Mere Anarchy

What can I say…?

One thing about Woody Allen--you can count on him to either hit it out of the park or strike out. In "Getting Even" he hit it out of the park and in this collection he…well, you can figure it out.

Listening to these 2 audiobooks in sequence, I am reminded of how thin the line is between brilliantly intelligent satire and overblown, pretentious nonsense. While this book has its moments, it definitely leans towards exemplifying the latter. It is a collection of essays in which Allen uses news snippets or minor personal experiences as inspiration for fictionalized comic sketches. In finding the ridiculous in these things, he ends up going too far and ends up being tiresomely ridiculous himself.

Nevertheless, I certainly will never give up on Woody, because, who knows, next time it could well be a home run!

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Don't buy it

Any additional comments?

Wish I could get my money back. Terrible. The only humor is his attempt to use the most convoluted language to express the most simple of thoughts.

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Best of Woody Allen's Four Humor Books

Each of Woody Allen's four humorous books is a compilation of New Yorker articles. Woody reads all four for Audible and gives a great performance in each. This one seems to be the funniest to me though certainly each chapter can be hit or miss depending on individual tastes.

Big Woody Allen Fan!

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5 Stars all the way! You can't beat this, Woody Allen reading his own words is just downright hilarious. Great pick up!

2 ½ stars. Ok but not as funny as I expected.

I had a few chuckles but no laugh-out-louds. Sometimes my mind wandered. I like his weird mind. Woody Allen has a strange relationship with food. Several times he mentioned something odd with food. Many of the vignettes did not have endings. He just sort of stopped.

Woody Allen narrated this. It was better than his narration of some of his earlier works. In those he spoke too fast, not pausing enough for ideas to settle and for a laugh.

Genre: humorous thoughts.

Masterpiece of humorous personal essays

Would you listen to Mere Anarchy again? Why?

Having read these essays (yes, I said essays for they are in the classical sense essays, using many formal techniques and employing great erudition) before, I found them more profoundly funny than anything I can think of as read by Allen. Most of them are so tightly written they could be used as examples in composition classes, yet they are hilarious! And it's interesting to note how influential Allen's style has become. Most of today's best humorous writers--Sedaris, Vowell, and the stable of clever New Yorker essayists--owe great debts to Allen's approach to the essay, using personal excavation balanced with ironic twists to make strong comments on being an American right now.

What about Woody Allen???s performance did you like?

Even though I've always thought Allen a good comic actor, he becomes a great reader interpreting his own writing. Excellent on the page, these essays rise to the level of greatness when Allen reads them.

Any additional comments?

Mere Anarchy read by Allen represents what heights Audible books can reach. It's hard to imagine Woody Allen the actor maintaining such restraint in his performance, but as a reader he experiences his essays so sincerely that he rises above himself as an artist. Anyone who hasn't read Allen's essays may be floored to find his humor can reach such levels of profundity. He ranks with Joseph Epstein and John Updike among the greatest contemporary personal essayists of our time.

Great performance - confused story

This was the fourth Woody Allen book I've enjoyed from Audible. As always, Woody's voice is the best part about it; his narration is spectacular, and these books definitely benefit from his skilled reading.

The stories themselves are reasonable, with a healthy dose of nonsense thrown in. I found this strange style disconcerting for the other books, but by the time I reached this one, I was fairly comfortable with Allen's style.

There are a few absolutely outstanding lines; for example, when making a hasty retreat: "Now I really must be going. I have a raccoon at home that needs milking."

Crafted Absurdity

This is like Monty Python but with frequent references to those who are more well read. These aren't joke books but series of stories with major non sequiturs as the source of humor. The little gags keep coming but don't expect many (or any) full on belly laughs. This is a little amusement for people who those who will pride themselves on "getting" the historical, philosophical, or literary references. Still much of it is just plain silly.
Buy the set it's a MUCH better deal.