Less Than Zero is the slice-of-life narration of four weeks of Clay’s life. Clay is back from his school on vacation to his hometown of Los Angeles. He is part of the artistic elite, the kids of movie directors and actors, kids who drive Porsches and Cadillacs of their own. Kids who should be happy because they have everything. They have houses with pools, plenty of money to buy cocaine, and visit the best pubs and bars in town. Bret Ellis’s narration is curt, matter-of-factly, and non-judgmental. The voice of Clay is detached and unconcerned. He sounds the same when he is having a coffee and is having sex.
Clay’s girlfriend Blair, who is still serious about Clay, knows that Clay does not have the same feelings for her. His friends Julian, Trent, and Blair’s friends Kim and Alana are other characters with the same economic background as Clay. Parents of many of them are in the entertainment industry, and they know many people. When they watch a movie, they know many people from the credits. Rip, Finn, Muriel, and Clay’s family are the other characters that populate most of the scenes. Every character has a distinctive personality. Ellis describes their physical appearance, style, and mental makeup with meticulous detail. The characters abuse drugs and alcohol, sleep around with everyone and are continuously seeking pleasure and fun.
Music plays a vital role in the novel’s narrative. X, the iconic Los Angeles band, appears many times, so does Elvis Costello. Clay’s room has the poster of Costello’s album Trust. Jim Morrison and the Doors are mentioned many times, and so are Psychodelic Furs. Ellis seems passionate about music, and he describes the music being played in the background of the scenes even when it is not needed. It creates an environment, and Clay tries to put on the music even when they visit someone in a disconcerting scene.
Ellis’s writing is engaging, and though the plot is non-existent, you keep flipping pages because you feel like it. One sentence leads to the next, and you feel like you are living Clay’s life. The life of a pampered teen with loads of money, parents who do not have time, and a desire to experience exotic stuff even if the experience includes watching your friend selling his body for money. Ellis is brutal when he describes the casual approach the protagonists have towards relationships. They do not care much about their sisters, friends, lovers, or parents. Clay’s internal thoughts are used to describe the amoral life of a teenager who belongs to high society. The language highlights the lack of caring on Clay’s front about what one would think of as alarming events. Even when Clay’s acts show that he is disturbed enough, the first-person narrative is not dramatic.
Ellis was part of the literary brat pack that was known to write genre-defying stuff. These authors wrote in the minimalistic style of Raymond Carver and inherited his pessimistic outlook. Less Than Zero is a coming-of-age, young adult novel that offers no hope. The protagonists are not likable, but Ellis treats them with a lot of sensitivity and concern. If you do not have strong biases, you will start caring about the characters. The characters are entirely amoral, but they have a sensitivity that makes them act in ways they may not be comfortable with. The addiction adds another angle that forces them to take specific steps that are not the right ones in the long run. Still, the characters realize the harm only in hindsight.
The book is small at 202 pages but is impactful and leaves an impression on the reader’s mind. This makes me want to read American Psycho, the more famous novel by the author. It also seems like an ideal book for making a movie, with many scenes written like a screenplay. A movie was made, but Ellis was unhappy with it since the director changed the plot quite a bit. The first-person narrative acts like a camera in this case. The fact that the prose is minimalistic works in favor of giving the scenes a color that the director would want.
As an author, one can learn Ellis’s craft of writing to create a flow. Several reviewers on Goodreads have commented that they continued to read the book because the flow was so good. The story feels like one is living someone else’s life. You keep filling in the details, but the narrative provides the barebones structure of Clay’s life and also the life of his friends. Ellis adds enough intrigue for the reader to keep reading. The end effect is one of added empathy for a particular lifestyle.
In the end, the book is worth reading for the effect Ellis creates and the sheer pleasure of reading the book. Recommended with a rating of 4/5.
The Goldfinch is truly a Dickensian novel, as many people have already observed. It is the odyssey of Theo, his coming of age story, and his meeting many oddball characters throughout his life. As in The Secret History, the plot is not the mainstay here, but it is not a plotless novel as many Literary Fiction works are. Tartt, in fact, relishes silly plot twists and many dramatic scenes that are very unlike any literary book. To be fair with her, she had expressed her displeasure with the distinction between genre fiction and literary fiction, citing the time when her influences, including Dickens, wrote novels that did not respect that distinction. They wrote literary fiction that was consumed by the masses. Tartt has been highly successful in bridging that gap, writing a novel that won the Pulitzer prize, and sold 13 million copies simultaneously.
Tartt’s prose is masterly, and her narrative is gripping. You just slide into the narrative and turn pages because of Tartt’s mastery over the form. She builds intrigue and introduces predictable twists that urge you to continue. Of course, there is the device of “The Goldfinch,” a painting worth USD40 Million that Theo is obsessed with. Tartt keeps the painting as the thread that ties many loose pieces of the narrative where Theo switches foster families, closest friends, devices to get high, and towns. The whole drama has the emotional thread of Theo’s love for his mother and his guilt about losing her, for which he partly blames himself. The two threads are tied at the incident in the very beginning that Tartt masterfully describes. That incident also introduces Theo to Pippa and Welty. Pippa would play a substantial role in the novel and in Theo’s life, and Welty is some kind of unseen force behind a lot of narrative.
Theo’s first-person narration adds intimacy and an opportunity for Tartt to hide things from the reader, the same devices Tartt used in “The Secret History.” Unlike “The Secret History” though, “The Goldfinch” is narrated by the main protagonist and not a distant observer of the main events in the novel. This change makes “The Goldfinch” much more intense, but at the same time much less suspenseful.
Tartt is a master at describing relationships and keeping them positive and intimate. Theo’s relationship with Boris forms the core of the book and is very Dickensian. Their lack of manners and concern for rules, intensity, and homoerotic tendencies make the relationship unique. Contrast that with Theo’s relationship with Andy, probably not as close as Boris’s, but equally essential for him to, and you see Tartt’s mastery in using language to create a mood.
As many people have observed, the ultimate Dickensian character is Hobie, whom Theo meets because of Welty. Hobie is portrayed as an oddball so lovable that he is unbelievable. Tartt probably needed him to balance the chaos that was there in Theo’s life. Hobie’s passion for his craft, his love for Theo and Pippa, and his philosophy of staying a bricoleur, all of that adds warmth to the book.
At this point, I want to laud Tartt’s ability to describe places. Hobie’s house is a place that you fall in love with. Theo keeps on talking about the image of the house being something that gives him peace of mind, but that is true from the reader’s perspective as well. Tartt creates a picture of the place that is so beautiful; you can close your eyes and be there and can understand why Theo loved it so much. Contrasting that with Theo’s father’s house in Las Vegas, a house with no inherent coziness and one that gets warmth only because of the intimate friendship of Theo and Boris, you realize how much places add to one’s life.
Theo’s relationships with Pippa and Kitsey are not so well described. They are not conceptualized with the same warmth and rigor. In fact, I found the entire arc of Theo’s adult life after he encounters Platt and gets in touch with the Barbour family, not a convincing one. The book would not have missed much if the entire thing was not there. In fact, the whole arc of Theo and Boris’s trip is also not so integral to the book’s entire plot. It makes sense that several critics have been frustrated with the lack of coherent plot in the later pages of the book. It is okay, and you read on, and it feels good, but it is not as gripping as the earlier part of the novel.
So, what does Tartt wants to convey through the novel? Many people thought that “The Secret History” was about the dark underbelly of academia, a lament that education does not make people good. Is there any such theme in “The Goldfinch”? People have talked about the transience of life, the pain of existence, and the support of relationships to lead a good life as the book’s core themes. I think Tartt makes that point in the monologue of Theo in the end. She talks about how The Goldfinch, the painting, is not good art because it communicates something universal that is unique and important. It is good, says Tartt, in the guise of Theo, because it affects people at an intense level. That impact is unique for every human being. Good art is not good because it contains some common principles that everyone can abstract from it. It is good because it makes every consumer feel in a very unique way. Hence good art is like a good conversation; it is a one-on-one communication between two people. Tartt has been able to express that really well through Theo’s obsession with the painting, and the change in his personality due to the existence of the same.
In the end, is it worth reading 880 pages of this little tome? I think it is. I would recommend it for people who like literary novels and people who like coming of age or family plots. I would give this 4.5/5.
Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History” is slow burn as slow burn can be. The characters develop extremely slowly, over pages of back story, descriptions of peculiarities, seeming trivial incidents that do not mean anything, but they add up to something meaningful in the end. I thought that it was a combination of the intellectual leaning of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope” and the cinematic style of Robert Altman. How pristine philosophies can turn into horror when implemented in life without humane concern is something that she portrays like Hitchcock. The many characters, lack of a central protagonist and the sense of constant chatter is something that reminds you of Altman.
Richard, the narrator, is a Californian middle class kid, bored of his small town of Piano, and of his parents. He decides to get admitted to Hampden College in New England and encounters Julian Marrow, a mysterious teacher of ancient Greek. He befriends the fellow students Henry, Bunny and others who are devout followers of Julian’s teaching and blind admirers of his personality. Things start going wrong when they practice bacchanal, a mystical practice of losing the rational self and being in the moment. It is all the way down from there, all told through Richard’s tentative narrative style.
Tartt is a great storyteller and has an amazing command on language, if you are patient enough to sit through her long winded description of scenes that build a haunting environment of mystery. There are pages you want to skip through because nothing seems to be happening, but you don’t, since you are afraid you will miss something. She is also a master of sensual description. She creates a milieu through visual, aural and olfactory descriptions of places, people and scenes.
Her characters are gray throughout, they are detestable and selfish, morally ambiguous, secretive, afraid, and likable. There is no character that is completely positive, or completely negative. She builds suspense through selective release of information about the characters, and the first person narrative works fabulously well because of its ability to allow her to do that. You always get a feeling that she is hiding many things, and she is doing that, but that strategy keeps the reader on her toes. There are no major twists as such, and several things can be guessed well in advance, but how they play out, and how she keeps you guessing is a wonderful skill Tartt displays.
The setting of a liberal arts college, the background of ancient greek, and the mystique of Julian gives her ample opportunity to talk about philosophy, either through her characters or directly in the narrators voice. (There were a few reviewers of “Whiskey and Suicide” who thought people do not talk philosophy in their day to day life. I invite them to read Tartt’s book) The traps of being too philosophical, the difference between knowing philosophy from books and doing philosophy, the fact that morality is not automatically built by reading philosophy, are brought out very well by Tartt in the book.
If you do not mind reading long but exquisite descriptions, slow burn in term of built up, no major twists, you would love this book. You can learn a lot from Tartt as an author. How to build suspense by hiding things, how to describe through sensual inputs, how to use language to enhance narrative are some things budding authors can learn from her. My rating would be “Highly Recommended” with a score of 4.5/5.
Capote : A movie that explores the time in life of Truman Capote when he wrote “In cold blood. Bonus is a glimpse in the success of Harper Lee, who was Capote’s childhood friend.
The Angel at My Table : The movie is about the New Zealand author Janet Frame, who wrote more than 20 books. Her struggle with the mental illnesses andthe challenges of being a sensitive artist are depicted in a matter of factly way in this lovely movie.
Citizen Kane : Inspirational movie about the creative life and the successes thereby, and the key motivations for any creator. The direction and the editing of the movie itself is amazing. It is worth all the hype.
Inside Llewyn Davis : Songwriters have lives very similar to indie writers. Coen Brothers recreate the sixties Greenwich Village, a hotbed of country music and track the life of Llewyn Davis, his struggles and the realities of a struggling artist.
Pyaasa : Guru Dutt’s masterpiece that tracks the life of a poet, Vijay, who struggles to make ends meet and finds the true love of his life. Also watch “Kaagaz Ke Phool” by Guru Dutt which is about a film director facing failure.
The Hours : The movie mixed Virginia Woolf’s life, the narrative of her book – Mrs Dalloway, and the life of a person who is impacted by the book. Nicole Kidman’s authentic portrayal of Virginia Woolf won her an academy award for best actress.
Revenge of The Mekons : This movie will tell you how to lead an authentic life as an indie creator while sticking to the principles of art you want to create. It is also a lesson on living a happy life with meagre mean and learning continuously about your craft.
American Splendor : The movie is about Harvey Pekar, the creator of the underground comic book, “American Splendor”. Pekar worked in a government office all his life while creating his books, a reality in most writers’ lives.
Paterson : Paterson is a bus driver in the city of Paterson and is also a poet. Or should we say he is a poet who is also a bus driver. The mundane life of Paterson, his attempts to remain creative and make a living, and his response to a crisis is depicted by Jim Jarmusch is a heartbreaking and heartwarming manner at the same time.
Sideways : Miles is an English teacher and an aspiring author who takes his friend Jack on a wine tasting trip before Jack’s marriage. The writer’s anxieties are again brilliantly portrayed by Paul Giamatti, the same actor who player Harvey Pekar in American Splendor.
Five Easy Pieces : Jack Nicholson’s brilliant portrayal of Robert Dupea, who is a construction worker with a history similar to Amitabh Bachchan in “Kala Patthar”. Is his mundane existence an escape from a more pristine past?
Almost Famous : “Almost Famous” is about a 15 year old kid, a precocious writer, who gets an assignment to write a feature about a rock band, by Rolling Stone, the leading rock magazine. Bonus feature, Philip Hoffman’s brilliant portrayal of Lester Bangs.
Creative Process
“Once”, “Begin Again” and “Sing Street” by John Carnay are peans to creating rather than consuming. They depict very ordinary protagonists that take creation seriously and enjoy the process more than the product. A must for creative lows.
Adaptation : This masterpiece by Charlie Kaufman depicts a screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman writing a screeplay based on the book “The Orchid Thief” by Susan Orleans. The movie is about him fighting the writer’s block and creative the screenplay that becomes “Adaptation” the movie. Talk about recursive storytelling!
Synecdoche New York : Aging theatre director Caten Cotard gets McArthur grant of a million dollars to fund any project that he wants to do. He creates the replica of New York city with characters that match his life. How the real life and reel life blur is the story of this brilliant movie.
Barton Fink : Another masterpiece by the Coen Brothers, Barton Fink tells a story of the eponymous play writer who has come to Hollywood to write a script but has a terrible writers block. Bonus feature is the character said to be based on William Faukner.
8 ½ : Fellini’s brilliant depiction of a Director’s Block – an equivalent of the writer’s block in the world of movies – is a must watch for the frustration of a creator who can not match his earlier work. Writing your second/third book? This is a must watch.
Day for night : Life of an indie filmmaker is brilliantly portrayed in this work of genius by Francois Truffaut. The movie takes you through making of a movie and shows how fragile is the creative process.
Deconstructing Harry : Harry Block is a writer, played by the director Woody Allen, who also directs and writes the movie. Harry routinely writes about people he knows and get it back from them. The movie is about his visit to receive an award, and his life as it flashes back during his journey.
A prairie home companion : Robert Altman’s masterpiece about the real radio show, “The Prairie Home Companion” that stars its real host, Garrison Keillor among the ensemble cast that includes Meryl Streep and Virginia Madsen. A very close glimpse in the creative process of a real time show.
School or rock : Richard Linklator’s love song to rock music features a goofy character called Dewey Finn, who is a musician who does not have money. Jack Black brilliantly plays the self-assured musician turned music teacher who builds a rock group from the bunch of school students.
Wonder Boys : Based on the wonderful book by Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys is a campus movie in which the protagonist, an author with the first hit book – played brilliantly by Michael Douglas – is struggling with his second book.
“Many happy returns of the day, dude. Look what I bought for you?”
“Oh! “Manhattan Beach”! I was so looking forward to read this.”
“I know, I know. When we were in Goa, you read “A visit from the Goon squad” even in the dim light of that open air bar where the group was playing Beatles. I tried to read it when you were snoring, and I could not fall asleep. It was my magic wand for falling asleep in ten minutes. That was the moment I knew what your birthday gift is going to be.”
“Well, thank you for the birthday special. The remark about my reading choice, I mean. And thank you for straying away from your Beach Read and Eleanor & Park.”
“Oh, you are welcome. It was a fun trip to that section in Crossword where you get to sit very easily. The books were also looking absolutely untouched, brand new. I got an idea to write a book, as a matter of fact – tentatively named as “Hundred ways to get good night’s sleep.””
“Oh, come on. That should be the name of the other section where Fault in the Star and Love Story reside. With a subtitle of “A million ways for the guy to get the girl in the end.” How can people read hundred books where two people are in love, and then get out of love and get in love again in the end. The guy hesitantly touches the girl, the girl uses a million adjectives and adverbs to describe the feeling that a million other protagonists have used in the past. Some light sex, not described in the book if the book is a light romcom, described in detail if it is an erotic romcom, and all the combinations in between.”
“Yes, of course, you need more plotless novels where the protagonists debate about the meaning of life for 580 pages and do not find it in the end. Or there are interweaving stories that bore you to death with their mundane narrative, and protagonists that are losers – almost always. What is it about loser that those writers like? Besides the awards I mean.”
“I know, only the romance novelists know how to take a beaten up plot, change a little bit about the settings, give protagonists features that have never been tried before, use the “Romancing the beat” formula, and roll in the money.”
“I guess that’s enough about our reading habits dude. What is your birthday resolution? Well, you are sixteen now, right?”
“You are so sweet. You know girls never like to grow up, right? I don’t mind being wise and grown up. I am going to be twenty seven, thank you. Of course, as a guy, you are not supposed to remember that. It is the prerogative of the girls to remember everything about their father, then about their boyfriend/husband, and then about their kids. That’s an outline of the nice path that a girl’s life is supposed to take.”
“But I am sure you enjoy that right? What is better than to care about people you love.”
“Why does it have to only be a girl who cares? Why not the boy for a change? Anyway, to answer your question, my birthday resolution this year is to take some more time for myself. I have to try hard to do that because of all those things going on with my career. And of course I not Amrita to water my plants every day, and be happy to take care of husband and in laws.”
“Oh you are binging LitFic movies now. But more seriously, it makes total sense take that time out for yourself, girl. Life is too short to be indulged in trivialities.”
“You mean trivialities like romance novels?”
“Haha, not that one. Can I have my birthday kiss now?”
Anyway, I always loved it when we played The Doors, I absolutely adored the voice of Jim Morrison. Guess what, I do not like Doors any more. I really don’t? What do you like then? I listen to a lot of different kind of music. Punk, post punk, hip hop, and many other types of music like that. I need to check that out dude! Forget music for a moment. Do you feel the same angst, the same depth of emotions that you felt when we were nineteen. Maybe more. We did not have any clue about what life is, at that point in time. We took it too casually, I guess. We took it for granted. We felt that it was there for us, all the time. Waiting with its arms open. Always welcoming. In the past decades, I have learnt that it is not true. Life is not there all the time. You have to seek it. You have to cajole it. It will try to act funny. It will hide, and make faces. It may even wear a mask. Pretend to be someone else. But the chase is worth it. When you find life, when you find yourself, behind all those masks, you feel orgasmic. You feel like you have arrived at where you wanted to be, all the time. Wow, that was deep. When did you become a philosopher? Wait, you always were. You used to read Ayn Rand, didn’t you? Yes, of course. And guess what? I do not like Ayn Rand any more. Of course, she is a brilliant writer, but her brand of philosophy is just stupid. Meant mainly for adolescents. I guess I have some growing up to do then. I still adore Ayn Rand. Have not read anything after that I guess. I have just lived through the interdependence of everything, and everyone. When we were nineteen, we believed that we could be just ourselves, and change the world to suit our purposes. We also thought that it’s a good thing. A very solipsistic worldview. If we could change the world at our whims, anyone could. And then what would the world be? An ever-splitting chimera of infinite parallel tracks that never merge? Well, that could be a possibility. But I feel the world is made up of everyone’s desire. Everyone’s will, if you may. You can not change things at your whim or fancy. You have to navigate the solid automata of the past. And most likely, you are just acting out the script that the automata has imposed on you. Well, dude, just take a break, okay. This is becoming too hardcore. Do you still drink whiskey with icecubes? Yeah, but now you are shifting to our post-college days. In college, there was no money for whiskey, remember? We used to drink mosambi, that funny smelling, weird high giving shit that was concocted right outside the campus, you remember? Of course, I remember. I also remember the post college whiskey days. Remember that trip when I bought my first bottle of Chivas Regal and we drank the whole thing with those kebabs we picked up from a street vendor. Yes, that was bliss. Life was then a neverending conquest of more and more expensive drinks. And none of those gave the high we got with the mosambi. That’s too unfair dude. Remember the Japanese whiskey I got in one of those summers. It was so smooth. Yes, I am being a little unfair. But the bang for the buck was not there at all. When you buy a bottle for twenty thousand rupees, you want to be able to fly when you drink the first sip. Haha, that’s true. I guess, we went into social drinking. Collecting bottles to fill our bar with the most expensive drink. Collecting mementos of the places we traveled to. We remembered those trips as acquisitions, trophies that we collected and kept in the showcase to show off how much of life we had conquered. Guess who is becoming a poet and a philosopher now? Is that the effect of this fine whiskey? I know at a point in time, your brain did not move till you finished the whole bottle. Yes. Sometimes I used to smell of vodka when I reached office in the morning. My boss asked me to go wash my mouth when we were traveling to a client meeting. He did not want the client to think that I was drunk for an early morning meeting. Oh memories! I wonder what they are. Memories. They just stay there, stay there to haunt you, haunt you with their enticing pleasure content, or pain content that has become pleasure over a period of time. I always wonder how painful memories become pleasurable when time passes. You fondly remember the times when you failed. At the time when you failed, the feeling was terrible, but somehow, now, it has become some kind of victory that pleases your mind. I guess you feel great that you survived those days. Yes, absolutely. That’s why I don’t agree with Daniel Gilbert about his assertion that raising children is painful. When you check the moment to moment feelings, you may feel pain. But what matters is how it turns into memories over a long period of time. Any skill is painful to acquire, but will give you immense pleasure over a period of time. That’s what these hedonistic psychologists get wrong. Wow, you ARE a poet, philosopher and psychologist rolled into one. But seriously, I agree with you. Even friendship is a pain at times. Half the time you spend in laughing at the other guy. Still you prefer it over the conversations with people who keep praising you and making you feel good. You know, deep in your heart, that the guy who talks good is not going to be there when you have a problem. It is the guy who laughed at you would be there to cry with you, to console you, to cheer you, when you hit the bottom. Cheers to that dude! Cheers!
Though all forms of writing are unique, poetry stands out. Mainly because it is so commercially unsuccessful, and anyone who writes it has to be passionate about the craft and not money. I have written poems all my life, and I am happy to publish an anthology of them in my new book, “Significant And Heartfelt”. As I say in the blurb, “These poems are a boisterous celebration of life in all its forms without judging it.”
One of the people to whom I dedicate this anthology is Poet Grace, whose real name was Manik Godghate. Manik was the name my grandfather gave me at my birth, but it never appeared in any of my official documents, so I was never called Manik by my friends or colleagues. When I had to start my writing career, I chose that name, not only because of my grandfather, but also as a tribute to Poet Grace. (Incidentally, the other part Bal comes from another Marathi poet, Bal Sitaram Mardhekar).
If you are a poetry lover, and have a KU subscription, you can check it out. I am not going to market this book aggressively, since I know it is no use. Poetry does not sell. But still I would like to be read by genuine poetry lovers, and your feedback would mean a lot to me.
Here is the blurb :-
Significant And Heartfelt is Manik’s first poetry collection. These are poems that talk about love, life, longing, death and sorrow. Manik has dedicated this book to his influences – T.S. Eliot, Mirza Ghalib, and Poet Grace(aka Manik Godghate). The poems are as internal looking as they relish the world outside. In a poem, Manik is shocked by a suicide, in another he is talking about “Life Itself”. There are poems about a small, quaint street in Bangalore, and there is a reply to Wang Wei about the changing nature of One’s poems. Manik talks about Aliens in the same breath as he talks about a Yogi meditating on his breath. These poems are a boisterous celebration of life in all its forms without judging it.
There is world, vast and uncaring Lonely and beautiful and fearsome, meaningless and undying, compassionate and tuneful, inharmonious and barren. You decide to reside on mars, just for the sake of novelty And to take only the few humans, who love you and have unquenching Thirst for random snippets of mockery and the trees that do not dwell in the past life of thornful rose-queens yet sounding like a song with two guitars and a small piano played by the post-punk dudes You decide to travel tomorrow and rest for the night in the cozy bed made just for lustful drama-queens trying to dream non-alien images.
This is the first of several novels that John Macdonald has written with Travis McGee as a protagonist. Travis, who likes to be called Trav, is a self confessed beach bum, someone who works on special cases only when he runs out of money earned in the earlier case. In the interim, he spends the money earned on entertaining women on his yacht, named Miss Agnes.
The novel carries the marks of the period it was written in, and the state of the genre at that point in time. It is misogynist, has crudely sketched characters that speak melodramatic language and an unconvincing, elaborate plot. Still, it catches the readers attention due to MacDonald’s skills of narrating a story in a lucid manner. He builds the suspense by a first person narrative by McGee, who thinks of himself as a suave, smart, lady-magnet, super fit agent, who knows what life is. The first person narrator builds the antagonist as an exact opposite of himself, crude, dumb, a rapist, who does not know the subtleties of life.
McGee thinks women like him and he knows how to treat women, but the actual events show something else. So one wonders if the whole misogynist narrative is really a world view by the narrator, McGee. Even then it may be difficult for some people to like that kind of worldview.
MacDonald is an expert in describing action and some crucial parts of the book are essentially visual action. No wonder there is a movie planned with Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike in it. McGee’s character is also ideal for a movie, and there are movies made from other books in a series. MacDonald also describes intimate scenes really well, not talking about the action, but around it. It is something I find difficult to do.
In terms of characterization, McGee’s character – whether you like him or not – comes out really well. There are several incidents in the book that allow MacDonald to define the character from multiple sides. Unfortunately, one can not say the same thing about the other characters. Most of them, except possibly Lois, are not sketched so well, and come across as caricatures.
MacDonald has a habit of inserting philosophical and political commentary in the book. It adds some flavor to the book and makes it richer. He comes across as a knowledgeable and humane writers, which makes me feel that the particular tone of the book is a stance he has taken as a viewpoint from the lead character’s perspective.
In short, a likable book if you are going to give a benefit of doubt to MacDonald. I would give it 3.5/5 and would recommend it for people who like thrillers and mysteries of the Raymond Chandler kind. I want to read a few more of his books to understand how a series is built.
(Trivia :- Apparently Sam Elliot acted as Travis McGee in one of the movies. I really want to see that one.)
Carrie is an interesting first book. Technically, it was not Stephen King’s first book. It was his first published book. He took it up as a challenge from a female friend to write a book where the protagonist was a woman. In one of the interviews, King has said that it have women liberation kind of an angle. King had thrown the idea of the book written on paper in a wastebasket, where his wife picked it up. She thought that the idea had potential and urged King to write the book.
Carrie is a very unusual child. She is raised by a mother who is a religious fanatic who thinks that Carrie is a cursed child. Carrie goes to a local school where she is not a very popular child but has a desire to be one. She is unusual in a different sense, she has telekinetic power, power that lift and move things just by thinking about it. The author makes us think that the powers are triggered by an incident in the school that is described by King in a way moving style.
The format the narrative of the book is very interesting, containing several different types. There is a third person narrative that seems like an omniscient narrator kind of a tone. There is a narrative that is in form of excerpts from a book written about the incident. There is another narrative which is again from a book written by one of the other student from the school. And finally, there is an article written by another student in some newspaper of magazine. The variation in narratives works pretty well in building up the anticipation and King is a master at describing actions and events in such a manner as to keep you at the edge of the seat.
The characterization of the protagonist is done really well and you can say the same thing about the supporting characters. Carrie’s mother is sketched really well, which is partly an explanation of why Carrie is the way she is. Other students, the main ones especially come alive. The culture of the town, the school, the teenagers at that point in time – all of these come alive in King’s writing. King is very good at descriptions of scenes as if they are from a movie. You get a feeling that you are watching the movie.
The climax arrives somewhere near the middle of the book and due to all the anticipation built by King, it is a little underwhelming. So is all the narrative that follows the climax. After that, the book becomes monotonous. It would probably feel much better on a screen since most of that stuff is very visual, but just imagine the all the destruction that appears in Avengers – Age of Ultron described in words. I felt that the first part of the book was amazing but the later part just did not live up to the hype created so well by King.
What can you learn as a writer from King? The art of multiple narratives that talk about the same thing, giving you multiple ways to look at an event. Narratives that hide things to build suspense. Building intertwined events that give a sense of the doom. King is a master in building the suspense and an atmosphere of doom. All the while in the first many pages, you get a sense of impending ruin. He is also a master in giving a holistic treatment to a character, however evil or disgusting it may be. He gives a very balanced treatment to Carrie, and you feel supportive of her at times, as if what she is doing is the right thing to do if you had been through the circumstances she has been through. He does not seem to write for an audience, but several type of readers would love the book.
I would rate it 3/5 with a recommendation for people who like supernatural horror of a mild manner. It is also recommended for people who like twisted young adult books.
Manik Bal’s short story collection, “Her Revenge” is available now. With this diverse collection of short stories, Manik Bal continues to explore the, and the mundane in the bizarre.
