The Call and Gimmicks

A book that's pleasant and quiet without being boring, which is a rarity as far as I can tell.

The book has a structure to it that might turn some people off from the beginning. The narrator is a large animal doctor, and each section works kind of like this:

Call: [explanation of animal ailment]

Action:

Result: [you're smart. you can figure this one out][explanation of what he did]

But then the narrator deviates from the structure a little bit.

Thoughts On The Ride Home:

What I Heard With The Window Open:

What I Checked For Out The Window:

What The Spaceman Said To Me:

and so on.

It really got me thinking about the difference between a book with structure and a book with a gimmick.

For example, I tried The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell, a book in which every sentence is a question. THAT didn't work for me. Honestly, I felt that the structure was SO rigid that it took away from the possibilities of the story. The most entertaining part was the existence of the book as an object, not the text within.

It had points where it was clever, but I don't personally value cleverness in art. Cleverness is a great attribute when it comes to problem-solving and engineering (and therefore can sometimes work in mystery novels), but in art it can be really annoying. If I enjoy a painting, it's likely that I'm getting a feeling from it or placing my own experiences on top of it, and that emotional result is never related to cleverness. Clever jokes are not my favorite, and usually the kind that result in someone SAYING "that's funny" as opposed to actually laughing. A clever poem? That's a tough sell.

So what, then, is the difference between a book with good structure and a book with a gimmick?

I thought about it a lot. Maybe it has something to do with whether the tool is something that is too rigid. If it's too rigid, the story starts conforming and contorting to fit the frame and can never go anywhere unexpected or fun. Maybe it has something to do with the tool being too repetitive. I did notice that several people who enjoyed The Interrogative Mood (of which there are many) seemed to have read it in small chunks instead of all at once.

Ultimately, though, the answer I came to is this:

Structure is a gimmick that works.

Murder on the Orient Express, Mackie Style!

*note: I am aware that cover is for the PC game. If I'd known that was an option, you be your ASS I would have played it. Why read it when you can LIVE it?

Uh, book club book.

That's the explanation for why.

It's pretty much what you'd expect, a whodunit with an ending that's fairly interesting, although you could probably just skip to it and get about the same amount out of it. I DO have a theory that horror movie writers are going back to Agatha Christie for their plot twists, turns, and oddly-positioned stabbings, though. However, the weird machines that drown people in pig's innards are a fairly novel creation that I'm not prepared to credit to classic literature.

Because I don't want to spoil the whole thing, I thought what might be useful is to discuss the detective abilities of the main character, Hercule Poirot. And because it is my only cultural reference at the moment, I will compare his methods of detection with that of television detective and star of the Shield, Vic Mackie.

Here are some scenarios and how I suspect each would handle them:

SCENARIO 1: A BODY IS FOUND ON A TRAIN

Poirot: Would work his way through the different passengers and narrow things down to a most likely suspect.

Mackie: Would find the conductor of the train, ask him what he was hiding, then assault him, shoving a piece of the train's coal in his mouth until he said everything he knew.

SCENARIO 2: A GOVERNESS IS SUSPECTED OF A CRIME

Poirot: Would gently question the lady so as not to put her on the defense.

Mackie: Would question the lady, then threaten to allow a sex tape of her to hit the streets if she didn't start talking, pronto.

SCENARIO 3: AN ITALIAN MAN IS ACCUSED OF STABBING ANOTHER MAN

Poirot: Would consider this possible, and does put forth the theory that "wops" (his word, I swear) DO tend to stab (this is pulled directly from the pages, I SWEAR to you).

Mackie:...actually, pretty much the same thing.

As you can see, our detection skills have come a long way, baby.

The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman

Klosterman has written some damn good stuff, and his last few have been awesome. Eating the Dinosaur was strong, and his novel, Downtown Owl, surprised me. Honestly, I was surprised I liked it so much, which probably means 50% that he did a great job and 50% that I shouldn't be such an asshat and go into books with such an asshat-y attitude.

As one might expect, the book is about an invisible man, but it's not really so much about him being invisible. It's more about him watching what people do when they're alone. Being invisible provides the only real opportunity to watch every move someone makes, which the character feels is the only way to really and truly KNOW a person.

It turns out that most people really and truly like to watch Law & Order and fall asleep in front of the TV, which is only slightly different from what they're telling us they do, which is watch the Wire and fall asleep in front of the TV.

The book's narrator and the invisible man are two separate characters. The invisible man is very Klosterman-esque. You can hear his voice a lot when he describes his surprising affinity for sports and his anger when people call him "invisible" as he is not actually invisible but merely far, far LESS visible, a distinction that would strike me as being very important to Chuck Klosterman, and one he has the good sense to understand would be important to almost nobody else.

The most enjoyable parts were definitely the descriptions of what people did while alone, character studies really, while the interactions between the main characters were...not completely uninteresting, but far, far LESS interesting.

It's fun as a thought experiment, but feels more like a "What would you do if..." conversation that's forgotten the next day as opposed to something you find yourself considering again days later.

Lethem Has Wood

[note: this is about James Wood, critic, not James WoodS, this guy. But hey, who couldn't use a nice Videodrome pic here and there?]

Just as a timestamp, today is November 7th, 2011.

Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude came out August 4th, 2004.

So, it's a little unclear why Lethem decided to write a super-long, super-dense criticism of a review his book received when it came out. You can read it here. If you can actually get through the damn thing, good for you. You must have a life that has time for horseshit.

To summarize:

Basically, James Wood wrote a criticism of the book that made it seem like he A) wanted a book other than the book he was presented with and B) didn't actually read the book.

I 100% agree that criticizing a book that you haven't read, or at least criticizing without admitting that you couldn't get through it because it was so godawful, is wrong. And Lethem's right to be pissed that Wood criticized him for making no references to literature because Solitude is really one long love letter to forms of literature in a lot of ways.

However, this criticism...the one by Lethem, the criticism of the criticism, I found unreadable. I'll admit that I skimmed, but it's because I was so tired of waiting for him to get to the point that I couldn't take it anymore. 2,220 words long? And the first 500+ words are quotes? The kind of quotes that lead off a book and that I skip 90% of the time because they're either irrelevant until you've read portions of the book or because they're by Lewis Carroll and I just don't care anymore?

I tried going to the source as well, the James Wood review. 4,200 words. Couldn't even begin to begin it. Besides, you could be 5% into the goddamn ACTUAL BOOK by then at which point you could make a pretty informed decision on whether or not to read it.

My best work is by no means critiquing writing or writers. It's not really my place. But in creating a dense, unreadable criticism, I feel like these things don't function.

The other day I was waiting for a sandwich and looking at one of those bulletin boards filled with tacked-up business cards. One of the cards was for a business involved in graphic design. Despite the fact that this designer has spent money and time tacking up business cards in sandwich establishments, a dynamite business plan if I ever heard one, I doubt the calls are flooding in. You know why? Because the business card itself was boring and not well done, and if a graphic designer can't graphic design his own business card, why would I trust him with designing mine?

If you want to make the point that you're a good writer, maybe the best way to do it is to write something good. Just saying.

The controversy is silly to me because I would NEVER read that insane, rambling review in the first place, nor would I read the response to it. It's just a bunch of words about a bunch of words about a bunch of words, and it feels like a couple guys angrily 69'ing all day.

Also, and this is one of those things that proves, as we all learned from the Malcom in the Middle theme song, that life is unfair: when a writer talks about a harsh review from a critic, it's almost impossible to not sound like a whiner. Yes, Wood clearly didn't read the book and yes, that's clearly wrong, and not just wrong like a mistake is wrong. Just plain wrong. A lie. But you know what? It's false to assume that a writer, who is suited to writing, is also good at accepting criticism. So if the book is done, be done with it already.

Just so you don't think this is all about me hating on J.L. (who is hit or miss for me), check out his Promiscuous Stories project. Very cool.