Reviews
Praise for The World As I Found It "Bruce Duffy's novel . . . was one of the more astonishing literary debuts in recent memory. In defiance of common practice, Mr. Duffy gave the world not a tender, autobiographical coming-of-age story or a slim collection of finely wrought tales of family dysfunction but more than 500 pages of dazzling language and dizzying speculation on the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein." -A.O. Scott, New York Times "Duffy has sustained a miracle. A rich, eloquent, poised masterwork that succeeds beyond one's most generous expectations." - Philadelphia Inquirer "By turns wicked, melancholy, and rhapsodic, The World As I Found It is an astonishing performance, a kind of intellectual opera in which each abstraction gets its own artist." -John Leonard, Newsday "It is hard to know which is the more outsized-the talent of Bruce Duffy or his nerve. Duffy is a superb writer." - Los Angeles Times "Abundant with life and almost unflaggingly interesting . . . The enigmatic Wittgenstein could imagine the unimaginable, but never would he have imagined it possible that he would one day appear as the protagonist of a novel and a delightful one, at that." - Publishers Weekly, Praise for Disaster Was My God : "Duffy portrayed philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his extolled first novel, The World as I Found It (1987). In his second work of biographical fiction, Duffy takes on poet turned arms dealer Arthur Rimbaud. Patron saint for Patti Smith and Jim Morrison, the precocious French farm boy and rebel visionary scandalized Paris, radically transformed poetry as a teenager, put down his pen before turning 20, and instigated mayhem wherever he went. Infused with the wild energy and mystical images of Rimbaud's poems , Duffy's saturated novel veers between Rimbaud's galvanic escapades in France and his brutal last days in Africa as he crosses the desert to the sea delirious with pain, journeying home to die at 37. Duffy revels in his intense characters : brilliant and feral Rimbaud, his ogress of a mother and longsuffering sister, and, most sympathetically, absinthe-poisoned poet Paul Verlaine, who abandoned his young, pregnant wife for a doomed affair with scoundrel Rimbaud. Impassioned and melodramatic, keenly detailed and hallucinogenic, Duffy's reeling novel avidly encompasses the terror and beauty, despair and ecstasy of high-pitched lives and tradition-shattering art ."-Donna Seaman, Booklist "...[ A] dynamic portrait of a fascinating life. Duffy's vivid language and marvelous descriptions reveal a genius full of wanderlust and inner conflict... Intriguing, at times disturbing, and always compelling, [it] is hard to put down . Highly recommended for fans of Duffy's other work, including his fictional biography of Wittgenstein, The World as I Found It ; those interested in French poetry, history, and historical novels are sure to like this too."- Library Journal Praise for The World As I Found It "Bruce Duffy's novel . . . was one of the more astonishing literary debuts in recent memory. In defiance of common practice, Mr. Duffy gave the world not a tender, autobiographical coming-of-age story or a slim collection of finely wrought tales of family dysfunction but more than 500 pages of dazzling language and dizzying speculation on the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein." -A.O. Scott, New York Times "Duffy has sustained a miracle. A rich, eloquent, poised masterwork that succeeds beyond one's most generous expectations." - Philadelphia Inquirer "By turns wicked, melancholy, and rhapsodic, The World As I Found It is an astonishing performance, a kind of intellectual opera in which each abstraction gets its own artist." -John Leonard, Newsday "It is hard to know which is the more outsized-the talent of Bruce Duffy or his nerve. Duffy is a superb writer." - Los Angeles Times "Abundant with life and almost unflaggingly interesting . . . The enigmatic Wittgenstein could imagine the unimaginable, but never would he have imagined it possible that he would one day appear as the protagonist of a novel and a delightful one, at that." - Publishers Weekly
