Ablutions: Notes for a Novel

by Patrick deWitt

Book Overview

In a famous but declining Hollywood bar works A Barman. Morbidly amused by the decadent decay of his surroundings, he watches the patrons fall into their nightly oblivion, making notes for his novel. In the hope of uncovering their secrets and motives, he establishes tentative friendships with the cast of variously pathological regulars.

But as his tenure at the bar continues, he begins to serve himself more often than his customers, and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0547335717
• ISBN13: 9780547335711
• Release Date: April 2010
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

A powerful, beautiful, painful, funny, spare novel.

A searing, dark, often hilarious account of a bartender's descent from somewhere near the bottom, to rock-bottom, and back to something more honest and less trite than "redemption." DeWitt wields words like a surgeon wields a scalpel, cuts deep, and injures as much as he heals. This book is daring, beautiful, and heart-wrenching, and his deft use of the second person pushes the form. This feels like a classic to me, one of the most original and honest depictions of alcoholism and despair since Exley's A Fan's Notes. Highly recommended to any fan of Exley, Fante, or Knut Hamsun.

So glad I read this...

Dewitt captures the Hollywood bar scene in all of it's greasy, bloodshot glory; the characters, the places, the depths sunk to, all feel so real... Darkly fascinating is this character's self destruction, kind of enjoying it...but not really. The naked ugliness that can be experienced under the protective indifference of a carefully maintained chemical haze felt completely real. It's obvious he's done his time in some soused rathole but this book goes beyond just creating gripping writing out of life experience. The second person voice is technically interesting in it's execution and adds pointed meaning to the story. Almost impossible to put down while reading! I can't wait to see what comes next.

So much more than a book about a bar

I loved Ablutions - and it wasn't just the voyeurism, no matter how much I enjoyed following the protagonist through this sick, painful, yet somehow totally pleasurable nightmare. It was de Witt's writing as much as anything. Without a lick of showiness, he's entirely himself. The book is funny as hell and one of the most honest pieces of prose I've read in a long, long time. I don't know how anyone could read this book without falling platonically in love with him.

Bukowski light

As I suggest in my title I found this book to be like a Bukowski book, but without all the self-righteous, condemnation of the world that hasn't seen the light like he has. This made the book much more palatable for me. I normally love this genre so this book found the right audience with me. While not as good as Fante or Hamsun, I think Ablutions will find its place within this genre. I will say I had a difficult time at the beginning. I found the style to be a little gimmicky, and normally I hate books written in the second person. At the beginning this book was no exception, and I thought about putting it down. What hooked me though were the interesting characters. It was certainly a colorful cast of characters, and with the short length of the book I decided to stick with it. In the end I am happy I did. As I got into the story the second person narrative became background noise unlike many of the other books I have read using this technique. Also what I found gimmicky in the beginning ran its course and the style seemed to mature and smooth out as I read on. I think anyone who has ever sold booze, and had a tendency towards cynicism and self-destructiveness will be able to relate to this story more than those who have not. It really does something to a person when you see regular customers starting to turn yellow. When a regular lets you know he/she lost their job because they couldn't stay completely sober for eight full hours, and yet here it is your job to keep feeding these people the one thing that is killing them. You're not supposed to tell the guy who no longer has any white in his eyes that maybe he should take a few nights off because he is one of your best customers. It does wear on a person, and there really is only so many times you can be asked to borrow five dollars before your faith in humanity takes a precipitous drop. I can relate to this story on a personal level, and while I was never quite as self-destructive as the protagonist in this book, I can certainly sympathize. What I would say to anyone thinking of picking up this book is understand the genre. If you don't like the genre you will not like this book. Next I would say to readers stick with it. Get past the beginning and the story takes on momentum, and it is a wild, self-destructive journey that has a bit of a twist for the ending that I found comical and ironic. The characters and their stories are great. I really enjoyed this book, and I found it to be highly entertaining. I sat down and finished the book in one sitting, so it is an easy read. Once again if you like this genre the story and the characters will suck you in, and keep you reading further. I recommend this short, entertaining book.

This book is despicable. I loved it.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the mythological bartender, the one with the comforting visage, friendly attitude and kindly ear to listen to the ramblings of stool warmers and offer trenchant, considered and helpful advice to patrons in search of a little professional assistance from the ostensible psychological analysts' of the real world. This ain't one of `em. The unnamed barkeep of Ablutions is little more than another of the social misfits that frequent the fading tavern of his employment, albeit it with benefits...all the top shelf whiskey he cares to imbibe. This is a man absent genuine friendships which is fortunate since he seems extraordinarily gifted in destroying any relationships he establishes. Written in an adaptation of the second person epistolary/journal style, the anti-hero documents the comings, goings and exquisite failures of a morose assortment of regulars, irregulars and irremovable denizens of the establishment that almost affords him the opportunity to maintain a subsistence lifestyle. He considers his musings on the idiosyncrasies of the clientele notes for a future novel but what he presents to the reader is the lurid descriptive of societal detritus and he inadvertently places himself at the head of the refuse pile. Slowly, but absolutely not methodically, he begins to realize he is nothing more and quite possibly, much less than the individuals he often ridicules. One cannot help but to feel as though you are an interloper, an unauthorized observer of the progressive descent of an entire class of people. In the ironical humor of the dark underbelly of modern society, there also lies a perverse satisfaction or affirmation of one's own life not being as traumatic as another's; in this book soul after vacant soul is introduced and further decimated. At times, especially at the outset, the course of the prose seemed pointless as though one was in fact reading snippets of depravity that would never be organized into a comprehensible flow, as though the incongruent notes represent merely one more objective the protagonist's addictions will place outside his grasp. But as the reader progresses, the notes seem to become correlative and chronological, with the self-absorption of the anti-hero gradually morphing into a quest for self-preservation. In the inimitable style of many with addictive personalities he latches upon a strategy to save himself, regardless of who or what might be diminished by his ploys. In a terrarium of scorpions, the actions required for survival are not necessarily commendable acts.