5.0 out of 5 stars Beats the s*** out of Sally Rooney

m. · 28 May 2022

In this book autobiography, fiction, and philosophy are interwoven in a compulsively readable way by an alcoholic writer wandering through Europe's great cultural centers including Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and, er, Rosslare. Unlike that other icon of contemporary Irish letters, Sally Rooney, who also writes about nihilistic postmoderns trying to find themselves, you don't come to the end and think "I see what you did there". Doyle's writing is deeper, more soulful, and more ambitious, opening up vistas of transcendence beyond getting into a woke creative writing program at NYU like Connell Waldron in Normal Sheeple.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great but a misprint

D.O. · 27 January 2020

I loved This Is The Ritual and I'm really enjoying Threshold so far.However, sadly there's quite a major misprint in my Kindle edition of this book.The chapter 'Nightclub' appears twice in succession - at the 58% mark and the 65% mark.So the book is 7% shorter than I thought.Initially I combed through the two chapters and compared them to see if this was some kind of Rob Doyle stylistic device (which I wouldn't put past him) - maybe something like commas appearing in slightly different locations, words in a very slightly different order.But no, I'm 99% certain it's just an error - please sort it out - this book deserves better than that.

5.0 out of 5 stars Provoking

T.H. · 9 July 2022

The manner it’s written in is something I’ve never read before, challenging yet exciting and makes your think about how you’re living or have lived your youth

5.0 out of 5 stars Just great

J. · 1 September 2020

Absorbing and immersive. I enjoyed the trip, pure escapism in one sense, yet relatable and triggered memories of times and places. Great read.

4.0 out of 5 stars Geoff Dyer's Irish lineage

A.C. · 9 April 2022

If you have read a lot of Geoff Dyer you will enjoy the many call-outs to his work here, which made it all the more fun for me. Writing like this is liberating and generous, and simply good to be around!

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best of his generation.

C. · 20 January 2021

It's unfiltered, exactly as good lit should be.

1.0 out of 5 stars Wannabe Beat goes off the shallow end

p. · 18 May 2022

This guy is my guilty pleasure. I admired his book choice in Autobibliography so thought I'd give him a second chance.He's tried to live a Burroughsian life in the hope it will give him something to write about, but he's incredibly unhip and white-bread.On the plus side, initially there are many unintentionally hilarious bits:"Some hours later, sated with wonder, bliss and insight, I got up and walked slowly back along the empty miles of the beach, to my friends, who were cooking sausages on the stove." or"The friends with whom I gathered to drink ayahuasca every weekend at an artist's house in the hills outside Bogota were professors, writers, artists and scholars, mostly in middle age, who had been deeply involved with the experiential, scientific and philopsophical study of yage for many years. The ceremonies were always overseen by their friend Crispin..."Lord, it's funny. If only it was a parody.

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant

S.B.C. · 1 May 2020

Witty, self-absorbed, hilarious, chemically (un)balanced, moving, globe-trotting, a riot of a book about men, women, history, literature, travel, philosophy, drug-taking, clubbing, love and seduction. Literature should move, it should shock, it should annoy, it should educate, it should do all of the things that this book does, in spades, with style and brio and vigour.Don't miss it, and you'll be glad you followed my advice.

Brilliantly written and fascinating

M.B. · 18 November 2024

One of the best books I've read this year. Mind-blowing in its ability to suck you in. Extremely well-written.

Sex drugs and writing

S. · 20 March 2020

Rob Doyle has written a book in which a character called Rob Doyle recounts episodes of his life while endeavouring to write a chunk of prose about things that may or may not, have happened in his life. Clear now? It’s the life of an intelligent man trained in philosophy, now on the wrong side of thirty, who is incredibly literary, who has taken a lot of drugs and who regards his homeland of Ireland as depressing and to be avoided. Hence his peripatetic drift round the world: South America, Sicily, Berlin, Paris, the Costa Brava etc. In these places he takes ayahuasca, magic mushrooms, LSD, cocaine. At the end of the book, it’s DMT, the active ingredient of ayahuasca, and he writes of the impossibility of finding words to convey what happens when the doors of perception are blown open. He interacts with a lot of arty intellectual people who live lives quite radical to your everyday suburbanite. He makes pilgrimages to the places where the authors he finds interesting once lived, always with notebook in hand. He pees in the mouth of a grateful recipient in a Berlin club. He ponders his shortcomings - “I am full of hate”. He has sex, or wants sex, with various women though with age comes a calming of the libido and a willingness to befriend women. He analyses himself and the culture he inhabits, uses words you’ve never come across before and also talks in a direct, down to earth way so you know he’s not precious. So all in all, really interesting. There’s renewed interest in hallucinogens now and the possibility of experiencing wider realities than our little minds currently fathom.

An interesting, honest, and articulate mind to inhabit

J.C. · 10 September 2020

One of the most enjoyable books I've read in a while. An auto-fictional psychedelic odyssey beset with the challenges of being too smart for one's own good, in a world where the notion of "good" may or may not exist.

A mixed bag

J.L. · 25 April 2020

A readable, but somewhat formless “novel,” assembled from the author’s own fairly privileged seeming life experiences, traveling the world, writing articles and books and teaching English. The author’s excessive self-involvement is sometimes a bit annoying, ymmv. Basically the book recounts a random series of drug experiences, the aftermath of failed relationships, and the drifting life of somebody who has made it to his mid-30s while seeming to live shockingly carefree. The most interesting sections of the book for me are the lengthy obsessive sections focused mostly on other books, as Doyle recounts his experiences on the trail of Roberto Bolaño, Georges Bataille and E.M. Cioran, sections that put me in mind of Patti Smith (who he also mentions). The least interesting sections deal with contemporary art, where he visits the Documenta art festival, then an exhibition in Paris of some kind of work by the artist Tino Sehgal. Some passages in the book I found amusing, and I may have even laughed out loud two or three times, but other sections were fairly dull, and occasionally wikipedia-like. The definition of a mixed bag.

Contagious

R.l.R. · 29 May 2020

The author has totally contaged me with his puzzlement! This is a work that matters.