The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Neon Bible
Book Review: "Forgive me, Mother, for I have Sinned"
Summary: 5 Stars
"I committed suicide, Mom, the one thing you feared the most. The one un-forgettable sin. Unforgivable, too, unless you do confession posthumously, or on Capt. Stormfield's train to heaven.""I left all of you when I went away, but you did not leave me. You were on the train with me. You and Aunt Mae, right? That Aunt Mae was REALLY you, wasn't it? Did I sound a bit like Holden Caulfield, from "Ketchup on the Rye" or what?"
"I wrote it for you, mom, but you know that. Tell me, did it sound a little like it was written by Faulkner? Some compare my style to Tarkington, Steinbeck, young Hemingway or even J. C. Harris in "Free Joe", but I try to replicate persons like Truman Capote Persons, also of "Lucky Dog" town with a little Malamud thrown in."
"It's not hard when you get used to it, and by age 15 I had already gotten used to a lot of things you can not imagine. Did you think those dialogs with teacher Farney were made up?:
'I DO wish that boy in the third
row would STOP leering at me!'
"That boy was me, mom!"
"I miss you, mom. I wish you were on the train with me. Even papa, too. It's so lonely here. And cold. Cold and lonely. Pines flourish in the cold. So do ideals, but is that all there is to life?" I want so badly to kiss her again..."
(I've stopped breathing. Farewell.)
Book Review: A Black Eye for Obsessed Bible Thumpers
Summary: 5 Stars
Small town life in the South during the 1930's and 1940's leaps off the pages of John Kennedy Toole's The Neon Bible. With the Great Depression, the family suffers a financial and social fall from grace when Poppa loses his job. They are forced to move to the fringes of town where rents are cheap; they no longer go to church because they no longer have the money to tithe. Aunt Mae, who had been "on the stage," is the closest thing the church-going town's people can find to a jezebel; never mind that Jesus Christ took Mary Magdalene into his fold. When the preacher comes to take Mother, who is emotionally demented, to a place not mentioned by name but for her own good, David, the protagonist, can no longer stomach the imposed benevolence of the preacher and his oppressive, decreed moral standards that are really his lust for power, conformity to his way of thinking and doing, and censorship - that is, things NOT to his way of thinking and doing. The Neon Bible. It's John Kennedy Toole's gospel truth.Book Review: A Young Man's Differentness Leads to Tragedy
Summary: 4 Stars
This novel was written by John Kennedy Toole when he was sixteen
years old. This long-lost manuscript is about a teenager living
with a mentally ill mother and a morally loose aunt. The boy has
difficulties living in his fundamentalist town due to his poverty,
his family's beliefs and behaviors, and his own differentness.
Ultimately, this causes him significant pain and leads to tragedy.
Book Review: Amazingly precocious novel
Summary: 4 Stars
I read "A Confederacy of Dunces" this past year and was so disappointed when I found out that it was his only novel. Then a friend of mine discovered the "Neon Bible." It took a little while for me to get into it, and I was skeptical about a teenage writer, but the fact that he could write that well at sixteen just goes to show the career he might have had. He had only begun to bloom after 'Confederacy." It's a real tradgedy. Just the fact that both books were from the same writer is an amazing testament to the scope of his capabilities. From stark existentialism to hilarious, tragic comedy. O'Toole was truly a genious.Book Review: An amazing tribute
Summary: 5 Stars
The Neon Bible tells of one boy's struggle to grow up in small-town America during the war years. It paints a picture of a small, claustrophobic world oppressed by narrow religious bigotry that eventually leads the story-teller to find the courage to make decisions that would change his life.A tender, nostalgic, powerful novel written simply but effectively, The Neon Bible evokes emotions that are communicated in clean, direct prose. John Kennedy Toole wrote this book when he was only sixteen. He followed it years later by A Confederacy of Dunces, which was to win him a posthumous Pulitzer Prize. Though I don't believe The Neon Bible can match his brilliant second book, it is still an amazing achievement for a sixteen year old, and clearly demonstrates the true loss suffered by the literary world upon Toole's premature death in 1969.
Most writers, even those who have been writing for years with a modicum of success, would dearly like to be able to pen a novel as powerfully effective as The Neon Bible. It many ways, it makes me think of John Grisham's attempt to break out of the mould when he wrote `A Painted House'. The difference is that Toole touches numerous raw nerves that Grisham does not. (In fairness, Toole could probably never have handled courtroom drama like Grisham!).
If, like me, you enjoy reading books that cover a broad spectrum of topics, The Neon Bible should most definitely be on your book shelf.