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| View Larger Image | Play It As It Lays: A Novel
by Joan Didion
by David Thomson
| | List Price: | $13.00 | | Price: | $10.40 | | You Save: | $2.60 (20%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 14452 | | Studio: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 214 | | Publication Date: | November 15, 2005 | | Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil-literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul-it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 28 reviews)
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Not Much There, There 
I bought this novel since it was listed on Time Magazine's list of the Best 100 Novels written in English since 1923. I have no idea why Time Magazine selected it for that esteemed honor. It was mercifully short (easily finished in a couple of hours, if that), but otherwise provided modest rewards for those looking for high-quality literature. Proving a sketch of the morally-bankrupt Los Angeles drug and sex scene of the 1960s, primarily through the internal mental narrative of 31-year-old would-be actress Maria Wyeth, Play It As It Lays doesn't seem to plow any new ground in 20th century literature. Its description of Maria's poorly-performed illegal abortion is the most memorable scene in an otherwise forgettable pastiche of characters and settings. Being on Time's 100 List sets a burden of expectations, and this book certainly fell far short on that score.
April 29, 2008 | |
Just sort of "Blah" 
I agree with the criticism about the bleakness of "Play it," and that the story and its characters are painfully flat, but at the same time it is important to remember that the book is meant to be subversive. The dullness is a mode of irony, one that comes through similarly in other writers like John Cheever or Bret Ellis. And like Ellis' "Less Than Zero" (which is like this book in too many ways), it can be difficult to want to keep reading. After a while the story becomes obvious anyway, and even if your intuition about what comes next is wrong it doesn't matter much because nothing really seems to matter. The merit of the book is its indictment of hollywood and celebritism, but, as someone else pointed out in another review, it isn't hard to indict hollywood of emptiness anymore. so it goes.
this book can be easily read in a few hours and is still worth the experiance, at least for the sake of sampling this flavor of American prose.
December 21, 2007 | |
In the Thick of Nothingness [T] 
I have now read two books by Didion - this and the Pulitzer Prize winning "The World of Magical Thinking." Each is devilishly depressing.
The similarities do not end there. The main character of this book, Maria Wyeth, physically resembles the author. Her roots are similar. And, she is an actress in the Hollywood that the author wrote and wrote more for.
But, there are differences too. This is fiction, "Year" is nonfiction. This book revolves around a plundered marriage. Her own was good until it ended with her husband's unfortunate death as explained in "Year." This book delves with reproaching nothingness - Didion's continued works evidence her life was well beyond the expanse of void. Didion survived in a world beyond Maria's nullity.
Some characteristics may or may not have been Didion's own - and the reader really cannot care. Maria sleeps around more than she probably should, drinks too much, may smoke more pot than she should, and experiences a horrible emotional scarring with an unwanted abortion.
The intense emotional depiction is painted evenly and simply by Dideon's masterful use of language. The first chapter biographically recites Maria's entire life in a Valley-girl way, with each sentence appearing to be disjunctive from the previous - but actually all tie together magnificently and very intentionally.
Portions of this book reminded me of the angst experienced by the dipsomaniacal protagonist in Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano." Each book crawls under your skin as you feel the emotion -- the pain and strain experienced by the respective characters who fall into deep funks in their apparent inevitable demise.
This is a quick read, unlike "Volcano." If you wonder if your psyche is strong enough for such literature, read this first as it is shorter and much less intense.
May 05, 2007 | |
Memorable Book
Play It As It Lays is a book that stays with you after you read it. It's also a book that you will probably want to read more than once. I read it for the first time back in November and I've already gone back and re-read it to pick up on subtleties that I missed the first time. The storyline is very sad and depressing, but quite realistic, I think. I can feel Maria's (the main character) pain and the emptiness of the life she lives. Masterful writing here.
January 21, 2007 | |
Compelling, but depressing
If you want something to lift your spirits, this isn't it. And yet, I still found myself turning the pages to see what happens to Maria.
September 30, 2006 | |
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