will not put up with anyone ignoring the conventions of, or attempting to transform what they have adapted to, which depends on everyone agreeing that absolutely anything else is dangerous, perverse, wrong, crazy. If you're struggling to keep something alive, in a what's now a world-wide society that depends on what you're trying to keep alive being either killed or forced to keep itself entirely hidden, this book will help you survive without participating in the conspiracy to kill off what you value most, in your self. It's very sober, beautiful, enlightening, disturbing, stunning. Hungry for such--it's so rare and valuable--I read it straight through, ten hours.