PositiveTIME[John] proves himself an engrossing, fluid and alarmingly forthcoming writer ... Like John’s songs, Me overflows with whimsical characters, twisted humor, winking self-aggrandizement and stark pathos. True to his spirit, it’s a little silly and over the top, but it’s also an absorbing and unfettered joy ... John is also a notorious gossip, and he fleshes out his well-known story with zany vignettes from behind closed doors—many of which involve some of the biggest stars of the last half century ... If Me has a primary weakness, it’s that John struggles to write about his own accomplishments. His attempts to capture his songwriting process read like recipes ... Conversely, he writes about his failures and challenges with a verve and a cackling glee, even when they are dark and painful ... But John doesn’t just address his failures through flippant punchlines; he also engages in thoughtful self-analysis, putting the blame on both himself and the structures of fame.
Robert Menasse, Trans. by Jamie Bulloch
PositiveTIMEThe 400-page novel, set primarily in the E.U.’s de facto capital, Brussels, is neither breezy nor orderly. But it presents a brutally funny and exhaustive tableau of both a continent in transition and the organization straining to hold it together ... Many of the characters never meet, but their story lines converge in astonishing, thematic ways ... The plot occasionally gets bogged down in granular detail. But Menasse writes with a wry, self-deprecating touch. He turns what might have been a dry lecture into a teeming epic that brings to multitextured life a continent undergoing an identity crisis.
