I thought maybe this was the title of a new Jason Starr novel
John Lau
"You may have the watches, but we have the time." - Afghan proverb
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Vorzimmer <jvorzimmer@austin.rr.com>
To: RARA-AVIS <rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Oct 25, 2009 12:24 pm
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Losing Streak
I'm on an unprecedented losing streak with bad books. Mostly because I've
strayed from good hardboiled fare. I got about 15 pages into the non-fiction The
Man Who Saved Britain, about Ian Fleming, and realized it was total shite. I
thought self-loathing citizens were unique to the US, but here was a real
self-loathing Brit and self-admitted Communist writing about the evils of a
capitalist society glorified by the James Bond books. Yes, it's as bad as it
sounds.
I read Revolutionary Road, supposedly one of the great overlooked novels of the
twentieth century. It should remain overlooked, except by self-loathing
Americans. I dread even the thought of seeing the movie.
But the worst book I've read recently was "hardboiled" crime fiction. It was one
of those Harlequin books from their early years they reprinted as part of their
60th Anniversary celebration. It's called Pardon My Body and was written by an
Englishman, using the pen name of Dale Bogard, who apparently had never stepped
foot in New York City--or even the US, where the book is set, at least not by
the time he had written the book.
The overall effect is bizarre, like Kubrick's New York City streets in Eyes Wide
Shut. I know it's supposed to be New York and the street signs are that of New
York streets, but it ain't New York. In Pardon My Body you notice he talks about
going south on a street that runs east and west and east on a street that runs
north and south. Then he talks about taking a long subway ride that in actuality
is four blocks. In one chapter he's taking the Third Avenue subway and then the
Third Avenue El the next trip. Oh and there's the overnight trip from New York
to a city west of Columbus, Ohio. A five hundred mile trip, he claims. I guess
he thought the US was about the same size as the UK. The worst part was the hack
writing with every bad stereotype and the twisted American slang. A guy doesn't
get "sent up" on a murder rap, he got "sent out", for example. It was bizarro
world to say the least.
It was the same overall feeling I got when reading I Spit on Your Graves by
Vian. I found it appalling that someone would try to write a book about a
country he had never been to and about a culture he knew nothing about. After
reading that book I did a little research and found that Vian had never, in
fact, been to the US.
Jeff
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