Books about being a lazy bum

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Anyone care to list some? Because I like reading about what I know.

― badg (badg), Sunday, 1 October 2006 08:39 (seventeen years ago) link

Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday, both by John Steinbeck.

― Jaq (Jaq), Sunday, 1 October 2006 12:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Oblamov, by Ivan Goncharov

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Sunday, 1 October 2006 15:14 (seventeen years ago) link

There's an excerpt/story in the New Yorker (9/25 - The Style Issue)by a fellow named Henry Roth, that might address your need. His bio is pretty interesting.
There's always Bukowski, but, y'know, it all depends on the number of red headed whores you wish to encounter.

― aimurchie (aimurchie), Sunday, 1 October 2006 15:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Perhaps Moscow Stations by Venedikt Erofeev, if you want drunk lazy bums.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 1 October 2006 17:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Ohhh, I missed Oblomov. (But I can spell it.)

In with the Bartleby tho.

― Leopold Boom! (noodle vague), Sunday, 1 October 2006 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link

In the vein of drunken bum, with a side of laziness, you might try A Fan's Notes by a guy named (I think) Fred Exeley.

― Aimless (Aimless), Sunday, 1 October 2006 20:20 (seventeen years ago) link

bartleby was not lazy! tho he IS an idol of the lazy everywhere.

i have always figured ilb favorite 'at-swim-two birds' (or wherever the dashes go) ought to be included as a result of the student's behavior at the beginning.

also beckett's 'murphy' in particular (easy to read the other novels etc in this way of course though less distortive here).

― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 1 October 2006 20:53 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm a lazy good-for-nothing
maybe, but I do know one thing
I know what I want from my life
I want to live in a dream

I don't want to have to worry
about little things like money
I want the world to take care of me
I want to live in a dream

I want to live in a dream
I want to live in a dream
I suppose the real world is OK
but I'd much rather make my own up any day

I'd wish for a nice existence
one with no hard work, for instance
I'm sorry but I really can't be bothered
I want to live in a dream

I want to live in a dream
I want to live in a dream
I suppose the real world is OK
but I'd much rather make my own up any day

I'd wish for a nice existence
one with no hard work, for instance
I'm sorry but I really can't be bothered
I want to live in a dream
I want to live in a dream
I want to live in a dream
I want to live in a dream

― Leopold Boom! (noodle vague), Sunday, 1 October 2006 21:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Excellent, these sound great. I'm probably aiming more for the apathetic rather than the drunken. A little drunken perhaps but not necessarily sodden.

― badg (badg), Sunday, 1 October 2006 22:53 (seventeen years ago) link

drunks at least want to get drunk, which from a certain perspective is kind of ambitious.

― Josh (Josh), Monday, 2 October 2006 01:20 (seventeen years ago) link

a confederacy of dunces, john kennedy toole
the ballad of peckham rye, muriel spark

― estela (estela), Monday, 2 October 2006 01:30 (seventeen years ago) link

If I were to answer my own query I'd probably include Jonathon Ames

― badg (badg), Monday, 2 October 2006 01:51 (seventeen years ago) link

the bell jar

― estela (estela), Monday, 2 October 2006 04:05 (seventeen years ago) link

the bell jar ?

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Monday, 2 October 2006 06:27 (seventeen years ago) link

that was a joke based on memories of being screamed at for being lazy when i was a deeply depressed teenager.

― estela (estela), Monday, 2 October 2006 08:11 (seventeen years ago) link

You've probably already read Catcher in the Rye. Does anything much happen in a narrative where the protagonist is a lazy bum?

― sandy mc (sandy mc), Monday, 2 October 2006 08:17 (seventeen years ago) link

http://theplayethic.typepad.com/play_journal/images/idle.jpg

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Does anything much happen in a narrative where the protagonist is a lazy bum

Yes - the people around you get all in your face about stuff, amusing situations develop when something you need to do is compounded because it depends on something else you were meant to do which in turn depends on, and so on.

I've always liked the title of this album from Jim O'Rourke:
http://tisue.net/orourke/covers/ittakestime.jpg

― badg (badg), Monday, 2 October 2006 12:02 (seventeen years ago) link

George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London
Robert Mcliam Wilson - Ripley Bogle

both feature bums, some laziness.

― A Giant Mechanical Ant (The Giant Mechanical Ant), Wednesday, 4 October 2006 01:46 (seventeen years ago) link

The Ginger Man/J. P. Donleavy
Tortilla Flat/John Steinbeck

― Mike Lisk (b_buster), Wednesday, 4 October 2006 13:02 (seventeen years ago) link

I'd forgotten about Ripley Bogle. That's a good book.

― Leopold Boom! (noodle vague), Wednesday, 4 October 2006 15:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I got a copy of Bartleby & it was bundled with another Melville story called Benito Cereno. Bartleby was great, I found it much easier to read his writing in novella format rather than a novel because his sentences are so bloody long it can get a bit tiring. But Benito Cereno - wow! That was fantastic. Probably the best pirate story I've ever read, except for Treasure Island perhaps.

― badg (badg), Monday, 16 October 2006 23:07 (seventeen years ago) link

i read 'murphy' this week, wasn't sure about it.

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 00:03 (seventeen years ago) link

wasn't sure about whether it was awesome or really awesome?

― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 00:19 (seventeen years ago) link

It has its moments, for sure.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 02:37 (seventeen years ago) link

The Confessions of an English Opium Eater is the one that immediately comes to mind.

― SRH (Skrik), Thursday, 19 October 2006 06:23 (seventeen years ago) link

George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London

Lazy bum? wtf? Wasn't he working his arse off for 28hrs a day in a sweaty kitchen for tuppence a month?

― ONIMO's fish might turn into lizards (GerryNemo), Thursday, 19 October 2006 11:23 (seventeen years ago) link

The first half, yes. The second half is him as a bum in England, wandering from charity house to charity house. Although frankly even that seems like too much work.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:17 (seventeen years ago) link

The Moviegoer, sort of.

― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Thursday, 19 October 2006 16:49 (seventeen years ago) link

In the vein of drunken bum, with a side of laziness, you might try A Fan's Notes by a guy named (I think) Fred Exeley.
Exeley. I keep waiting for somebody to add the similar Jernigan by David Gates (no, not the guy from Bread),which is sometimes, perhaps unfairly, viewed as A Fan's Notes Lite.

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Saturday, 21 October 2006 03:56 (seventeen years ago) link

What happened to my strike tags? Exley.

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Saturday, 21 October 2006 03:57 (seventeen years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.