Gingerbread Man

An Irish-American, speaking with an upper-class London accent, studying law at Trinity College Dublin on a U. S. Veterans' scholarship, with a graduation thesis that will never be finished, a family, but no greasy plates or dirty children's butts. In spirit, he is suave like Don Juan and artistic in Bohemian style, but physically he is performing scenes of black farces that are absurd, embarrassing, and even contrary to common sense. This self-contradictory, soulless libertine is like the gingerbread man in the fairy tale who escapes from the oven, flees all the way, and finally falls into the mouth of the fox. Does the impermanence and absurdity of life deprive people of their sense of meaning in existence? This story of struggle and sinking told by Irish writer Don Levy in the 1950s, the style is deeply influenced by Joyce, Kafka, and Henry Miller. More than half a century later, it is still turbulent and glorious. Random House listed it in the "Modern Library's 100 Classic English Novels of the 20th Century", and it is also recognized by critics as a "cult" novel.