Ransom

I think that most people have missed the point of the book. It is a simple and elegant story. It is not biting social commentary. It does not give pat and easy answers. It does not beat you over the head with message. It is slow, short and meditative. If you feel that a great book must be "clever" or "shocking", look elsewhere.Many people seem upset that the characters and plot were not fully developed. This is not a story about personalities or a series of events. It is the story of a man driven by memories and circumstance into a search for validation.

Very good, not brilliant, very rereadable. Ransom tells the story of a young American ex-pat living in Japan, who tries to lose himself in an ascetic existence, and the study of Karate. There's a certain inevitability to the story, but the end is no less forceful for being predictable. Like its protagonist, the book has a quiet, calm charm. The writing is simple and lucid, and carries you along easily. As always in McInerney novels, the sadder whole is leavened with plenty of humour. The ways in which East and West romanticize each others' cultures provide for some side-splitting moments. The Japanese in the novel are all trying for American cool, and the Americans are all trying to reach Nirvana. A quiet, compelling, entertaining read. Recommended.

A great read. One learns a great deal about Japanese Culture in this novel. Jay McInerney once again succeeds in putting the reader in needles with his witty social commentary. The circumstances of the plot keeps the pages turning and the reader guessing. The ending shocks the reader and McInerney's clever prose make the book a must-read for McInerney disciples and those who would like some insight into Japanese Culture.

A twenty-something American searches for personal and philosophical meaning when he travels to the orient. After first-hand experiences with drugs and meaningless, unfulfilling, and disjointed lessons of foreign culture and philosophy, he heads home for the states. However, traveling through Japan, he becomes intrigued with an honest devotion to heritage, discipline, and underlying beauty of karate and minimalism as a path to enlightenment. Blended into the daily life of Ransom is a humor that is more unusual than any I have ever read. This one of a few books that I have used as a benchmark in my thinking, a book that I have bought for at least ten people. I am saddened that no movie was ever produced.

Jay McInerney does for karate what Robert Pirsig did for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The book centers around the experiences of an American expatriate recovering from a tragic experience in the Himalayas. Ransom's chosen vehicle -- the study of karate under a sadistic sensei -- illuminates his own character and, through the use of flashbacks, how he became who he is. The book's slow and inevitable climax is no less intense for being utterly predictable. Well-written, by turns screamingly funny and achingly touching, this novel deserves a wider audience than it has