A Crack-Up at the Race Riots

by Harmony Korine

Book Overview

Originally published by Mainstreet/Doubleday in 1998, this debut novel from an underground filmmaker uses print, photographs, drawings, news clippings, handwriting, a poem, attempted diagrams, and clip art to enhance the text, which primarily tells of a race war that happens in Florida, where the Jewish people sit in trees, the black people are run by MC Hammer, and the white people are run by Vanilla Ice. Or as the author himself described it...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1937112101
• ISBN13: 9781937112103
• Release Date: April 2013
• Publisher: Drag City
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

confusing/beautiful

umm, I think it is a bit short-sighted to label a book as confusing. For example, the Wasteland is confusing and 80 some years after its conception it is hailed as a work of genius. Ulysses is practically written in a foriegn language and I've heard college professors call it the greatest novel of the twentieth century. But more importanly it is short-sighted to call this book "confusing" because there is a difference between confusing the reader and making the reader think and use his or her own head in a new and different way. Of course, the ability to do this is solely up to the reader and so obviously not everyone is going to like this book. In short, if you think this or any book, is confusing then try harder. Me? I think it's lovely.

Vanguard Taboo breaker? I think not!

Harmony Korine is a genious. He is the best thing Nashville, Tn. ever produced, that is, besides the decline or a decadent amoralistic society and also rocky mountain taffy.

DIFFERENT

I SAY BUY IT..I READ ALOT AND THIS IS OFF THE WALL... IF YOUR HERE LOOKING FOR "HARMONY" YOU'VE FOUND IT...THIS KID REVOLUTIONIZED WHAT MANY HOPE THEY CAN PRODUDE

Beautiful yet strange, Keeps you reading.

Harmony korine, a drug addict, and confused young man, writes his thoughts on life in the small, strange, wonderful book.

great book. buy it

Someone called this a postmodernist novel. I don't think so. It's not a novel. It's an old form, the laundry list appropriated for literary purposes. Narrative glue that normally binds the ideas in a novel is entirely missing. It's like Korine went about recording little snippets of thought and conversations on scraps of paper, then pulled them all together and arranged them by topic like suicide notes, overheard conversations, movie ideas etc. It's like a found object collage. Chapter titles are the only hint at what Korine is thinking. But ultimately, we're on our own when it comes to tying all the scraps together. It's kind of looking at small tiles on a bathroom floor. Sooner or later you'll start seeing patterns.But Korine's selection of scraps is not random. Korine collects among the lower classes. He gives the podium to people who don't normally have a voice in our culture, people who may or may not have jobs, people with no concern for political correctness.And I think that this is where Korine deserves 5 stars. He makes us look at people we don't normally want to look at. He doesn't glamorize them, he doesn't apologize for them. He simply holds up the mirror and makes us look at them. He reminds us that not everyone gets to realize the American dream.As for postmodernism or new literary forms, I think Korine got something going. Ideas in most modern literature are way too sparse. You have to wade through way too much narrative and plot to get at the few good ideas, insights, images. Korine simply throws out the ideas, images, lets you wander about and create your own picture. Bless the lad, buy his book.