Product Description

'I am greatly relieved that the universe is finally explainable. I was beginning to think it was me.' Thus begins 'Strung Out', Woody Allen's hilarious application of the laws of the universe to daily life. "Mere Anarchy", Woody Allen's first new collection in over 25 years, features eighteen witty, wild and intelligent comic pieces - eight of which have never been in print before. Surreal, absurd, rich in verbal play, bitingly satirical and just plan daft in the mode we have grown to love from his finest films, this flight-of-fancy collection includes tales of a body double who, mistaken for the film's star, is kidnapped by outlaws; a pretentious novelist forced to work on the novelisation of a Three Stooges film; a nanny secretly writing an expose of her Manhattan employers; crooks selling bespoke prayers on eBay; and how to react when you're asked to finance a Broadway play about the invention and manufacture of the adjustable showerhead.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102239 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Boyd Tonkin, The Independent
"Mere Anarchy breaks a 27-year drought for fans of Allen the
literary prankster. It more than justifies the wait... His stories are
delicious confections: virtuoso turns, tipsy on their own linguistic
ingenuity"

About the Author
Playwright, screenwriter, actor and director, Woody Allen's prolific career has now spanned over four decades. He writes frequently for the New Yorker and is the author of three previous bestselling volumes: Without Feathers, Getting Even, and Side Effects.

Customer Reviews

Not very 21st Century, but funny all the same.
Whilst I lost interest in the man's movies some considerable time back, I'll always have time to reread his trio of humorous essay collections from the '70s, hence my excitement in hearing about this book.

It doesn't disappoint in it's inspired silliness and virtuoso use of arcane and rococo language - I can think of scarcely a single current humourous writer who could beat this on a laughs-per -page basis.

A justified criticism might be that Allen's recurrent themes,rather recherche even in the 70s, are simply antiquated now - There's a piece on The Three Stooges, for instance. Contemporary readers might well take issue with Allen's attitude towards women here, too.

A highly amusing collection of stories
This is Woody Allen's first book I have read. I have seen lots of his movies, but I have never seen him in print. And I must say, I am rather impressed. This is a collection of superb stories. I cannot describe the content of this book in any extensive detail because you need to read this book yourself.
My favourite stories are `How deadly your taste buds, my sweet' - it's amazing to what lengths people go for the sake of a mushroom; The Rejection - don't mess up your career by taking the wrong steps during your childhood; and `Attention Geniuses: Cash Only' - you better read that one yourself.
Personally, I would have picked another story at the beginning of the book because I found the story picked by Woody Allen (or his editor) a bit hard to follow and it almost put me off the book. But once I overcame that hurdle I found the rest of the book a real delight.

Embellished but still brilliant, and enduringly original
OK: what would you guess Woody Allen would write about after these uneventful 25 years since his last volume of essays? You might well say matrimonial strife, court cases, movies and movie making, and a tell-tale nanny! Well, viola!

A book of humourous essays is a hard act to pull off. But Allen's done it three times before to acclaim. Being highly individual, if not unique, as a humourist, the real question here is how does this collection compare with his previous volumes?

Well, he's done it again. This could be no one else. It's brilliantly inventive and brilliantly written. It's tightly written, too. He is as distinctive a voice as there is. Yet there are qualifications.

Mere Anarchy does not have quite the range of styles and voices as in previous volumes. There is not the winning third person style of the Count Dracula story in Getting Even, for example.

Woody has been doing some reading and a number of quite rare and abstract words repeat themselves. Allen's use of language is stunning: he dazzles, but sometimes bemuses, too.

Humour based on absurdity must be followed to be appreciated properly. The density of the vernacular in some stories borders, occasionally, on the impenetrable. It's an enjoyable ride even then.

The vernacular is a New York Jewish patter that reads as it might be delivered: staccato. It's prevalent in the earlier stories, which suggests one could read the collection backwards. I read it twice and found it easier that way.

Most people who will read this will be Woody fans. We will forgive him more or less any inflexion, based on more or less unconditional love. Casual admirers have probably dwindled. If you are one, don't let this quibble put you off. It's a collection that showers you with so many sparks its good to re-read and absorb some of the fireworks that were disguised the first time.

Here are some highlights in reverse order.

Pinchuck's Law. "There was only one health food store that sold really deadly mushrooms, but it stopped years ago when it turned out they weren't organically grown." Magnificent work but it stops too soon!

Surprise Rocks Disney Trial. Mickey Mouse gives testimony. This has the lovely image of Warren Beatty taking Petunia Pig to the Cannes Film Festival. Amusing and sweet.

Thus Ate Zarathustra. The lost diet book of Friedrich Nietzsche. "..the circumference of any man is equal to his girth multiplied by pi.". Reminiscent of some of Woody's earlier work as are the two above; amusing but it doesn't quite strike jackpot.

Above the Law, Below the Box Springs. "It wasn't long before Stubbs and Doxy Nash began having a secret affair, although she soon found out about it." A charming silly small town tale of consumer rights.

Strung Out. "What I do know about physics is that to a man standing on the shore, time passes quicker than to a man on a boat - especially if the man on the boat is with his wife." A funny essay with several styles mixed together and mastery of pace and delivery. Allen at his best.

Attention Geniuses: Cash Only. A songwriter who pays his psychoanalysis bills in kind. This is a good tale hampered by obscurity - for the non-Jewish reader anyway.

On a Bad Day You Can See Forever. One of several references to financial ruin ("..the wallet in my breast pocket began to flutter like a hooked flounder") about a disastrous renovation. Stifled by over-clever or over-Jewish or NY references, but with laugh-out loud lines, too.

Sing, You Sacher Tortes. There is no denying the exceptional inventiveness of the Allen brain, but it is matched by the New York lingo of the first two paragraphs. And punctuated by gems. ("How does Mahler triumph over his fear of death? I asked." "By dying. I figured it out - it's really the only way.") A tale of a musical about infidelity and philosophers.

The Rejection. A swipe at snobbery among investment bankers.

Caution, Falling Moguls. A funny story neatly delivered about a movie mogul "two years over schedule on an eight week shoot".

Glory Hallelujah, Sold! Another neat idea and again, beautifully delivered and concluded. Allen's endings are central to the success of his tales. This one is about litigious clients buying bespoke prayers. ("Read the tiny letters on your prayer confirmation contract. Spells out our liability and His.")

How Deadly Your Taste Buds, My Sweet. A superbly fluent and absurd private eye story on the trail of the Mandalay Truffle.

Nanny Dearest. A wry yarn on a couple whose nanny is writing a book about their private lives, with a twist ending.

Calisthenics, Poison Ivy, Final Cut. An exchange of letters about the cut from a movie by a boy after film camp ... a belter, disguising a myriad of wonderful insults.

This Nib for Hire. Flanders Mealworm is seduced to prostitute his literary gift for B movie cash. Dosed with NY vernacular, unfortunately some sentences swallow like unshelled eggs.

Sam, You Made the Pants too Fragrant. Set in Savile Row with suits of the future (inspired by the NY Times) they still speak like Jewish New Yorkers. Beautifully written for all that and a deliciously visual idea, as are many of these pieces. You can sense mini screenplays.

Tandoori Ransom. This is a over embellished again but is an enjoyable story about the kidnap of an actor's body double.

To Err is Human, to Float, Divine. Smeared with the lingo but this story of levitation and dematerialisation benefits, as it really is a very amusing sidewalk tale of hocus pocus.


It's an excellent collection and benefits from a second read when the strong NY `dialect' grates less and one can appreciate Woody's enduring distinctiveness and originality. It sits well with his other volumes and tells us his faculties and ambitions as a writer remain close to top gear. He's 72 now. Let's hope it doesn't take him another 25 years before the next volume...