skip to main |
skip to sidebar
I should probably start this by saying that I've been avoiding this book for years. I've heard the title before and thought it would be some incredibly pretentious piece of crap by the likes of David Foster Wallace. It even has a nice little notice on the cover letting you know that it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. It's also a memoir, the height of pretentiousness.
Then I saw that Dave Eggers was co-writing the screenplay to Where the Wild Things Are and I know I want to see that movie so I thought I'd give the book a chance to see what kind of hack they hired to write the movie.
The book starts off with a long disclaimer letting you know that most of the book can be skipped, most of the characters are fictionalized versions of real people that wanted nothing to do with the book or wanted parts of their stories changed to protect the guilty. It starts off what turns into a wonderfully self aware memoir the way all memoirs should be written.
It starts off with Dave, his sister Beth, and his little brother Toph as their parents both succumb to cancer within a week of each other. Their brother Bill is off at some think tank, Beth has things of her own going on and Dave is pretty much stuck with the task of raising his little brother Toph. They live pretty much like how you'd expect a 21 year old and a 9 year old to live, meaning in borderline squalor but there is this awareness that their situation is amazing, that child services could knock down the door at any moment and take Toph away, that the babysitter may in fact be some sadistic child killer commiting all sorts of unmentionable acts while Dave goes out on dates juggling parental and personal responsibilities.
The book really starts to shine when it tears down the 4th wall. Dave's recounting of his audition for MTV's Real World (back in 1993 or so when the show was actually socially relevant) turns to the surreal when the interviewer mentions that this wasn't how the interview turned out at all and Dave acknowledges that it's completely fictional but it gives him grounds to explain things about his parents and his situation that he wouldn't have been able to do otherwise and the actual interview was a lot more boring. Also there are times when Toph, and another semi-made up character break character, one of them threatening to leave the book for being made up and being named after his dead father.
I've read a handful of memoirs before and they're so boring because it's basically like you're sitting at lunch with the person and they're telling you things they think are amazingly important like their silly childhood or how they turned into the person they are today because of "insert childhood tragedy here." What I got from this book is that Dave's parents death didn't really affect him too much, at least not as much as he could have gone into. What it focuses on is him and Toph and their take-over-the-world attitude.
The book is never really heartbreaking but there's a lot of staggering genius going on here. It's the perfect memoir, a wonderful admission that all recounted thoughts are pretty much made up (Can you recount a conversation you had with a friend fifteen years ago?), and that Dave's story isn't really exciting or particularly interesting but it's written so wonderfully that you don't really notice that nothing really happens.
The only complaints I would have is that Dave can be long winded at times, but it serves to the grandiose thinking of his character, but the book is so beautifully written that it's easy to overlook. Also it was good to know that the title is more tongue in cheek than anything else and not really Dave trying to jerk himself off on the book cover, that was a relief.
First off, for those of you who twitter you can find me at twitter.com/toleary.
Now the Ice Storm is a day in the life of two families during a rather nasty ice storm during 1973. There are the Williams and the Hoods who are the main family. There's Ben Hood, the father, who is having an affair with Janey Williams. His wife Elena tries to stay unaware of the adultery but can't seem to shake it. Wendy Hood experiments sexually with Mickey and Sandy Williams, while Paul Hood is off in the city trying to make the last train to New Canaan while dealing with his own adolescent problems.
The big theme of the book, at least from what I got, is the breakdown of the American family. Ben Hood, who is described as a rather unattractive man, has cheated on his wife multiple times. It's not that his wife is unattractive, actually quite the opposite, it's just that he's a lousy human being, a lousy father, and a lousy husband. Elena turns a blind eye to it but confronts her husband before going to a neighborhood party which turns out to be a swingers party. Her husband wants to stay, mostly because his mistress is there. Elena changes her mind and stays at the party to play on her husband's turf and see what all the fuss is about and finally let go and stop letting Ben ruin her life.
Wendy is attracted to Mickey Williams, and his younger brother Sandy. She experiments with both of them sexually, and even recounts experimenting with one of the neighborhood girls. A lot of her story deals with sexual and gender identity, especially in the 70's where her father is having an affair, the neighborhood parents are swapping husbands and wives for the night and sex seems to be heavy in the air.
Paul is in the city with his crush Libbets and a mutual friend of theirs. His story deals with a lot of adolescent identity and unrequited romantic feelings. He needs to catch the train home but keeps putting it off in a futile pursuit of Libbets who proclaims her friendly love of him while he ponders the question, "What does that even mean?"
The Hood family make up the four narrators of the novel going from one to another. Some stories are stronger than others. Ben's story is rather strong, going between his conflicting emotions about family and love. Elena's kind of falls apart as she never really rises above being the cheated woman as her own attempt at cheating falls apart. Wendy's is probably the strongest of all as her search for identity leads her to Mickey and Sandy, and eventually to a surprise ending that shapes her character in the end.
Paul is the wildcard character as his story isn't directly related to anyone's as he doesn't interact with any of the other main characters until the very end of the story, but it holds together as a simple boy likes girl, girl loves boy as a friend, story.
In the end it all weaves together nicely, especially since I have a rather distaste for the day-in-the-life gimmick. The characters are strong, the dialogue and writing are top notch which is a rather big change especially considering the last Rick Moody book I reviewed was a failure on almost every level. One thing you want to consider though is that this is not a happy book. There is not a happy ending. It's just a peek into the live of some severely screwed up and confused people. Think of it like someone wrote a story about your family reunion, except probably not as screwed up, maybe.
Now there's supposed to be a movie version that came out in 1997. I never heard of it but I think I'm going to have to check it out to see how Ang Lee handled the material. We know he doesn't shy away from sexual material and the cast seems pretty solid, I may just have to track this one down.
I've got two more Moody books to read once I finish A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but I'm a little reserved as this one set the bar pretty high after the last one.
I've liked Hunter S. Thompson since high school when I picked up Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas from my sister and then saw the movie. I knew very little about Hunter at the time except that he wrote this really crazy book that turned into a really crazy movie. Then a few years ago someone let me borrow their copy of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and I started noticing that these crazy books were written by quite the crazy person.
Then I saw the documentary, Gonzo, that came out last year. I had always heard bits and pieces about Hunter. I read a piece after he died about one of the assistants that he had and the hell that she said she had gone through working under him. Then I read a few other pieces by people who loved to be around him. I just couldn't figure out one way or another how to feel about him. Was he a brash alcoholic/drug addict who burned every bridge he came across and ruined his writing career at his peak, or was he a lovable alcoholic/drug addicted prankster whose genius was incredibly misunderstood by those who weren't closest to him?
After reading this book I've learned a few truths about Hunter. He was always drunk, he was always high on something, and he could be more drunk and more high than anyone else and still perform as normal as Hunter could ever be. He didn't just drink people under the table, he started drinking and never stopped. For all intents and purposes the man was a machine. Ingesting every substance that came across him and pumping out some of the most original literature of the last half century.
The book is an oral history, meaning it's just the people who knew him best talking about him. The dialgoue serves as the segues, the description, the plot. Nothing but talk, talk, talk. Now some people talk better than others. His ex-wife, Sandy Thompson, being the real lead of the book as she was the one by his side during his creative apex and even when things were just getting started. She gives you a real idea that Hunter was a classic southern gentleman at heart and could get anyone under his spell, male or female.
Some people don't get enough talk time. It would have been nice to see what Tom Wolfe had to think about Hunter creatively and not just silly anecdotes about whenever they crossed paths. Sonny Barger, head of the Hell's Angels, still obviously holds a grudge against Hunter and spent most of the time trash talking which got a little old. Then there's Jann Wenner, his editor at Rolling Stone for 35 years. You can tell Jann gets a little high and mighty with the whole "I gave Hunter his big break" and just a lot of gloating at being around Hunter. Johnny Depp also comes across as little more than a fanboy who, aside from some interesting stories about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, has little more to add to the story.
Also, what I felt was a bit of a critical mistep is the lack of Ralph Steadman in the book. Ralph was his go-to guy, the only guy who ever got to successfully collaborate with Hunter. They went on stories together, probably even became stories most of the time and he's given just enough talk time to explain what's already been explained.
It's still a fantastic book, and coming in at 467 pages it covers much more than you would expect with someone like Hunter. Think of it as a companion piece to the documentary and it works perfect. The documentary gives more time to Ralph and covers some things more than the book does. Also the book covers a lot more things than the movie, like covering more of the McGovern campaign and his campaign for sheriff.
Of course when it comes to someone like Hunter is it even possible to know the whole story? Also how much do I want to seperate man from myth? Short of reading all of Hunter's work this is the best way to get an insight in to who he really was, from the women he loved and lost, to the friends he loved and lost, to his son Juan, celebrity friends like Jack Nicholson and Margot Kidder, there are enough people to give a pretty good insight into what kind of a person he really was.
I'll leave you with a quote from the man himself: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me"
