Albert Angelo
Published on 14. February 2013
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-1-4472-0037-6 (ISBN)
Description
With an introduction by the writer Toby Litt.
The eponymous Albert is an architect by training but a supply teacher out of necessity. Feeling that he is failing at both, and haunted by a failed love affair, he begins to question what he wants to achieve. Using a number of original narrative techniques Johnson attempts to reproduce life (and its travails) as closely as possible through fiction, while at the same time revelling in the impossibility of such a task.
A passionate advocate for the avant-garde, B S Johnson said of the acerbically comic and exuberant Albert Angelo that it was where he 'really discovered what he should be doing'. And on page 163 of this extraordinary book is one of the most surprising lines in English fiction. But you should start at the beginning.
The eponymous Albert is an architect by training but a supply teacher out of necessity. Feeling that he is failing at both, and haunted by a failed love affair, he begins to question what he wants to achieve. Using a number of original narrative techniques Johnson attempts to reproduce life (and its travails) as closely as possible through fiction, while at the same time revelling in the impossibility of such a task.
A passionate advocate for the avant-garde, B S Johnson said of the acerbically comic and exuberant Albert Angelo that it was where he 'really discovered what he should be doing'. And on page 163 of this extraordinary book is one of the most surprising lines in English fiction. But you should start at the beginning.
Reviews / Votes
A most gifted writer -- Samuel Beckett The future of the novel depends on people like B. S. Johnson -- Anthony Burgess Albert Angelo has moments of comedy as good as anything produced in the past fifty years * Guardian *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
162 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4472-0037-6 (9781447200376)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
In his heyday, during the 1960s and early 1970s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known novelists in Britain. His work includes Travelling People, Albert Angelo and House Mother Normal. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde in both literature and film, he became famous for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for his idiosyncratic ways of putting them into practice.