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Death & Sex
Mann's writing has been likened to Pynchon's, it often has obtuse, tangental sequences that slide away into nothing unless you're reading at a certain level of concentration. Bu...
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Mann's writing has been likened to Pynchon's, it often has obtuse, tangental sequences that slide away into nothing unless you're reading at a certain level of concentration. But there is far more discipline in this writing than Pynchon's, and despite the deliberate seeming dead-ends, the comparison to Martin Amis is more revealing of style. Mann also handles dialogue far more realistically than Rushtie (another he has been compared to).
Apart from the frequent rock music allusions, the more direct influence on the 'A Free Man' trilogy is McGowan's television series 'The Prisoner'. These books track a character Our Man who exists in a world where he's escaped in the manner of the fantasy that someone locked into a job and marriage has; Disappears, changes or does he? can he? The trilogy of metaphors is about existence, and the struggle to define oneself, even when free to do so.
The middle (or is it the first?) novella 'Death & Sex', is a remarkably concise mini-drama of lives that had a profound impact on the central character Our Man , set years before the other two books. The publisher claims that each book stands alone, and this one certainly does.
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