Tales of the Madman Underground Analysis

We wish we had a nicer way to say this, but Lightsburg kind of stinks. According to the cities mentioned in the book—including Lima, Dayton, and Toledo—the town is situated somewhere in western...

Ever notice that a lot of young-adult novels use the first person? Maybe you've never thought about it before because you've been too busy crushing on Tris and Four, but it's totally a thing. Think...

Tales of the Madman Underground is a coming-of-age story taken to a whole new level. Sure, you have the typical element of a teenager trying to feel his way into adulthood, with some parental issue...

The first-person viewpoint gives us an up-close and personal look at Karl's life in this book, and part of that is getting a front-row seat to his cynical, bitingly sarcastic view of the world. The...

First, let's make an observation. The title of the book is Tales of the Madman Underground. Notice how "tales" is plural? That's our first clue that the style is going to be just a little different...

Over in "Writing Style," we talk about how Karl loves to tell stories and how Tales of the Madman Underground isn't just about this pivotal five-day period in his life, but the unity of the therapy...

" … and he was so grateful and said I was the best friend old Jim had ever had in the world and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper. It was a close pl...

At the end of the book, the whole Madman gang meets up with Karl at McDonald's during his cleanup shift. They get splashed by Tierden and Harris in one last mud puddle hit, then sit around for hour...

Holy cannoli, this is a long book. We're not going to lie to you—the sheer size of Tales of the Madman Underground makes it a tough cookie to tackle. On top of that, the story itself is jam-packe...

Hard-Knock Life As the curtain rises, "It's a Hard-Knock Life" could seriously be Karl's theme song. He works five jobs and his mom has dozens of cats that stink up the house. Plus, she spends all...

Tales of the Madman Underground is John Barnes' first young-adult novel. He has previously published 27 novels—all science fiction. No wonder he has a thing for Philip K. Dick. (Source) Barnes wa...

Let's make it clear right now that nobody actually has sex in this book (at least that we see). However, we do have to say that for a novel about high school kids, there's a heck of a lot of nudity...

Literary and Philosophical ReferencesJ.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1.77)Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1.77)Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (2.5)Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (...