Yesterday morning, reaching for a shirt at ground level, I threw out my back. Yay! (Ha. No.) Anyway, the result was entire day in bed. And the result of that? I read the new Lionel Shriver novel and watched a rented movie. Results:
1) Breakfast with Scot: Sorely disappointing. Such a cute trailer! So many promised laughs! But the movie was dour and way too butch. All those gay men who saw it at film festivals must have walked out when the hockey plot hijacked the musical theater plot.
We should have done the same. But we watched on, ever hopeful. When at long last the redemptive final scene made its flaccid appearance, I said to John, “We’re not going to cry now, because it’s so poorly written and because we’ve seen this coming all along, right?” And he said, “Wrong.”
2) Let the Great World Spin: (Finished on Saturday, but please indulge me as I shoehorn the review into this slot.) A loaner from a friend (thanks, Doug!). You know, in general I am against multi-narratives. And here’s why. For me, a novel is about depth. It’s about spending multiple engrossing hours with 1 -3 (maybe 4) characters and following them through a series of events that takes hundreds of pages to tell. If, instead, you want to present me with 12 characters, each of whom gets anywhere from 10 - 40 pages, I would advise writing a series of short stories.
LtGWS is well written (if humorless), with impressive insights into character and plenty of lively turns of phrase. I enjoyed the first 100 pages, when I thought we’d be returning to the people we’d taken time to know. And we do return to them—in passing, through the eyes of others. So every 20 pages, we’re required to meet someone new and become interested in their story. Feh. I wasn’t. (Sorry, Doug!)
3) So Much for That: Oh, Lionel. You guys know how she and I have this really conflicted relationship? (She doesn’t know, but you do.) Her latest novel may be the least successful of the lot—written, apparently, as a treatise on a theme instead of an exploration of character. The point is apparently to novelize the misery that is the current health care/insurance system in the US (Although, new law! Hooray!) and, I mean, who doesn’t know? Does anyone not know?
Plus, a novel is not an argument. At least, I don’t think it should be. A novel is a world. A novel is the world, in a sense. And as one of Shriver’s great strengths is creating indelible characters, it’s surprising that she would ever resort to using them as mouthpieces. Resort she does.
Other issues: She breaks #2 of my cardinal rules! The cheapest one! And she has a character, with no build-up or warning, very conveniently shoot himself in the head. Cheaper still! She also has a character, out of character, undergo penis enlargement surgery. AND she ends the novel with a fantasy that is somehow supposed to wash over the grief of four deaths.
I wasn’t buying it.
Though here is one thing about Shriver to appreciate: She may be obsessed with money (she is obsessed with money), but because so often in popular media, characters with little or no apparent income live lavishly without once mentioning money, it’s nice to have a writer get real about finances.
On the negative side, Shriver is also obsessed with physical appearance. Her women are always, always thin, unless they’re subservient cows, for whom she has nothing but contempt.
Sigh.
Also [SPOILER ALERT], if you’re going to read one novel in which a 50-year-old woman dies hideously of cancer, I don’t recommend following that up with another where the exact same thing happens.