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Ebook245 pages3 hours
Half Empty: Essays
By David Rakoff
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this ebook
In this deeply smart and sneakily poignant collection of essays, the bestselling author of Fraud and Don’t Get Too Comfortable makes an inspired case for always assuming the worst—because then you’ll never be disappointed.
Whether he’s taking on pop culture phenomena with Oscar Wilde-worthy wit or dealing with personal tragedy, Rakoff’s sharp observations and humorist’s flair for the absurd will have you positively reveling in the untapped power of negativity.
Whether he’s taking on pop culture phenomena with Oscar Wilde-worthy wit or dealing with personal tragedy, Rakoff’s sharp observations and humorist’s flair for the absurd will have you positively reveling in the untapped power of negativity.
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Reviews for Half Empty
Rating: 3.778145744370861 out of 5 stars
4/5
151 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautiful personal essays. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, and sometime both at the same time. I can't recall being more moved by a book. The audio was read by the author and really worked for me, but I expect this would be as good in written form.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A collection of articles and essays by David Rakoff on subjects including a visit to a porn expo, the complicated relationship between Jews and pork, and the way people seem to regard him as a safe receptacle for their secrets and confessions. I have such mixed feelings about Rakoff's writing. My first impression was that it was intelligent and fairly clever, but also annoyingly pretentious. As I read on, though, my feelings softened a bit, and I began to appreciate the glimpses of human vulnerability visible underneath all that determinedly witty cynicism and gosh-aren't-I-so-neurotic self-deprecation. The final essay, about his diagnosis with a rare form of cancer, had an especially moving and honest feel about it, made all the more painful by the fact that I went into it knowing that the cancer had eventually taken his life. That piece was, for me, by far the best in the collection, in its own sad way. But as for the rest of it... I don't know. Rakoff, despite the fact that he's originally from Toronto, writes with this sort of uber-Manhattanite sensibility that I have trouble connecting to. He's sort of like a gay Woody Allen. (Y'know, minus the skeevy aspects.) And, just like Woody Allen, I can sort of see how many people might think he's hilarious and brilliant, but for me personally, his stuff is probably best encountered in small doses.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dunno. I enjoyed listening to this while I was listening, and found much of his writing and phrasing clever--but I don't know how much of it I'll remember even a week from now.
This could say more about me than it does his writing. It's nothing personal, Mr. Rakoff. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Funny, grim, cynical, and deeply enjoyable this set of essays and memoirs examines the pros and cons of pessimism and optimism.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I love Rakoff's style. He's articulate, witty, and self-effacing. He's got a larger vocabulary than I have, although not so large that I had to use a dictionary. I knew the meaning of all of the words, I just don't use them on a daily basis. This left me feeling alternately pleased that I know the words and slightly concerned that the fact that I don't use them might be proof that I'm not as smart as I think I am. He gives voice to many of the fears I have about myself and how people perceive me. I wonder if I met him if we'd be friends or if we'd just annoy each other.
I enjoyed all of the essays in this book, but my favorites were the first (which dealt with Julie Norem's book about "defensive pessimism," The Positive Power of Negative Thinking) and the one about Utah. It was pleasant to hear that someone else shares my experience of Utah as a place of an oppressive number of possibilities. I'm the kind of person who likes CSAs not so much because I like to buy local produce, but because I like my options to be limited so it's easier for me to decide what to cook for dinner. Utah is wide open geographically (except for the mountains, which are vast in and of themselves and so not much help in limiting me) and was founded by people who rode out here buoyed by optimism, bent on discovering/creating the Promised Land. I find this to be a lot of pressure.
The only problem I had with the book was the cover art. Every time my sixteen-month-old found the book lying around, he saw the cartoon animals and thought it was a book for him. He would ask me to read it and then get very, very angry at me when I didn't comply. While it's kind of cute and funny when a toddler throws himself on the floor and cries, it does get a little old after a while. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I really had high hopes for this collection, but I found most of the entries long-winded and boring. There were some funny lines, but I found that I really had to concentrate to keep from skimming through the essays.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Funny, thoughtful, and just plain illuminating essays about... 'stuff'.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Another essay collection, as charming and incisive as ever. The standout is Rakoff’s hilarious negative review of Rent, arguing that the musical Disneyfies New York, AIDS, and the condition of being an artist, stripping out all the truly important features—most notably actually making art. His adventures in various leisure destinations are also fun, packed with tossed-off observations such as, “Like all omniscient machines possessed of benevolent intent but lacking decision-making power, [the voice-activated computer in the high-tech kitchen at Disneyworld] is a she.”
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I don’t generally read nonfiction, but the description of this book won me over. (When I do read it, it’s either quirky memoirs like AJ Jacobs or snarky essays like David Sedaris.)“In this deeply funny (and, no kidding, wise and poignant) book, David examines the realities of our sunny, gosh-everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won’t come true.“The book ranges from the personal to the universal, combining stories both reportorial and from David’s own experiences: the moment when being a tiny child no longer meant adults found him charming but instead meant other children found him a fun target; the perfect late evening in Manhattan when he was young and the city seemed to brim with such possibility that the street shimmered in the moonlight–as he drew closer he realized the streets actually flickered with rats in a feeding frenzy. He also weaves in his usual brand of Oscar Wilde-worthy cultural criticism (the tragedy of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, for instance.”As someone who has ALSO discussed the shenanigans behind the Walk of Fame, I knew I’d have to read this. (Note: anyone can get a star; you just have to pay for it.)If you like snarky, sarcastic essays, you’ll like this book. It’s incredibly witty (and yes, at times wise and poignant) and I literally laughed out loud several times.But I also liked this paragraph:“But here’s the point I want to make about what people say [after you're diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease]. Unless someone looks you in the eye and hisses, `You fucking asshole, I can’t wait until you die of this,’ people are really trying their best. Just like being happy and sad, you will find yourself on both sides of the equation many times over your lifetime, either saying or hearing the wrong thing. Let’s all give each other a pass, shall we?”It’s funny and it’s true. Absolutely recommended. :)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Through the use of a series of occasionally seeming unrelated chapters, Rakoff uses humor, often tongue in cheek and dry, to expose and sometimes demolish our most common reactions to events in our lives. His subject matter often pushes the envelope exposing us to thoughts we might not be comfortable exploring . Do we see the glass half full or half empty? Is it possible to see it as a combination of both? His is a cynical but humorous, approach to life, until the end, when reality hits him full force in the face and he is forced to decide whether to be the eternal optimist, the defeated pessimist or perhaps a hopeful realist.