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why, oh why?
2004-09-25 - 12:22 p.m.
Ok, you know what really confuses and surprises me? Not to mention filling me with horror and despair for humanity's future? Well, I'll tell you.
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As many of you know, I'm sure, carrying large numbers of books around when you're travelling is very inconvenient, because books are actually quite heavy. So, one tends to carry two or three books and then swap them with other travellers or with the English-language bookshelves in the various hostels and so on that one stays in. One of the consequences of this is that you end up reading books that you would never have read under any other circumstances. It is for this reason that I found myself reading Anne Tyler's "Back When We Were Grownups". Perhaps I should begin by saying that I believe it to be the worst book I have ever read. This is including even the cheapest and trashiest of the various cheap and trashy fantasy novels I read as a boy. (Not to imply that all fantasy is cheap and trashy... I love fantasy books, but you have to admit there's a lot of guff out there...) This includes all of the bad novels I read during my last bout of travelling. It's worse than "Angelique and the King", a pseudo-historical bodice-ripper that I thought at the time was as bad as a novel could be. Worse than Mills & Boon, worse than Tom Clancy, worse than anything.
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What makes this book so bad? It's a combination of three qualities converging in fatal harmony, like a satanic confluence of the planets. Firstly, nothing happens in the book. The plot is almost entirely devoid of anything that might be called an "event". Let me summarise: the main character lives in a big house and looks after various people or puts up with their childish misbehaviour, worrying about whether or not she chose the right path in life. She dallies with getting back together with her childhood sweetheart, but then decides against it. The end.
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The second thing is that there are a total of two personas divided among the various characters in the book. The main character is a "long-suffering mother" archetype, who endures the various impositions placed on her by the other characters with a determined effort at good humour. Every other character in the book, most of whom had ridiculous names and an implausible background sketch to flesh them out, was basically a spoiled, ridiculous, retarded child. Every "scene" in the book, therefore, consists of one of these basically interchangeable people imposing on our protagonist in some way, and her kind of sighing and enduring it.
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And the third thing is that the writing is just bad. Flat, dull, and featureless, it has all the stylistic flair of a reluctant highschool student writing a report of what they did on their holidays. Reading it feels like wading through waste-deep grey, pulpy slush.
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So, what is it that I find so horrifying? This book doesnt merely exist... it's a best-seller! The author is both commercially and critically successful! She's had one of her books adapted into a bloody film, for christ's sake! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS WORLD????
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Ahem.
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On another note, I recently watched the Zhang Yimou film "Hero", and was surprised to discover that I already knew the story. It's about the king of Qin and his quest to rule all of China by conquering the six other chinese kingdoms, and the assassin who endeavours to stop him. If this sounds familiar, it's because you've seen "The Emperor and The Assassin", directed by Chen Kaige, which is another film made about the same story. What's interesting about this is that Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou worked together on making their first film, "Yellow Earth", which won a swathe of awards and was regarded as the beginning of a resurgence for Chinese cinema. Kaige and Yimou subsequently fell out and stopped collaborating. Kaige is probably best known for directing "Farewell, My Concubine" while Yimou, before making "Hero", was probably best known for making "Raise the Red Lantern". Anyway. I kept thinking during the film, Yimou has made this in order to show up Kaige. "Anything you can do, I can do better". Kaige's certainly had a share of missteps... anyway, the cinematography in "Hero" is amazing, but for my money "The Emperor and The Assassin" is the better film. Watch both, decide for yourself! :)
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Um, yeah, sorry to anyone who likes Ann Tyler.
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"I remember throwing punches around
And preaching from my chair" - The Who
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