A defeat in Vietnam was imminent. He nation was also mired in recession. Labor strikes crippled the workforce. Unemployment soared. So did the crime rate. Prisons were overcrowded and taken over in riots. Communes were built. Cults formed. Otherwise normal teenagers ran away from home, and had to be “deprogrammed” after they were brainwashed.
This is a paragraph from a book, and basically explains why I don’t think I can read this one. It’s just a style issue. Despite a strong interest in the material, I got about six pages into this book before deciding I couldn’t do this to myself.
I’m not going to attempt to critique too much because hell, this guy got a book contract, so I guess the style appeals to some. But for me…I don’t know. Really choppy. And I end up re-reading sentence like this one over and over, not to appreciate them but because I keep thinking I read them wrong:
The Cooper Curse is what those who have felt it call it.
I’m not a big grammar-correction officer by any means. Grammar, in my opinion, is useful for two things. First, it helps us as a guideline to write readable material. Grammar is the basic structure behind what we think of as "flow" in a piece of writing. Second, it is something that people correct other people on because they want to look smart. In order for a self-appointed grammarian to correct someone, they first have to know what the speaker said. If I say "me and my friends" when I SHOULD have said "my friends and I" there's very little reason to correct me because you know exactly what I was saying. And I'm totally okay with that in a book because that is the way people speak in real life.
This book, however, was just plain hard to read.
From time to time the sentences have a certain Bukowski-esque appeal, such as this one:
Skipp Porteous wants to talk and says can we meet and I say fine.
But more often than not I’m just confused, like in this one:
Soon I am leaving for the airport and now I am on the plane and I can’t get the ballad out of my head.
Did we just time travel in that sentence, or is it being written at the moment the narrator zipped up his bag and writing it took so long that we are now in the airplane seven words later?
The writer has covered boxing for a number of media outlets, and that’s not too shocking. The style does seem more appropriate for a boxing match where the flow of time can feel changed depending on the action and punches mark punctuation points.
I’m not saying I won’t take another crack at it later. For now, though, it’s just not what I’m looking for.
From time to time the sentences have a certain Bukowski-esque appeal, such as this one:
Skipp Porteous wants to talk and says can we meet and I say fine.
But more often than not I’m just confused, like in this one:
Soon I am leaving for the airport and now I am on the plane and I can’t get the ballad out of my head.
Did we just time travel in that sentence, or is it being written at the moment the narrator zipped up his bag and writing it took so long that we are now in the airplane seven words later?
The writer has covered boxing for a number of media outlets, and that’s not too shocking. The style does seem more appropriate for a boxing match where the flow of time can feel changed depending on the action and punches mark punctuation points.
I’m not saying I won’t take another crack at it later. For now, though, it’s just not what I’m looking for.
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