Reviews for Guys and Dolls

The average rating for Guys and Dolls based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-07-27 00:00:00 Thomas Cope �Guys and Dolls, the stories of Damon Runyon� is a unique collection of short stories, and I have not come across anything quite like it in my reading life. Mr. Runyon�s writing style is distinctive, and unlike any other I have encountered. Like Shakespeare, the more of it you read, the more use to it you become. The collection�s stories are all told from a 1st person unnamed narrator�s perspective about the people he knows/meets in the midtown neighborhood of Broadway. All of the stories were written between 1929 and 1944. The collection is very humorous, I laughed out loud often while reading it. This was due mainly to the fact that Runyon is the king of understatement. It is a major component of his writing style, as every story in this collection of 32 has more than a few examples of it. Sentences like, �I do not approve of guys using false pretenses with dolls, except of course, when nothing else will do.� abound in this text. These stories also remind me a lot of the tavern scenes in Shakespeare�s �Henry IV Part I�. The characters are reprobates; the worse society has to offer. However, they are so colorful and good with words that you forget that and have to remind yourself to observe their actions and what they do. By and large they are not good people. There are actually very violent and disturbing aspects to many of these stories. But Runyon�s gift of language dilutes them. The dark elements in this book almost slip by you and the reader must remind themselves from time to time that many of the actions depicted are despicable. Special mention goes out to the story �A Story Goes with It�, one of the best examples of Runyon�s gift of characterization in the piece. I would recommend reading �Guys and Dolls� because there is nothing like it in modern literature. I read a few stories in the collection at a time, put the book down, read something else, and then picked it back up again for a few more stories until I had completed it. It keeps it from getting tiresome reading it in that manner.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-01-07 00:00:00 Brian Roland There are only three authors whose anthology of short stories I ever really enjoyed and recommended that others read. They were William Sydny Porter (Pen Name: O. Henry), Ray Bradbury, and Damon Runyon. O. Henry wrote about children, the poor, and the good in almost everyone. Bradbury wrote science fiction, and Runyon wrote about the Broadway of the Roaring Twenties and Gangster era of the nineteen thirties; most famously recounted in the thirty-two short-stories that make up the anthology, "Guys and Dolls". What fascinated me most about "Guys and Dolls" was the author's uncanny ability to bring a unique era in a place that very few people ever experienced so vividly to life that the reader soon finds himself totally immersed in the everyday dealings of characters with weird names like Regret, Nathan Detroit, Big Nig, Sky Masterson, and Little Miss Marker; just to name a very few. Those who have never bothered to read the book because they have already seen the play or movie should rethink their decision; because they were based soley upon just one of the thirty-two stories. The unique local dialect, so cleverly and hilariously mimicked by Mr. Runyon in almost every word of dialogue, is so catchy that my youngest daughter drove me crazy for several weeks after she read "Guys and Dolls", because she insisted upon using the slang and vocabulary in her everyday speech - and extremely well, I must admit.