Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1988.
Description
Selected for a Pharos Editions' reissue by T.C. Boyle and featuring a foreword by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Pharos Editions is proud to announce the long awaited revival of William Kotzwinkle's cult comic classic,The Fan Man. And just in time it is, too, man. If you haven't read it you are in for a rare and wondrous treat. If you have, isn't it about time you returned that copy you borrowed from your best pal Pete back in '74 and replace it with this stunning new edition, man? I am all alone in my pad, man, my piled-up-to-the-ceiling-with-junk pad. Piled with sheet music, with piles of garbage bags bursting with rubbish and encrusted frying pans piled on the floor, embedded with unnameable flecks of putrefied wretchedness in grease. My pad, man, my own little Lower East Side Horse Badorties pad. . . . . . .And so it begins Badorties' narration of his down-at-the-heels drug-fueled befuddlement in New York City circa 1970.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member absurdeist
Man, I dig The Fan Man, man, the way I dug Spinal Tap, man. The Fan Man is Spinal Tap for hippies, man. A spoof about hippies, man, or one hippie, Horse Badorties, man. The book is a raucous, politically incorrect, purposely offensive and misogynistic, hysterical satire, man. It is appalling, yet
He uses the word "man" in every utterance, every sentence, man, the way Valley Girls used to use the word "like," man. Like all the time, man. Like, way too much, man. Like it is so not bitchen, man, how often "man" is used, man, in William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man. Like he never stops saying the word "man" in every sentence of the entire novel, man, so that after a while, man, reading about Horse Badorties and his goomba-ish absurd shenanigans in The Fan Man, man, you find yourself starting to talk like him not just inside your head, man, but to your wife and kids, man. To your dog, man. It's so sad, man, talking like that around the house nonstop, man.
Horse Badorties' hippie vernacular, man, becomes damn near impossible, man, to get out of your fucking head, man, once its gotten inside you, the fucking infection of hippie inflection, man, like some hippie-language-virus, man, gone global. That voice of his, of Horse Badorties, man, gets stuck inside you, man, just like that wretched Taylor Swift song gets stuck inside you once you've heard it even just once, man. Weeeeee. Are never ever ever ever ever, getting back together, weeeeeee, are never ever ever ever EVER. See what I mean, man? Book is a far out trip, man. Gonna heed The Fan Man's advice, man, of Horse Badorties, and go buy me some "Peruvian mango skins," man, to like cleanse the inorganic toxins out of my aura, man, so I'll only receive the purest, most precious and positively freshest vibes from the cosmos, man. You dig, man?
Show More
so appealing, man. That Horse Badorties thinks he runs a music academy that is just a front for luring fifteen year old "chicks" he yearns to score with, man, back at his disgusting pad, man (when he has a pad and isn't homeless, man) is the appalling aspect, man, while watching him act so clumsily and cluelessly that he can't complete the deal with the underage chickadees, man, is the appealing aspect, man, when he foils himself in his endearing stupidity, man. Horse Badorties is so clueless, man, he doesn't know he's a clueless man. He uses the word "man" in every utterance, every sentence, man, the way Valley Girls used to use the word "like," man. Like all the time, man. Like, way too much, man. Like it is so not bitchen, man, how often "man" is used, man, in William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man. Like he never stops saying the word "man" in every sentence of the entire novel, man, so that after a while, man, reading about Horse Badorties and his goomba-ish absurd shenanigans in The Fan Man, man, you find yourself starting to talk like him not just inside your head, man, but to your wife and kids, man. To your dog, man. It's so sad, man, talking like that around the house nonstop, man.
Horse Badorties' hippie vernacular, man, becomes damn near impossible, man, to get out of your fucking head, man, once its gotten inside you, the fucking infection of hippie inflection, man, like some hippie-language-virus, man, gone global. That voice of his, of Horse Badorties, man, gets stuck inside you, man, just like that wretched Taylor Swift song gets stuck inside you once you've heard it even just once, man. Weeeeee. Are never ever ever ever ever, getting back together, weeeeeee, are never ever ever ever EVER. See what I mean, man? Book is a far out trip, man. Gonna heed The Fan Man's advice, man, of Horse Badorties, and go buy me some "Peruvian mango skins," man, to like cleanse the inorganic toxins out of my aura, man, so I'll only receive the purest, most precious and positively freshest vibes from the cosmos, man. You dig, man?
Show Less
LibraryThing member SimoneSimone
Nothing like it in comic literature. Inspired, man. Weird, man. Wild, man.
LibraryThing member kylekatz
1979. This book was really good, man. The main character, Horse Badorties, is a drugged out hippie with ADD, constantly smoking the 'healthful herb'. Follow him through the Village, the Lower East Side, The Bowery, Chinatown and Van Cortland Park in the Bronx, as he flows in constant synchronicity
Show More
with the tao of life, following his crazed dreams one hundred percent. It was not very compelling, as any one page would tell you the story of the whole book. Not much plot, just a continual drug-induced brain patter. He also collects mountains of garbage in his 'pads' and calls it art, to which I can relate, as if he were a more perfect me. Show Less
LibraryThing member copyedit52
I like this book, which I've read more than once, because of the (pot) head of the faux first person narrator, Horse Badorties, and because it accurately coveys the loosey-goosey East Village I recall well, back in the day. I've recommended it a few times, and will recommend it again. It would
Show More
deserve five stars if not for the regrettable rape scene, which I like to believe the young Kotzwinkle would have redone as an older, wiser head. Not everything is funny, after all. Show Less
LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
My first thought of The Fan Man was what drug induced craziness is this? It also happened to be my last thought when I finished Fan Man. It is chaotic and garbled. To say that I didn't like it is not quite accurate. I get closer to the truth when I admit I didn't understand it. Nancy Pearl
The Fan Man is also Horse Badorties. He is a slob, obsessed with 15 year old "chicks" he can introduce into his "love choir", fans (the Japanese hand-held folding kind) and phones. At one part of the book he spends an entire night in a phone booth making random phone calls. At first I thought the obsession with 15 year olds was a metaphor for something else, something spiritual - especially in the context of a love choir. All in all, I think it's safe to say I didn't get this book.
Show More
described this as a book about the Age of Aquarius and maybe that's the problem - despite being born under the sign of Aquarius, I don't get the Age.The Fan Man is also Horse Badorties. He is a slob, obsessed with 15 year old "chicks" he can introduce into his "love choir", fans (the Japanese hand-held folding kind) and phones. At one part of the book he spends an entire night in a phone booth making random phone calls. At first I thought the obsession with 15 year olds was a metaphor for something else, something spiritual - especially in the context of a love choir. All in all, I think it's safe to say I didn't get this book.
Show Less
LibraryThing member RodV
I haven't laughed this gleefully at a book since I read Gravity's Rainbow (yes, I'm one of those people). Horse Badorties is one of the most singularly unique and memorable characters in literature, reminiscent of later free-spirited slackers like The Dude and Kramer, but with his own particular
Show More
brand of lunacy. If he were a real person, Hoarders could devote an entire season to him, and his overriding obsession is finding 15-year-old girls to comprise his "Love Chorus," and bringing medieval church music (set to the pitch of Japanese handheld, battery-powered electric fans, no less) to the masses via a nationally televised concert, but his ADD tendencies and perpetually stoned headspace get in the way (although surprisingly not that much). So, in other words, it's a pretty weird book, but funny, very funny. And I'll never look at the word "dorky" the same way again. Show Less
LibraryThing member SebastianHagelstein
One of my new favorite books. I like the craziness and insanity and how Horse Badorties does what he wants. The Uncle Skulky and T-Rex faces are two of the best scenes.
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
This book is on the 1001 Books to Read before you Die list and I suppose I can see why it is there. It was written in 1974 but really I would say it dates back to the free love and drug hippy culture of the late 1960s. Horse Badorties, the central character, stands for all the stoned drop outs from
Horse lives in New York City and he intends to have a unique musical concert in Tompkins Square with a choir of 15 year old chicks (i.e. young girls), drums, a saxophone player and battery operated fans for everyone. He even talks someone at NBC into filming it. He has other ideas for the concert but some things, like a decrepit school bus, don't make it to the final chapter. T. C. Boyle calls Horse Badorties the Don Quixote of modern time albeit without Sancho Panza and that seems appropriate. Horse may not have windmills to tilt at but other things get in his way.
You just have to laugh out loud at some of the scrapes Horse gets himself into. And other things make you shake your head. I'm glad I read this but I'm also glad that it wasn't any longer than 147 pages.
Show More
mainstream society and he does it marvelously. I can't say I would have wanted to have anything to do with him but he would have been fun to observe from a distance.Horse lives in New York City and he intends to have a unique musical concert in Tompkins Square with a choir of 15 year old chicks (i.e. young girls), drums, a saxophone player and battery operated fans for everyone. He even talks someone at NBC into filming it. He has other ideas for the concert but some things, like a decrepit school bus, don't make it to the final chapter. T. C. Boyle calls Horse Badorties the Don Quixote of modern time albeit without Sancho Panza and that seems appropriate. Horse may not have windmills to tilt at but other things get in his way.
You just have to laugh out loud at some of the scrapes Horse gets himself into. And other things make you shake your head. I'm glad I read this but I'm also glad that it wasn't any longer than 147 pages.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1974
Physical description
19 cm
ISBN
3499145928 / 9783499145926