master of the game
i loved the sidney sheldon novel that thom brought me back from his christmas holiday. it took me a while to get going, but having resigned myself to enjoying it i accelerated through the last three hundred pages in about two hours. originally i thought it was quite racist and misogynistic but later i realized how reductive that reasoning was. in fact it is wildly salacious and exploitative of every facet of humanity, not merely restricting itself to those two types of prejudice. i am not naive enough to dismiss the dark heart that thrills to read such dreadful filth, it belongs to me. part of the pleasure is the constant tutting and grimacing as each fresh injustice is visited upon a character. master of the game has a "strong female heroine" who turns out to be a vile sexless beast who directly or indirectly causes tragedies to befall each member of her family. one girl is punished for her promiscuity by first being cut off from the family fortune, then later cruelly disfigured by her jealous husband. another female character dies in childbirth as she is forced into pregnancy against her will. there are several prostitutes mentioned who either conform to the stereotypical "heart of gold" type who bows and scrapes before real ladies, or else are mutilated and beaten for asking to be paid. casual references to apartheid and the holocaust pepper the narrative as projects for the main character to become involved with; distractions. like a tabloid newspaper it provides the sleaziest of thrills.