One of my favorite movies is The Killing Fields (which tells you a lot about me, I'm guessing). While researching information about the movie, its message, and whatnot and so forth many years ago, I stumbled upon this - a monologue that was transcribed about a very odd man in a a self-admitted little role in one of my favorite films. It's a complete treat to read, but the movie (as Gray notes in one of his later monologues as 87 minutes of a man, sitting behind a desk, talking) is what really makes it. Much like reading Shakespeare, the message is much more clear, and funny, and quirky, and marvelous if you see it performed.
I had never heard of Spalding Gray but his book looked interesting. It is a written-down version of his live monologues about his life.It wasn't that it was particularly poorly written, it's just that Spalding himself did so many things I don't admire, to say the least. He indulges himself frequently in various drugs and new age nonsense, is a mass of neurotic notions, immerses himself in gallons of liquor and hires whores...whenever. His life stories of drugs, sex and idiotic eccentricity were a tale of a lost, floundering and philandering man, sad and uninspiring.
Do You like book Swimming To Cambodia (2005)?
entertaining as always, this book based on Gray's monologue/movie of the same name is an interesting insight into the making of the movie the Killing Fields, life in Thailand and Cambodia, and US involvement in that region.i prefer his monologue "live" where his tone of voice, body language, and timing inform the tale, making it storytelling rather than a story told. although i enjoyed this romp through his poetical recollections, his stories are meant to be performance art and not really for reading.
—Kevin
Gray’s social commentary is brilliant and his self-deprecating humor always amuses me. Reading this is no substitute for watching him perform the material, however. For me the two are very different experiences. I love watching Gray deliver his monologues; I find him intelligent and charming. I revel in his stream of consciousness delivery, his endless digressions. When I read a monologue, though, Gray is a different person, a person I don’t like very much. When I finished reading Swimming to Cambodia, I felt a little sad, a little let down.
—Kathleen
