Seriously. This is how I feel after finishing this book. Somehow this one picture sums it up perfectly. Something about the look of confused resignation on his face I think.
It wasn't always that way of course. To start with I even almost enjoyed it. There was a sense that the writing had actually improved somewhat. Maybe this won't be as bad I thought to myself. The characters almost seem to have a character this time around. I mean, yeah, the two leads were eyeing each other up like a pair of hungry burgers in heat, but there was at least a hint of something beyond the GOTHIC DESTINY we had to put up with last ime.
om nom nom
You know, that maybe these two characters could find each other attractive for reasons beyond being bludgeoned with the plot hammer.
This was going to be the best christmas walfords ever had, nothing could possibly go wrong. Have you met my friend the Titanic?
Yeah, that didn't last very long. Now I hate everything even more than I usually do. So where did it all go wrong? Well there are two major issues that immediatly spring to mind.
Firstly of course there is the subtle message about sexual politics and the roles and characteristics of the various genders therein. All men ONLY want sex. Any emotions they feel are made up afterwards as a form of rationalisation or mental justification of their crotch lead urges. However once the man has gotten around to convincing himself he feels these emotions they are a useful tool for a woman to manipulate in her twisted quest for power. Because for the woman it all comes down to what she can gain. She may desire to use a man for sex. She may desire to use for social advancement or financial gain.Or she may merely desire to mess with a mans head and feed on his delicious suffering. But she well never actually FEEL anything. Any emotions she experiences (if she actually does at all) are purely designed to further her own inscrutable goals.
Seriously Binteenas wildly oscillating mood swings come of less as a state of emotional confusion and more like a switch flipping sociopath. "I don't know" is a statement of confusion "yesnoyesnoyesnoyesnoyesno shiney! yes" is a sign of schizophrenia or some other crippling mental imbalance. The sort of emotional A.D.D. that must be kept away from sharp objects.
Then of course theres the rapey parts. Now, I may have slightly overstated the case in the interests of comedy (because nothing says fun times like rape) but really not by much. Call me old fashioned, but when a lady says no thank you you don't then bend her over a sofa and forcefully chuck one up her. Wether or not she secretly wants it is fairly irrelevent. That shit will not stand in a court of law. Maybe thats why I'm still single, desperatly lonely and NOT IN PRISON. Is this really how the world is supposed to work.
Suprise and fear
Thirdly there is the fact that, on sober reflection this is bsically THE SAME BOOK as last time. Check it:
A dark and incredibly handsome immortal shadow guy meets some amazingly attractive mortal woman and they are destined to GET IT ON. Meanwhile a crazed killer stalks the streets of London but noone seems bothered enough to actually do anything about it. Almost the whole book is spent pissing around alternatly hating and loving each other before the lead couple finally get it on. The hero makes an important discovery entirely at random whilst just wandering around, and the final battle takes place somewhere high up with a scenic view of London. The main villain who has been built up over the course of the whole book as the most evil and powerful thing since sliced bread dies like a bitch in less time than it takes to say dies like a bitch. Then theres a bit of random confusing bullshit before the book abruptly ends.
Sound familiar?
The fourth problem (and nice red uniforms) is simply that the whole thing is so incredibly badly written. Literally nothing makes any sense. We spend the whole book pursuing one particular macguffin, only to turn around and discard it at the last minute. The immortal guys are supposed to have finely tuned bad guy detecting powers, yet spend half the book hanging out with the family of evil and never realise. And the crazy and evil™ thing? It's not that the crazy and evil™ wasn't done with any subtlty. It's that it wasn't done AT ALL. For all the posturing and dire warnings and constant proclamations of impending doom Junior suffers what side effects exactly? NONE. The occasional bout of AMNESIA!! is finally revealed to be the work of happy bunnies or something, thus leaving him with the occasional headache. This makes Revenge Of The Sith look positively Shakespearean. It's quite possible to portray a character turning to evil. It just takes time and careful writing.
Neither of which we have on offer here. The plot, such as it is, is rushed through in story at an alarming rate. Just look at that whole wedding buisness. Somehow it seems to me that it might take a bit longer than a week to find the love of your life. Of course Juniors eventual mortalness is heavily signposted along the way, notably in Binteenas wild mood swings. I mean, they had the bint get made immortal last time, so this time of course the guy had get made mortal for the happily ever after. It was inevitable.
There's never any real sense of any threat. The bad guys show up, fuck off, fuck back on and then die. Achieving nothing. The pacing is all over the place, with the now familar "nothing happens for most of the book and then theres random bullshit out of nowhere and then it ends" structure in effect.
The whole thing isn't just a mess. It's a painful mess. Again there is the sense that maybe there's a salvageble storyline in there somewhere, but really it would be like looking for diamonds in a sewage farm. They may well be there, but you're gonna have to swim through an awful lot of shit to get at them. And you may never get the smell out, no matter how much you polish.
In final summation then: I've done some dumb, painful and self destructive things in my time. Reading this was undoubtedly one of them. The fact that are people out there who read this sort of thing for fun fills me with horror, and I thank fuck that the third book isn't out yet.
Because of course there's a third book. But I am not going anywhere near it without a long holiday. And possibly a hazmat suit.
I write like
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
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