Purple Is Never A Good Shade For Prose

[pargoletta]

So I'm all of nineteen pages into a novel, and I'm not sure I can take any more without beating my head against a handy wall to lower my IQ. It really shouldn't have been this way. This book had so much going for it. The author is Erica Jong, who I've always categorized as one of those second-tier contemporary classic authors whose books really

Comments

[cricep]

Wow.

[pargoletta]

Yeah. Not much more you can say at this point. Maybe I'll read on just to see how much purpler the prose can get.

[cricep]

At least you can be glad you only borrowed it from the library instead of buying it - soon it will be gone from your life for good.

Hahaha now I'm almost curious about this book.

[pargoletta]

Hahaha now I'm almost curious about this book.

I braved a few more pages. On pages 25 - 26, you get this charming passage:

I cross my legs. A hundred cameras with flash attachments are at knee level. We are on the stage and the photographers are crouched directly below the footlights. The president of the Biennale makes a long speech full of words like artisticamente, belle arti, cinema come arte. When people talk about art, I reach for my gun. Every scoundrel with a sinecure prates of art. We who attempt to do it (however imperfectly) know that sometimes one has to be murdered on film to pay the rent, and sometimes one works for love -- though love doesn't pay for Vuitton luggage nor for the kinds of clothes you need when crossing your legs before a hundred photographers.

Cry me a fookin' river. Also, the Hermann Göring reference, we spots it, Precious. Reading on . . . just what kind of clothes does one need when crossing one's legs before a hundred photographers?

I am wearing a purple silk dress full of odd-shaped

[valmora]

....description is not a substitute for character development. That is all.

Japanese wife in full kimono,
Who would never travel that way because it's slow going and the shoes tend to hurt. Besides, there's many levels of "full kimono". RAWR FEEL MY ASIAN STUDIES WRATH.

[pargoletta]

Guess what! In chapter two, all the stereotypes get names. Arctic Siberian Icy Eyes is Grigory "Grisha" Krylov, Russkie slimeball extraordinaire. The Spanish guy with the long white hair is Carlos Armada, and the dishy girlfriend turns out to be Italian, but does not rate a name. The German Marxist is Walter Wildhonig, the shtetl-born Nobel laureate is Benjamin Gabriel Gimel, the vaguely Belgian guy is Pierre de Houbigant . . . and the Japanese wife in kimono isn't mentioned. I shall refer to her as Cio-Cio-San until she does get mentioned again. Perhaps Cio-Cio-San and the Exquisite Eurasian Daughters have high-tailed it out of this mess?

. . . nope, names added to descriptions still don't make for character development.

[valmora]

Russkie slimeball extraordinaire
Urgh. Why are all Russians always bad guys? Life needs more David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin.

(are the names even vaguely authentic? I caught that "Armada" in there and somehow I think that's less a real name than the author being lazy...)

I think the Exquisite Eurasian Daughters ought to be Hanako. (Yamada Hanako being, of course, the Jane Doe of Japan)

[pargoletta]

Well, vaguely authentic. I suppose it's not entirely out of the question to have a German man named Walter Wildhonig; it's just a very silly name. Grigory Krylov needs a patronymic, say, Ivanovich, and he would expect to be addressed as "Grigory Ivanovich" by some of his friends. Benjamin Gabriel Gimpel -- well, kind of silly, but he's supposed to be a Wandering Jew, so whatever. Carlos Armada -- "Carlos" I can buy, "Armada" doesn't sound to me like a last name that any Spaniard would be proud to carry, what with its being associated with the big defeat. I have no idea about ol' Pierre de Houbigant, husband of Cio-Cio-San and father of Hanako and Hanako Junior.

Urgh. Why are all Russians always bad guys?

Because it's an 80s novel. In fact, Our Heroine's ball gown is specifically described as having been inspired by Princess Di's wedding dress.

[liaku]

Wow. The giuria paragraph just broke my brain. She certainly likes her adjectives, I guess. I had something to say until I got that far, and I think it had something to do with commending your bravery to keep reading beyond the first page, but I can't say for sure anymore.

[pargoletta]

Oh, it gets better. It turns out that Our Heroine is, in fact, an actress in one of the films entered in the film festival. And yet . . . she is on the giuria anyway. Because she's just so damn perfect that she can be an impartial judge of a film she's in (as well as a film by a director that she's already contracted to work with on his next film).

FAIL.

[liaku]

...You know, while I get a huge kick out of you recapping this book, I've got to recommend you put it down like a dog. I can't help but think young Mr. Shakespeare is going to find his heart and soul butchered by Jong's pen. But speaking as a part of the peanut gallery, I really hope you finish. This book is hilariously awful.

That being said, jesus. If she wins an award herself, I vote we rename Our Heroine to SuperSue.

[pargoletta]

Oh, don't worry. Her film didn't win any awards (considering that it was called Women In Hell, this isn't too much of a suprise). In fact, her film seems to have been weak enough to have been completely overshadowed by the Teddible! Scandal! of Our Heroine twagically sleeping through it on account of having decided to attend while a) suffering from Instant Strep Throat and b) dressed, for some reason, as Marlene Dietrich:

[pargoletta]

Oooo, that looks really good. And I do read German, so maybe I'll just track down the original.

And thank you so much for the lovely comment about the Caro-verse. I'm taking a quick break to explore Queer As Folk for a bit, but don't worry, there's also another Caro-verse story in the works.