We Think the World of You |  | Author: J. R. Ackerley
Publisher: Poseidon Pr
Category: Book
List Price: $7.95
Buy Used: $0.23
You Save: $7.72 (97%)
New (5) Used (43) Collectible (2) from $0.23
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 1051612
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 158
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 0671678116
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780671678111
ASIN: 0671678116
Publication Date: January 1989
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This powerful short novel, with its extraordinary mixture of acute social realism and dark fantasy, was described by J. R. Ackerley himself as "a fairy tale for adults." Frank, the narrator, is a middle-aged civil servant, intelligent, acerbic, self-righteous, angry. He is in love with Johnny, a young, married, working-class man with a sweetly easy-going nature. When Johnny is sent to prison for committing a petty theft, Frank gets caught up in a struggle with Johnny's wife and parents for access to him. Their struggle finds a strange focus in Johnny's dog—a beautiful but neglected German shepherd named Evie. And it is she, in the end, who becomes the improbable and undeniable guardian of Frank's inner world.
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| Customer Reviews:
A real snicker of a book March 27, 2003
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's practically impossible to imagine a book like this being published in today's publishing atmosphere, but thankfully, NYRB is around to buck that trend. I mean what editor today would manage a straight face upon opening a proposal about a middle-aged gay man taking care of the irrepressible dog of his working-class lover who's in jail? But as usual, with any work of art -- craft, talent, intelligence, compassion -- this remarkable work is so much more than that. Around its droll premise, Ackerley found a way to brilliantly expose the pettiness of people, regardless (or precisely because) of their social standing. The dog, which is just as vividly alive as each of this novel's (bipedal) characters, is really only it's lovable catalyst. But finally, what makes this work astounding is how it slyly and assuredly gets funnier and funnier and more blackly though generously hilarious with each successive page. A real snicker of a book.
Brilliant Black Humor June 27, 2002
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This fantastic piece of high art just gets funnier and funnier and more blackly though generously hilarious with each successive page. Brilliant.
 A little delight November 6, 2000
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
It would be hard to make the case that WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU is by any means a major work, but why should that lessen your fun? Ackerley's novel is very much a surprise in its relegation of its homoeroticism (dealt with very honestly and matter-of-factly) to the background; the protagonist's homosexuality is treated as simply a matter of course rather than as the center of concern, and what gets greater attention is his complicated relationship with his lover's family and dog.The narrator himself is a terrific creation: sneaky, pompous, arrogant, and yet also somewhat likeable despite it all. And so too are the lover's parents and the dog herself--it all has the ring of reality about it. This is a minor delight, but a delight nonetheless.
A masterpiece of literary craft August 31, 1999
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
I agree that "We Think the World of You" is brilliant, poignant, subtle, and funny, but would like to make the additional point that it is a stunning example of literary construction. It is widely admired for its construction, but what is not widely acknowledged is that the construction, like its brilliance, poignancy, subtlety, and funniness, is the product of a well trained and accomplished intellect. Ackerley took 12 years to write the book -- he had important ideas he wanted to express as effectively as possible, and the result is a very serious and rewarding novel.
A minor or even not-so-minor classic. July 9, 1999
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
The fact that this book was ever allowed to go out of print is a disgrace -- thank goodness it is finally being reprinted. As a dissection of the English class system, as a "gay novel," as simply a piece of literature, it is one of the most brilliant and poignant and subtle and funny works of the late 20th century. This is the sort of elegantly written, in some ways understated book that gets called "a minor classic," but judging from the way it lingers in the mind, from the way it discombobulates one's thinking on any number of subjects (including the afore-mentioned class system and homosexuality), it may not be a minor classic but just a classic, period.
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