Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin (2014), 352 pages
Description
After noticing his identity has been stolen and used to create various social media accounts, a man with a troubled past, Paul O'Rourke, begins to wonder if his virtual alter ego is actually a better version of himself. "Paul O'Rourke is a man made of contradictions: he loves the world, but doesn't know how to live in it. He's a Luddite addicted to his iPhone, a dentist with a nicotine habit, a rabid Red Sox fan devastated by their victories, and an atheist not quite willing to let go of God. Then someone begins to impersonate Paul online, and he watches in horror as a website, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account are created in his name. What begins as an outrageous violation of his privacy soon becomes something more soul-frightening: the possibility that the online "Paul" might be a better version of the real thing. As Paul's quest to learn why his identity has been stolen deepens, he is forced to confront his troubled past and his uncertain future in a life disturbingly split between the real and the virtual. At once laugh-out-loud funny about the absurdities of the modern world, and indelibly profound about the eternal questions of the meaning of life, love and truth, TO RISE AGAIN AT A DECENT HOUR is a deeply moving and constantly surprising tour de force" --… (more)
Media reviews
— and to watch as O’Rourke is slowly seduced out of his doubts about this group, whose sole philosophical flag is doubt, is one of the pleasures in a book filled with them.
The second thing to say is that this book is obscenely, inventively hilarious..... Reading this book in public places you in danger of being taken for drunk or mentally ill. ...For Ferris, the inability to take language for granted is what makes him one of the most dynamic writers of his generation.
And somehow, out of this deeply twisted comic novel, Ferris finds a stirring, deeply felt message about faith, though not necessarily a positive one...Of course, there's more to it than that, and there's more to this novel than can be described in one (or, frankly, many) reviews. Suffice it to say
Show More
that To Rise Again at a Decent Hour isn't just one of the best novels of the year, it's one of the funniest, and most unexpectedly profound, works of fiction in a very long time. Something can never be anything, as O'Rourke notes, but Ferris' triumphant book is everything you could want from a novel of faith and its opposite — whatever that may be. Show Less
And whatever reservations you might have about the overall shape of the thing, or how its various set pieces are stitched together, you cannot deny that this is a genuinely funny book. Not funny in the wry-smirk way of so many “comic” novels. Actually funny. ...What follows is a comic
Show More
theological thriller in the vein of Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union...Part of the problem is reconciling the gags with the gravitas. That Ferris makes it work so often is the mark of his considerable talent; that he sometimes fails is the mark of his ambition for his writing. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
It's not like affluent white guys living in New York don't have problems. But a book about the anxieties of an affluent New Yorker will have to work harder to get me to care. Joshua Ferris is a fantastic writer, but even he could not get me to do much more than shrug about his protagonist's
In To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, Paul O'Rourke, newly divorced, Red Sox fan and a dentist with a successful Manhattan practice, is driven by doubt. He's made it the center of who he is, even as he longs for a father figure. His ex-wife is Jewish and he longs to be a part of her extended, affectionate family and despite his atheism he has thrown himself into the celebrations and rituals they practice. He's also terrified of death, his own, but mostly the potential loss of anyone he loves, causing him to refuse to have children or even own a pet. Then someone creates a website for his dental practice, interspersing segments from a biblical-sounding document in with the staff biographies.
There's no doubt that this novel is both clever and humorous. It reminds me of The Finkler Question in many respects. But, in the end, I was not won over, despite Paul's desperate desire for connection. I have been more diligent with my flossing, however. A novel about a dentist will do that.
Show More
worries. In To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, Paul O'Rourke, newly divorced, Red Sox fan and a dentist with a successful Manhattan practice, is driven by doubt. He's made it the center of who he is, even as he longs for a father figure. His ex-wife is Jewish and he longs to be a part of her extended, affectionate family and despite his atheism he has thrown himself into the celebrations and rituals they practice. He's also terrified of death, his own, but mostly the potential loss of anyone he loves, causing him to refuse to have children or even own a pet. Then someone creates a website for his dental practice, interspersing segments from a biblical-sounding document in with the staff biographies.
There's no doubt that this novel is both clever and humorous. It reminds me of The Finkler Question in many respects. But, in the end, I was not won over, despite Paul's desperate desire for connection. I have been more diligent with my flossing, however. A novel about a dentist will do that.
Show Less
LibraryThing member EBT1002
This vaguely post-modern novel about Paul C. O'Rourke, DDS, was short-listed for the Booker Prize. I don't get it. Yes, it had humorous moments and is a creative approach to nihilistic exploration of alienation and loneliness. And I'm willing to spend 337 pages inside the head of someone wholly
Paul the dentist eschews technology. He refuses to have a website for his practice or use social media to market his services. Then he discovers that someone else has created a website for him. That someone begins emailing and tweeting in Paul's name, someone who seems to know him better than he knows himself. Initially furious, he gets sucked into the mystery of his impersonator and the underlying purpose of the theft of his identity: the advancement of awareness of the Ulms, a long-lost people whose very existence in history has apparently been eradicated. Paul, it seems, may be a descendent of the Ulms, whose religion is based on the necessity of doubt. I could go on, but I won't.
Ferris plumbs the depths of meaninglessness in today's tech-saturated world and the terror of being alone:
"The solution at desperate moments like this was always to find something to do, and I mean anything, as quickly as possible. My first instinct was to reach for my me-machine. It put me in instant touch, it gave me instant purpose.... but no. No one had called or emailed or texted."
Deriding the false human connections available (at least in theory) via virtual communication and social media, Ferris distracts the reader with Paul's misogyny, anti-Semitism, and general contempt for all humans. I get that he's trying to expose the ingenuous simplicity and the desperate need for belonging that underlying most microaggressions. His description of 9-year-old Paul's terror at being the last one awake on earth every night, and the implications for his poor widowed mother, is both hilarious and poignant. And I get that it all ties together -- terror of being alone and contempt for anyone with whom he might connect: the human condition in modern society. Also, I rather enjoyed Ferris' occasionally-used device with dialogue in which one of the women in his practice is asking Paul questions and we only know his responses through her next question. But my overall experience of the novel was wanting to get through it. I just wanted it to be over with. I want to give it more than two stars I feel that I must stay true to my rating scale and communicate that, with all the wonderful literature out there, this one felt like a waste of my time.
Show More
unpleasant if the author is going to provide me with satisfaction in the end. I don't need a happy ending (and, oddly, Ferris sort of provides that) but I need at least some new consideration of, or a slightly different angle on whatever theme the author is exploring. Ferris fails to provide that. Paul the dentist eschews technology. He refuses to have a website for his practice or use social media to market his services. Then he discovers that someone else has created a website for him. That someone begins emailing and tweeting in Paul's name, someone who seems to know him better than he knows himself. Initially furious, he gets sucked into the mystery of his impersonator and the underlying purpose of the theft of his identity: the advancement of awareness of the Ulms, a long-lost people whose very existence in history has apparently been eradicated. Paul, it seems, may be a descendent of the Ulms, whose religion is based on the necessity of doubt. I could go on, but I won't.
Ferris plumbs the depths of meaninglessness in today's tech-saturated world and the terror of being alone:
"The solution at desperate moments like this was always to find something to do, and I mean anything, as quickly as possible. My first instinct was to reach for my me-machine. It put me in instant touch, it gave me instant purpose.... but no. No one had called or emailed or texted."
Deriding the false human connections available (at least in theory) via virtual communication and social media, Ferris distracts the reader with Paul's misogyny, anti-Semitism, and general contempt for all humans. I get that he's trying to expose the ingenuous simplicity and the desperate need for belonging that underlying most microaggressions. His description of 9-year-old Paul's terror at being the last one awake on earth every night, and the implications for his poor widowed mother, is both hilarious and poignant. And I get that it all ties together -- terror of being alone and contempt for anyone with whom he might connect: the human condition in modern society. Also, I rather enjoyed Ferris' occasionally-used device with dialogue in which one of the women in his practice is asking Paul questions and we only know his responses through her next question. But my overall experience of the novel was wanting to get through it. I just wanted it to be over with. I want to give it more than two stars I feel that I must stay true to my rating scale and communicate that, with all the wonderful literature out there, this one felt like a waste of my time.
Show Less
LibraryThing member seeword
I received this book as a free copy through Goodreads First-Reads.
This is the male version of chick-lit. Forty something guy, successful in his profession, lives in New York, watches TV alone on Friday nights, ponders his life and the meaning of everything. He's really a boring guy.
Then something
This is the male version of chick-lit. Forty something guy, successful in his profession, lives in New York, watches TV alone on Friday nights, ponders his life and the meaning of everything. He's really a boring guy.
Then something
Show More
happens, someone is impersonating him on-line. I wish I could say that the book got more interesting as he tries to deal with this. It didn't. Show Less
LibraryThing member TheAmpersand
Like a lot of people, I really enjoyed Joshua Ferris's "Then We Came to the End," but I had some misgivings when I purchased this one, his follow-up novel. His decision to use a first-person plural narrator in that novel worked out really well, but was it just a gimmick? And the middle portion of
It turns out that "To Rise Again at a Decent Hour" isn't a bad novel, but I'm not sure it's a really good novel, either. At least it's different, both structurally and thematically, from his big hit. Where "When We Came to the End" explored the relatively flimsy bonds we form at work, this novel describes the much stronger bonds we form through family and community. It relates the adventures of Paul C. O'Rourke, DDS, spiritual seeker and very lonely man. Dr. O'Rourke, a nonbeliever who was raised in a small, unhappy family desperately craves kinship with others, and takes as his models the families of two ex-girlfriends, one Catholic and the other Jewish, the latter of which still works as his receptionist. One of his dental hygienists is a practicing RC and has that angle covered. One day a mysterious website appears in his name and, after some investigation, Paul discovers he may be the descendant of a long-lost tribe of what I can only call aggressive agnostics, which more or less turns his world upside-down.
Frankly, I feel that how much you'll like this book probably depends on how much you like Dr. O'Rourke. His voice -- intelligent, sarcastic, emotionally helpless -- more or less dominates the novel, for good or ill. He is, in the tradition of dozens of Woody Allen characters, a verbose neurotic who seems to be able to provide exacting descriptions of all of his problems. His business is successful but his life is inhibited and regimented to the point of utter tedium. He's the kind of Red Sox fan who tapes every game and watches every pitch the next day. I think that there's sort of a verisimilitude problem here: most depressed people I know -- and most people who search for answers to the Big Questions, I expect -- tend to be less organized and driven than average, not more. And even though I'm a Red Sox fan myself and know for a fact that Ferris gets all of his team lore exactly right, I'm not sure if this facet of the book isn't a little too cutesy. There's some good storytelling here, especially toward the end, and some likable characters, and some sharp observation, too. There's also a lot about dentistry, and funnily enough, these bits might be the novel's most enjoyable parts. Ferris has obviously done his research, and the way that Dr. O'Rourke thinks about teeth, which shows both scientific rigor and the light touch of a true craftsman, actually makes dental work seem exciting, even vitally alive. Ferris hasn't lost his touch for clever dialogue -- he suggests that some of the arguments about religion that the characters engage in here have been repeated so many times that we really need hear only one side of them to understand what's going on. Maybe there's issues that comic novelists -- even clever comic novelists like Ferris -- should leave alone.
Except that I kind of think that "To Rise Again at a Decent Hour" does make some good points. The alienation and yearning to belong that Dr. O'Rourke, an innate nonbeliever and not much of a joiner,feels seems convincing, and the book might be said to revolve around whether he could possibly achieve the sense of belonging and love that many religious people feel without faith in something. Can you make a faith out of doubt and intellectual probity? Is faith really necessary for happiness? By the time the book ends, Ferris seems to have ably demonstrated how even the nonbelievers among us are forced to take a lot about our existence on faith. Well, the novel makes some other points, too, but maybe you get the picture. In short, this novel has its strong points, but I'm not convinced it's as successful as the author's blockbuster. Dr. O'Rourke might call it a sophomore slump.
Show More
that book, in which the author played it much straighter, wasn't that novel's strongest section. Maybe this guy was a one-hit wonder. It turns out that "To Rise Again at a Decent Hour" isn't a bad novel, but I'm not sure it's a really good novel, either. At least it's different, both structurally and thematically, from his big hit. Where "When We Came to the End" explored the relatively flimsy bonds we form at work, this novel describes the much stronger bonds we form through family and community. It relates the adventures of Paul C. O'Rourke, DDS, spiritual seeker and very lonely man. Dr. O'Rourke, a nonbeliever who was raised in a small, unhappy family desperately craves kinship with others, and takes as his models the families of two ex-girlfriends, one Catholic and the other Jewish, the latter of which still works as his receptionist. One of his dental hygienists is a practicing RC and has that angle covered. One day a mysterious website appears in his name and, after some investigation, Paul discovers he may be the descendant of a long-lost tribe of what I can only call aggressive agnostics, which more or less turns his world upside-down.
Frankly, I feel that how much you'll like this book probably depends on how much you like Dr. O'Rourke. His voice -- intelligent, sarcastic, emotionally helpless -- more or less dominates the novel, for good or ill. He is, in the tradition of dozens of Woody Allen characters, a verbose neurotic who seems to be able to provide exacting descriptions of all of his problems. His business is successful but his life is inhibited and regimented to the point of utter tedium. He's the kind of Red Sox fan who tapes every game and watches every pitch the next day. I think that there's sort of a verisimilitude problem here: most depressed people I know -- and most people who search for answers to the Big Questions, I expect -- tend to be less organized and driven than average, not more. And even though I'm a Red Sox fan myself and know for a fact that Ferris gets all of his team lore exactly right, I'm not sure if this facet of the book isn't a little too cutesy. There's some good storytelling here, especially toward the end, and some likable characters, and some sharp observation, too. There's also a lot about dentistry, and funnily enough, these bits might be the novel's most enjoyable parts. Ferris has obviously done his research, and the way that Dr. O'Rourke thinks about teeth, which shows both scientific rigor and the light touch of a true craftsman, actually makes dental work seem exciting, even vitally alive. Ferris hasn't lost his touch for clever dialogue -- he suggests that some of the arguments about religion that the characters engage in here have been repeated so many times that we really need hear only one side of them to understand what's going on. Maybe there's issues that comic novelists -- even clever comic novelists like Ferris -- should leave alone.
Except that I kind of think that "To Rise Again at a Decent Hour" does make some good points. The alienation and yearning to belong that Dr. O'Rourke, an innate nonbeliever and not much of a joiner,feels seems convincing, and the book might be said to revolve around whether he could possibly achieve the sense of belonging and love that many religious people feel without faith in something. Can you make a faith out of doubt and intellectual probity? Is faith really necessary for happiness? By the time the book ends, Ferris seems to have ably demonstrated how even the nonbelievers among us are forced to take a lot about our existence on faith. Well, the novel makes some other points, too, but maybe you get the picture. In short, this novel has its strong points, but I'm not convinced it's as successful as the author's blockbuster. Dr. O'Rourke might call it a sophomore slump.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Perednia
Paul is an ordinary dentist with minor quirks. He has a practice in Manhattan but adores the Boston Red Sox. That was his father's team, and some of his best-preserved memories are of being a boy, sitting at his father's feet, during games. If only his father hadn't fallen victim to despair and
He hasn't had much practice with women. (He has had such little practice that he uses a highly offensive term to describe what others might just call being in complete thrall to the object of one's love.) The two he has loved the most, he also has fallen in love with their families. But it got uncomfortable very fast as the hapless young man tried to ingratiate himself, wanting to become Catholic like the first love's family and then Jewish like the second love's family. Paul's former fiancee still works in his office and, although they show no interest in getting back together, they have fallen into the comforting kind of routine that old married couples share. Now that he's on his own again, he's decided to be an atheist.
Paul doesn't have much to do with the internet, although he does post a few things about baseball. But as the online impersonations escalate, Paul becomes more attached to his "me-machine", whether it takes the form of tablet or smart phone, more than his employees or his patients.
In Joshua Ferris's brilliant new novel, this is only the beginning. First, there's a website about his practice. Then social media accounts. It's all accurate. But it's not him. And it's getting to him. Who is this guy pretending to be him?
This setup is light, amusing and sails by. But as the online masquerades escalate, things get deeper, darker and far more murky. The imposter starts posting quasi-biblical, important-sounding things about a lost people who are scattered around the planet. Comparisons are made to Jewish people. Paul is more than uncomfortable. Connie, his ex-fiance who still works for him, is Jewish. She and Paul's office manager, a woman near retirement age who knows her Old and New Testament, do not recognize what this person is posting. They also don't understand why Paul doesn't just admit it's him.
Is it Paul? Is he fooling himself? Is Ferris fooling the reader? Would that be the case if he emails the imposter and gets back the response: "How well do you know yourself?" Say, just what is going on here?
Just when it looks to get very uncomfortable reading about a group of people that is "so wretched they envy the history of the Jews", the story changes again. There's a specific reason Ferris has gone this route, and it has a lot to do with self-awareness and belonging.
Everything falls wonderfully into place (whether one thinks that what happens is what would be the best thing to have happen). It is Paul's patients who provide him with an epiphany about faith, the power of doubt and how a person could consider how he fits into the world. His deep-seated love for the Red Sox, tied so strongly to Paul's love for his father, before they ever broke the curse of the Babe and the godawful season when Bobby Valentine was the manager and the team and their fans endured the biggest drop in baseball fortune that has ever been, is used to test that power of doubt to uphold faith. And Ferris makes it work.
This is a novel that once appeared it was going to go off the rails in spectacular fashion. But instead, it ends up feeling heartfelt and provides an emotional homecoming that means it was all worth it in the end, that just like our protagonist, what we yearn for is to be able to get a good night's sleep and to rise again at a decent hour to spend another day here in the world.
Show More
killed himself.He hasn't had much practice with women. (He has had such little practice that he uses a highly offensive term to describe what others might just call being in complete thrall to the object of one's love.) The two he has loved the most, he also has fallen in love with their families. But it got uncomfortable very fast as the hapless young man tried to ingratiate himself, wanting to become Catholic like the first love's family and then Jewish like the second love's family. Paul's former fiancee still works in his office and, although they show no interest in getting back together, they have fallen into the comforting kind of routine that old married couples share. Now that he's on his own again, he's decided to be an atheist.
Paul doesn't have much to do with the internet, although he does post a few things about baseball. But as the online impersonations escalate, Paul becomes more attached to his "me-machine", whether it takes the form of tablet or smart phone, more than his employees or his patients.
In Joshua Ferris's brilliant new novel, this is only the beginning. First, there's a website about his practice. Then social media accounts. It's all accurate. But it's not him. And it's getting to him. Who is this guy pretending to be him?
This setup is light, amusing and sails by. But as the online masquerades escalate, things get deeper, darker and far more murky. The imposter starts posting quasi-biblical, important-sounding things about a lost people who are scattered around the planet. Comparisons are made to Jewish people. Paul is more than uncomfortable. Connie, his ex-fiance who still works for him, is Jewish. She and Paul's office manager, a woman near retirement age who knows her Old and New Testament, do not recognize what this person is posting. They also don't understand why Paul doesn't just admit it's him.
Is it Paul? Is he fooling himself? Is Ferris fooling the reader? Would that be the case if he emails the imposter and gets back the response: "How well do you know yourself?" Say, just what is going on here?
Just when it looks to get very uncomfortable reading about a group of people that is "so wretched they envy the history of the Jews", the story changes again. There's a specific reason Ferris has gone this route, and it has a lot to do with self-awareness and belonging.
Everything falls wonderfully into place (whether one thinks that what happens is what would be the best thing to have happen). It is Paul's patients who provide him with an epiphany about faith, the power of doubt and how a person could consider how he fits into the world. His deep-seated love for the Red Sox, tied so strongly to Paul's love for his father, before they ever broke the curse of the Babe and the godawful season when Bobby Valentine was the manager and the team and their fans endured the biggest drop in baseball fortune that has ever been, is used to test that power of doubt to uphold faith. And Ferris makes it work.
This is a novel that once appeared it was going to go off the rails in spectacular fashion. But instead, it ends up feeling heartfelt and provides an emotional homecoming that means it was all worth it in the end, that just like our protagonist, what we yearn for is to be able to get a good night's sleep and to rise again at a decent hour to spend another day here in the world.
Show Less
LibraryThing member sleahey
Dentist Paul O'Rourke, a quirky guy with relationship and spiritual issues has avoided putting his practice on Facebook or other social media, so he is surprised when a Facebook page is established in his name, along with Twitter accounts and emails that he's had nothing to do with. There is much
Show More
looking back on failed romances and introspection about his life, much of it with black humor. Ultimately, the repetition seemed tedious, and it was difficult to care enough about the narrator to continue. Show Less
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Paul O’Rourke is smart, well-off (he has a successful Park Avenue dental practice), under appreciated (especially by women, but also everyone else), reasonably good looking and fit, single (not necessarily by choice), associated with the ludicrously wealthy, willing to indulge in obsessional
The pretension to theistic exploration here is just a ruse. It provides fodder for Paul O’Rourke’s maundering, and sacred cows for his arch-nemesis (who is masquerading as Paul on the Internet) to skewer. And the result is tiresome. Tedious beyond belief. And almost unremittingly dull.
So, you’ll be thinking — not recommended. Right!
Show More
behaviour whether it be following his favourite sports team or stalking an ex-girlfriend, and (sort of) tortured by an earlier trauma (his father killed himself when Paul was a boy). In short, To Rise Again At A Decent Hour has all of the hallmarks of Chucklit. Inevitably in a Chucklit novel, our protagonist will pursue some quixotic obsession. In most cases it is the love of a woman, or the right woman, or at least a beautiful woman. At any rate, it has to be something that could be everything. Something worthy of his special attention, his effort, and his love. Somewhat unusually here, Paul’s obsession seems to be deism. He flirts with many religions; indeed, they are coincident with his various female obsessions. But at heart he is an atheist. Because as the self-loathing protagonist of a Chucklit novel, if you can’t love yourself it is going to be very hard to love any god formed in your image.The pretension to theistic exploration here is just a ruse. It provides fodder for Paul O’Rourke’s maundering, and sacred cows for his arch-nemesis (who is masquerading as Paul on the Internet) to skewer. And the result is tiresome. Tedious beyond belief. And almost unremittingly dull.
So, you’ll be thinking — not recommended. Right!
Show Less
LibraryThing member SandDune
Well, I have some good things to say about [To Rise Again at a Decent Hour]. For one thing, it made me feel rather better about my own dental habits. Ferris's Park Avenue dentist Paul O'Rourke is thrown into fits of despondency by his patients' lack of dental hygiene and whatever my own failings
[To Rise Again at a Decent Hour] then is effectively an interior monologue by its (anti-)hero Paul O'Rourke: a man whose father's suicide when he was a child has clearly affected him deeply. He has struggled with relationships all his life, frequently becoming overly fixated on the families of his girlfriends, when a large close-knit Catholic or Jewish family appeals to his overarching need to belong and seemingly makes up for the short-comings in his own background. But Paul's life becomes more bizarre when a website in the name of his dental practice suddenly appears without his knowledge. And it is not only a website: posts in the name of P.C. O'Rourke are soon appearing on Facebook, Twitter and numerous other forums. And not only is someone impersonating him, they are impersonating him with some very odd claims indeed involving a lost tribe last heard of being destroyed by the Children of Israel in Exodus.
So this was odd. And what it was all about I have no idea. Not a fun experience.
Show More
(I'm rather dentist phobic, and definitely don't go as often as I ought to) I'm certainly not as bad as some of his patients! And I don't think Paul O'Rourke is as bad as some reviewers would argue: he has 'issues' certainly, he has objectionable qualities, but at the end of the day he seems to genuinely care about his patients. And it did make me laugh. Once. But this is a novel which according to the blurb is 'smart, sad, hilarious and eloquent' and 'funny, thought-provoking, and touching' and I just didn't see it - didn't see it at all. I can't see what it means, what it is all about or what is the point of reading it at all.[To Rise Again at a Decent Hour] then is effectively an interior monologue by its (anti-)hero Paul O'Rourke: a man whose father's suicide when he was a child has clearly affected him deeply. He has struggled with relationships all his life, frequently becoming overly fixated on the families of his girlfriends, when a large close-knit Catholic or Jewish family appeals to his overarching need to belong and seemingly makes up for the short-comings in his own background. But Paul's life becomes more bizarre when a website in the name of his dental practice suddenly appears without his knowledge. And it is not only a website: posts in the name of P.C. O'Rourke are soon appearing on Facebook, Twitter and numerous other forums. And not only is someone impersonating him, they are impersonating him with some very odd claims indeed involving a lost tribe last heard of being destroyed by the Children of Israel in Exodus.
So this was odd. And what it was all about I have no idea. Not a fun experience.
Show Less
LibraryThing member kidzdoc
A self absorbed and incredibly annoying dentist from the Upper East Side of Manhattan ruminates about his difficult and unhappy life. This is one of the three books that were chosen for the Booker Prize shortlist that are included in my worst 10 books of 2014.
LibraryThing member Limelite
I was unable to finish this novel because I found the hero a tiresome misanthrope and the storyline predictable. I also felt cheated because my understanding was this was a humorous and whimsical novel. I appreciate humor. I enjoy whimsy. But I don't like to have to "live" with a protagonist who
Admittedly, the schtick of having an identity created by an anonymous stranger on the Internet rather than having one's identity stolen intrigued me. However, not enough to keep me turning the pages to the bitter end. Besides, the book gave off a faint aroma of being "borrowed" from a previous novel I have read, Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question. Similar protagonists, similar themes. I didn't like "Finkler," but I finished it.. Any possibility of the thrill of the new being found in Ferris' novel is gone.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Show More
appreciates little or nothing in life other than his own opinion. And I was getting annoyed with some of the literary acrobatics performed by the author in order, it seemed to me, to be Post-Modern and "with it" in some kind of insider New York way. Ho-hum.Admittedly, the schtick of having an identity created by an anonymous stranger on the Internet rather than having one's identity stolen intrigued me. However, not enough to keep me turning the pages to the bitter end. Besides, the book gave off a faint aroma of being "borrowed" from a previous novel I have read, Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question. Similar protagonists, similar themes. I didn't like "Finkler," but I finished it.. Any possibility of the thrill of the new being found in Ferris' novel is gone.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Show Less
LibraryThing member eachurch
There were many parts of this book which made me laugh out loud. Others parts (the fake history parts) went on too long. Overall, a marvelous book which tackles some very big questions in a very funny way.
LibraryThing member chrisblocker
Dr. Paul O'Rourke, DDS, is one of those characters you can't help but love to hate. And hate to love. He is such a curmudgeon. When O'Rourke is not busy making feeble attempts at normal conversation or getting lost in thoughts while seeing a patient, he is often enveloped in the most hilarious of
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour got off to a surprisingly good start. With the humor and depth of O'Rourke's character and the intrigue of who is stealing his identity and why, this book was so much fun. And then... it wasn't. If you regularly read my reviews, you know the theme in the last few weeks: a book starts with so much potential, then somewhere along the way it becomes something else completely different (ie, The Bone Clocks, Your Face in Mine). When I mentioned this to my wife (“mentioned” may be better substituted by “ranted in an O'Rourke fashion”), she said she believed Attention Deficit Disorder was the culprit. Maybe. But such a diagnosis seems to me mild for someone who takes a hilarious and intriguing book and makes it convoluted and tiresome. For all of O'Rourke's disdain for religion, the second half of To Rise Again at a Decent Hour becomes about nothing but religion (with a sprinkling of Red Sox baseball throughout).
Would I recommend To Rise Again at a Decent Hour? For those who love character development or a wonderfully drawn character, yes. Fortunately character is important to me, so I liked the book a little more than some. For those who like humor? Maybe. It certainly is populated with its funny moments, but the second half definitely drags. For users of hand lotion? Spread it on thick and turn the pages with care. For everyone else? Probably not. Even though the idea of the plot is interesting, I don't think it's developed enough to keep most people's attention. Not only that, but is it really supposed to make sense? I'm still not clear on why those who stole O'Rourke's identity did so. It seems other more logical options could have presented themselves.
Then again, I have to consider the improvement of my own dental hygiene since reading this book. Would I recommend To Rise Again at a Decent Hour? Absolutely. And I've a great big emoticon with huge pearly whites to back me up.
Show More
rants about very important matters, such as emoticons and hand lotion. O'Rourke is a very interesting person to observe as his psychosis is fascinating and his contradictory views of various subjects are irritatingly entertaining. Add to plot the fact that someone wants to steal the identity of O'Rourke and you've got a very engaging read.To Rise Again at a Decent Hour got off to a surprisingly good start. With the humor and depth of O'Rourke's character and the intrigue of who is stealing his identity and why, this book was so much fun. And then... it wasn't. If you regularly read my reviews, you know the theme in the last few weeks: a book starts with so much potential, then somewhere along the way it becomes something else completely different (ie, The Bone Clocks, Your Face in Mine). When I mentioned this to my wife (“mentioned” may be better substituted by “ranted in an O'Rourke fashion”), she said she believed Attention Deficit Disorder was the culprit. Maybe. But such a diagnosis seems to me mild for someone who takes a hilarious and intriguing book and makes it convoluted and tiresome. For all of O'Rourke's disdain for religion, the second half of To Rise Again at a Decent Hour becomes about nothing but religion (with a sprinkling of Red Sox baseball throughout).
Would I recommend To Rise Again at a Decent Hour? For those who love character development or a wonderfully drawn character, yes. Fortunately character is important to me, so I liked the book a little more than some. For those who like humor? Maybe. It certainly is populated with its funny moments, but the second half definitely drags. For users of hand lotion? Spread it on thick and turn the pages with care. For everyone else? Probably not. Even though the idea of the plot is interesting, I don't think it's developed enough to keep most people's attention. Not only that, but is it really supposed to make sense? I'm still not clear on why those who stole O'Rourke's identity did so. It seems other more logical options could have presented themselves.
Then again, I have to consider the improvement of my own dental hygiene since reading this book. Would I recommend To Rise Again at a Decent Hour? Absolutely. And I've a great big emoticon with huge pearly whites to back me up.
Show Less
LibraryThing member randalrh
Joshua Ferris takes a very unhappy protagonist and gives him what he needs, but not all at once and mostly without him noticing. This novel shares a workplace dynamic with Then We Came to the End, which makes me think Ferris wishes he had a real job, but the workplace in this novel is as intimate
Show More
as the other was vague. There is a search for meaning and a fringe religion and dueling online presences and people who are there for the protagonist but just not quite the right people in the right way, but mostly there’s Ferris bringing it all together and making the most of it. The book is alternately hilarious and maddening, but altogether worth the read. Show Less
LibraryThing member Eesil
I won this book on Goodreads. I really enjoyed this book -- primarily for the writing. The main character Ferris created was pitch perfect in his cringe making self delusions and sincerity. His inner musings were at times brilliant. It is quite a feat to make a dentist into such an interesting,
Show More
poignant and irritating character. These aspects of Ferris' book more than made up for the fact that at times I found the religious struggle in the book unnecessary and uninteresting. I plan to go out and find Ferris' earlier novels. Show Less
LibraryThing member bodachliath
This is a very enjoyable but rather strange book. Ostensibly the comic story of a New York dentist's mid-life crisis, it addresses much deeper questions of religion, family, identity and history, as well as baseball and dentistry.
LibraryThing member lisalangford
Paul O'Rourke is the main character and narrator. He's a dentist who has some social awkwardness issues. He also believes in flossing.
Paul struggles with his relationships. He's a good dentist, even if he gets sidetracked a little with baseball and his me-machine (his smartphone). His world is
I really liked that Paul narrated. I love it when a main character has a unique, believable, and fun voice and personality.
I didn't love the whole identity struggle with his possible ancient family history. But Paul, dealing with his office staff, the Red Sox, and the Ulm issue, carried the book for me.
Paul struggles with his relationships. He's a good dentist, even if he gets sidetracked a little with baseball and his me-machine (his smartphone). His world is
Show More
affected when he discovers that someone has created a website and social media accounts about him and his dental office, and makes comments purporting to be from him. I really liked that Paul narrated. I love it when a main character has a unique, believable, and fun voice and personality.
I didn't love the whole identity struggle with his possible ancient family history. But Paul, dealing with his office staff, the Red Sox, and the Ulm issue, carried the book for me.
Show Less
LibraryThing member hhornblower
I feel I should like this book more than I actually do. I can't really explain it. It just feels too light and breezy for my taste. It's not a bad book, just nothing too special.
LibraryThing member vancouverdeb
The main narrator was so repetitive in his thoughts I was unable to finish this book, which is very unusual for me. I made it to page 110 before I cast it aside . Fair warning.
LibraryThing member alexrichman
A great book can inspire you to be a better person. This one should at least inspire you to floss more. A very funny meditation on what it is to believe or doubt; win or lose; brush or not brush. The mystery at the plot's centre comes and goes without ever being satisfactorily resolved - but the
Show More
wit flows more freely than in Ferris's first two novels. A must-read for any Jewish atheists, or sports fans. Or dentists. Show Less
LibraryThing member nivramkoorb
I have read all 3 of Joshua Ferris's novels. If you have never read him, then I suggest you read his first "And then we came to an end" before you read his new one. The plot revolves around a dentist Paul who is successful but depressed. Ferris is just a great writer when it comes to description
Show More
and humor. The strongest part of the book is when we see Paul in his dealings with his staff and his patients. However, Ferris seeks a more lofty goal in his book so uses an identity theft type issue to lead us into musings about religion and searching for meaning in the world. This part of the book is little too detailed and keeps the overall quality of the book down a bit. He does a great job of putting our connection to the electronic digital world in perspective(a smart phone is a me-machine). He touches on enough issues to keep you interested. If you have never read Joshua Ferris then go out and get a book by him. A very talented write Show Less
LibraryThing member everfresh1
Very well written story with elements of absurd on meaning of life and religion. Funny just enough. Excellent depiction of characters that are easily recognizable.
LibraryThing member Pickiej
There were parts of the book that were funny and interesting. But also parts that I thought were boring. It was hard getting interested although I did about halfway through. I think this required more concentration than I gave it.
LibraryThing member froxgirl
As confusing a novel of a man's utter failure as has ever been written, Joshua Ferris is still an author of immense wit and insight. Paul O'Rourke, Park Avenue DDS, lives his life for the Boston Red Sox (even during the historic 2011 late season collapse) and for his very sporatic and ultimately
In the midst of a plot that dissects his vain attempts to become part of the families of his inamoratas, Catholic and Jewish, Paul is told that he is an Ulm, an ancient remnant of the Amalekites, who surrendered in battle to the Israelites and were mostly wiped out.
Amongst the Ulm-ness are hilarious tales of dental patients, rabbi-and-priest jokes, and a most fascinating way of writing dialogue:
I'd tell her, she'd say, "What is the point of...
I'd tell her, she'd say, "Yes, I agree...
In other words, the only part of the conversation that the reader sees is the reply. But it still works and is so clever and really amusing!
I liked Ferris's first book Then We Came To The End the best, but he is always engaging and enjoyable.
Show More
unfulfilling love affairs - until a website in his name appears, without his approval or contributions. In the midst of a plot that dissects his vain attempts to become part of the families of his inamoratas, Catholic and Jewish, Paul is told that he is an Ulm, an ancient remnant of the Amalekites, who surrendered in battle to the Israelites and were mostly wiped out.
Amongst the Ulm-ness are hilarious tales of dental patients, rabbi-and-priest jokes, and a most fascinating way of writing dialogue:
I'd tell her, she'd say, "What is the point of...
I'd tell her, she'd say, "Yes, I agree...
In other words, the only part of the conversation that the reader sees is the reply. But it still works and is so clever and really amusing!
I liked Ferris's first book Then We Came To The End the best, but he is always engaging and enjoyable.
Show Less
LibraryThing member nbmars
Paul O’Rourke is a chronically depressed, misanthropic, but conscientious and successful dentist on Park Avenue in New York in this amusing if uneven meditation on life in the 21st Century.
As Paul says in the very beginning, he encourages his patients to floss, even though there’s no
"Flossing prevents periodontal disease and can extend life up to seven years. It’s also time consuming and a general pain in the ass. That’s not the dentist talking. That’s the guy who comes home, four or five drinks in him, what a great evening, ha-has all around, and the minute he takes up the floss, says to himself, What’s the point? In the end, the heart stops, the cells die, the neurons go dark, bacteria consumes the pancreas, flies lay their eggs, beetles chew through tendons and ligaments, the skin turns to cottage cheese, the bones dissolve, and the teeth float away with the tide.”
Paul tries very hard to find meaning in his life, but nothing turns out to be “everything” for him - whatever and whoever he tries to think of as “everything” turns out to have weaknesses, flaws, or inconsistencies, or worse yet, threatens to be something or someone he might love, and therefore might lose. As we learn early on, Paul’s beloved father committed suicide when Paul was nine, and he has really never recovered. Although he spends his life looking for something to love, he always backs off whenever it threatens to work out. Even the Red Sox have let him down - they used to be a team you could count on to lose, and now they have started winning.
Since he thinks he desperately wants to be “sucked up, subsumed into something greater, historical, eternal,” he naturally gravitates toward the Jews. They form, he thinks, “a tightly coiled heart of unified purpose whose signal achievement . . . was a defense against loss.” Just what he is looking for. But it turns out being Jewish implies a belief in God, and that is something Paul just can’t manage.
But even if Paul can't quite grab onto religion, it grabs onto him instead. Paul becomes the victim of a bizarre online identity theft, in which his identity hijacker challenges him about faith. The Internet-Paul explains that even doubters have their own religion, calling themselves the Ulms, and in fact it is from these doubters that morality is derived:
"Our moral foundation is built on the fundamental law that God (if there is a God, which there is not) would not wish to be worshipped in the perverted and misconceived ways of human beings, with their righteous violence and prejudices and hypocrisies. Doubt, or cease being moral.”
[The book begins, it should be noted, with a quote from Job refashioned in modern language. Job, of course, is the Bible book most cited by those who doubt, as well as by those who question the association of morality with belief in God.]
In the end, Paul finally finds something he can believe in that won’t let him down, and it is will strike a certain group of readers as hilarious.
Evaluation: This book has a lot to recommend it; it is thought-provoking and very, very funny in parts. It also serves as an astute commentary on the modern search for meaning through material goods and superficial online connections. But Ferris loses his pacing and narrative momentum when he goes into too much depth about the history and doctrines of the Ulm cult. A few additional subplots also receive too much attention, muddying up the flow of the story rather than contributing much. I am impressed with the author though, and I think with better editing, he could be as rewarding to read as Jonathan Tropper, of whom Ferris reminded me.
This would make a great book club selection.
As Paul says in the very beginning, he encourages his patients to floss, even though there’s no
Show More
point:"Flossing prevents periodontal disease and can extend life up to seven years. It’s also time consuming and a general pain in the ass. That’s not the dentist talking. That’s the guy who comes home, four or five drinks in him, what a great evening, ha-has all around, and the minute he takes up the floss, says to himself, What’s the point? In the end, the heart stops, the cells die, the neurons go dark, bacteria consumes the pancreas, flies lay their eggs, beetles chew through tendons and ligaments, the skin turns to cottage cheese, the bones dissolve, and the teeth float away with the tide.”
Paul tries very hard to find meaning in his life, but nothing turns out to be “everything” for him - whatever and whoever he tries to think of as “everything” turns out to have weaknesses, flaws, or inconsistencies, or worse yet, threatens to be something or someone he might love, and therefore might lose. As we learn early on, Paul’s beloved father committed suicide when Paul was nine, and he has really never recovered. Although he spends his life looking for something to love, he always backs off whenever it threatens to work out. Even the Red Sox have let him down - they used to be a team you could count on to lose, and now they have started winning.
Since he thinks he desperately wants to be “sucked up, subsumed into something greater, historical, eternal,” he naturally gravitates toward the Jews. They form, he thinks, “a tightly coiled heart of unified purpose whose signal achievement . . . was a defense against loss.” Just what he is looking for. But it turns out being Jewish implies a belief in God, and that is something Paul just can’t manage.
But even if Paul can't quite grab onto religion, it grabs onto him instead. Paul becomes the victim of a bizarre online identity theft, in which his identity hijacker challenges him about faith. The Internet-Paul explains that even doubters have their own religion, calling themselves the Ulms, and in fact it is from these doubters that morality is derived:
"Our moral foundation is built on the fundamental law that God (if there is a God, which there is not) would not wish to be worshipped in the perverted and misconceived ways of human beings, with their righteous violence and prejudices and hypocrisies. Doubt, or cease being moral.”
[The book begins, it should be noted, with a quote from Job refashioned in modern language. Job, of course, is the Bible book most cited by those who doubt, as well as by those who question the association of morality with belief in God.]
In the end, Paul finally finds something he can believe in that won’t let him down, and it is will strike a certain group of readers as hilarious.
Evaluation: This book has a lot to recommend it; it is thought-provoking and very, very funny in parts. It also serves as an astute commentary on the modern search for meaning through material goods and superficial online connections. But Ferris loses his pacing and narrative momentum when he goes into too much depth about the history and doctrines of the Ulm cult. A few additional subplots also receive too much attention, muddying up the flow of the story rather than contributing much. I am impressed with the author though, and I think with better editing, he could be as rewarding to read as Jonathan Tropper, of whom Ferris reminded me.
This would make a great book club selection.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jillrhudy
I thought it was going to be, in the words of Wodehouse, "one long scream from start to finish." Certainly the first 100 pages nearly lived up to the Stephen King plug on the back, which said it was almost "the Catch-22 of dentistry." I hugely enjoyed first-person narrator Paul O'Rourke's
However, Paul went on some kind of religious journey, despite being an atheist. These sorts of pilgrimages invariably bore me to death, and I struggled through some very long passages of holy writings from some ethnic religious cult called the Ulms (a bizarre dental patient of Paul's insisted that Paul was an Ulm, then stole Paul's identity and created a web/social media presence for him to spread the Ulmish gospel in Paul's name). About three-fourths of the way through I stopped laughing and began puzzling over what, exactly, was supposed to be happening to Paul and what some random, purportedly also-Ulmish billionaire had to do with it.
As with so many humorous novels, it spun out of control just after the middle, and not in a funny way which suggested the author had the narrative well in hand. The ending seemed odd, as in, "Ah, so that's where Paul was headed." The ending wasn't forced, exactly, but it didn't seem to grow sensibly from a denouement. The latter fourth of the book was pretty much a muddle.
I think the author was trying to get at something profound about a human need for something akin to a religious tradition or a "people" to belong to without necessarily subscribing to a religion--the Jewish tradition being the best of these, since it is an ethnic tradition. I am not sure what that something was that the author was trying to say, however.
Show More
curmudgeonly interior monologue and his hilarious propensity to find something negative about everything and everyone. Paul's take on technology and the internet, in particular, was hysterically funny. High humor, too, was his take on codependent relationships, for which his terminology was too profane to repeat in a polite book review.However, Paul went on some kind of religious journey, despite being an atheist. These sorts of pilgrimages invariably bore me to death, and I struggled through some very long passages of holy writings from some ethnic religious cult called the Ulms (a bizarre dental patient of Paul's insisted that Paul was an Ulm, then stole Paul's identity and created a web/social media presence for him to spread the Ulmish gospel in Paul's name). About three-fourths of the way through I stopped laughing and began puzzling over what, exactly, was supposed to be happening to Paul and what some random, purportedly also-Ulmish billionaire had to do with it.
As with so many humorous novels, it spun out of control just after the middle, and not in a funny way which suggested the author had the narrative well in hand. The ending seemed odd, as in, "Ah, so that's where Paul was headed." The ending wasn't forced, exactly, but it didn't seem to grow sensibly from a denouement. The latter fourth of the book was pretty much a muddle.
I think the author was trying to get at something profound about a human need for something akin to a religious tradition or a "people" to belong to without necessarily subscribing to a religion--the Jewish tradition being the best of these, since it is an ethnic tradition. I am not sure what that something was that the author was trying to say, however.
Show Less
Awards
Booker Prize (Longlist — 2014)
National Jewish Book Award (Winner — Fiction — 2014)
Dylan Thomas Prize (Winner — 2014)
NPR: Books We Love (2014)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2014)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (Fiction — 2014)
Lariat Adult Fiction Reading List (Selection — 2015)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2014-05-13
Physical description
352 p.; 5.16 inches
ISBN
0141047380 / 9780141047386
Similar in this library
DDC/MDS
| 813.6 |