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The Man with the Golden Arm (50th anniv.)
by Authors:
Nelson Algren
Paperback
Frankie Machine uses his golden arm to deal at stud-poker sessions, to ingest morphine and, in his dreams, to play the drums. When he inadvertently kills Nifty Louie after a fracas at the card table, his bittersweet friendship with Sparrow is put to the test. Sparrow, a half-witted hustler who idolises Frankie, helps him get away, but Frankie is convinced that Sparrow has betrayed him.
This powerful novel, originally published in 1949, and re-issued here with a foreword by Kurt Vonnegut, memorably evokes "the twisted ruins of tortured, useless, lightless and loveless lives" in the tenement alleys of Chicago. Frankie confronts the meaningless nature of his existence, asking, in his final decline, with poignant reference to Sparrow: "How can I know where I'm at when I don't know where he's at?" Nelson Algren's streetwise toughness ultimately gives way to a tear-jerking
denouement.
Average Customer Rating:
No Work and No Play
I think this is one of the best novels ever written. People who say Algren romanticizes the poor have clearly not read the book properly, all he does is say they are human just as you. But describing them as low-lifes like some reviewers did, just shows that Algren's message did not come across. This book is about love for humanity. And that is ALL humanity, not just the part that's nicely educated and has a good job and doesn't rob you at night. One reviewer said that Frankie Machine should of just quit taking drugs and sought himself a nice job and everything would of turned out fine. How? Would Frankie be loved then, would his crippled wife be able to walk, would there be no loneliness and desperation. would it stop raining? Would it stop the El from going round and round? I'm sick and tired of people romanticizin' the rich.
LIKE A BLOW TO THE SOLAR PLEXUS!
The great Nelson Algren's powerful tale. A work of art. Chicago, down-and-outers struggling with their various demons. One of the finest of all novelists. Algren, as a human being, had heart, wit, intelligence...and it shows. Not many writers today can touch him, although I can think of one or two covering the same turf: trying to make sense out of this insanity called life: Charles Bukowski, George Orwell, Henry Miller, B. Traven (The Cottonpickers), Kirk Alex (Working the Hard Side of the Street), Dan Fante (Chump Change, Spitting Off Tall Buildings) et al. You might want to give N.A's Neon Wilderness a try as well, a terriric short story collection. Algren's books last because his words have meaning to us--and always will.
Extremely well written American novel
This Nelson Algren novel is a fascinating story of depression and addiction, as well as a certain type of period piece, of postwar Chicago. It would be hard to find a more telling and better developed description of addiction, and this novel is truly a twentieth century classic because of both the highly developed view into the life of addiction and also Algren's amazing and fascinatingly complex characterizations. It has now become one of my favorites, and I view it as an extremely fine example of American literature.
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