I have a question: can you still call this a comic novel if there are no laughs? Actually I rarely even smiled. Admittedly I read this book in poor circumstances: on the red eye from Tokyo to Melbourne, but even so this felt less like a novel and more like a parade of lame, rather old fashioned observations about Americans, British Jews, lefties, the BBC etc. that might have been edgy in say 1983 but which I found toe curlingly embarrassing in 2010. It doesn't work as a comic novel because Howard Jacobson does not deliver on the funny. Neither his puns nor his comedic situations nor his dialogue made me laugh. But if its not a comedy what is it? The caricatures in this book carry no moral force or seriousness, they do not entertain or instruct or make us think. The book is basically about a circle of Jewish and wannabe Jewish friends in North London who discuss life, love and philosophy but I really should emphasise that this is an overly generous description. The paper thin characters talk and act like silly, not too bright students after their first hit of Moroccan black. They babble and moan and babble some more. This quickly becomes tiresome. Eventually most of us grow out of our pointless verbosity and narcissism. Children (not necessarily our own) make us grow up; but a certain strata of the English middle and upper classes farm their children out to various grim agoge and thus remain in a retarded state of adolescence for their entire life. Why would anyone care what these kind of people say or do? I wasn't interested when Iris Murdoch was telling us about them and Howard Jacobson aint no Iris Murdoch.
...
He aint no Philip Roth or Saul Bellow either. In fact I can only imagine that this book won the Booker Prize because the jury hadn't read any Roth, Bellow or even Michael Chabon. Jacobson lacks their depth and acerbity and yeah he lacks their jokes too.
...
Which brings me to my wider point - what the hell has happened to British fiction? The Finkler Question is the best they can do? Hampstead table talk and gossip slow cooked for 315 pages? Really? The Finkler Question, Wolf Hall, that's where you want to go? Vay iz meer, bubelah, vay iz meer.
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61 comments:
Yesterday I saw a comment on a website that quoted, "Pound" (and I guess they meant Ezra) saying we should only pay attention to writers if they are inventors or masters.
That may set the bar a little high but it does seem like there are a lot of people aiming for the middle ground.
John
Or, in Pound's case, bloody Nazis.
I must be really out of touch because if this book had been sent to me as an editor or a publisher I would have rejected it as hopelessly incompetent and old fashioned. In fact it wins the Booker Prize and sells in the millions...
Haven't read it. But I disagree with you on Wolf Hall.
Seana
I wouldnt have published that either without major editing, so again, it shows you how much I know.
No, you might be right about the editing, but I enjoyed it so much that I didn't really notice the extra fat.
Seana
I would have cut at least 10 percent and added more paragraph breaks.
Off topic:
Dec Burke and I are cut from the same cloth - he has a post over at crime always pays that I couldnt agree with more.
I saw Declan's post and liked it, although I haven't read the book he talked about.
A friend of mine just emailed me to see if I had The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, she said her daughter needs it for a high school book club. We live in a pretty conservative area, I'm a bit surprised with what I've heard about it the teachers are encouraging reading about that kind of violence.
Glenna
I do not think The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is appropriate for high school, certainly not a school sanctioned book club for two reasons:
1. Its very bad literature - if high school is about anything its about giving kids (possibly for the only time in their lives) an exposure to high culture.
2. There is far too much graphic and deeply disturbing sexual violence.
Adrian, I told her about the violence, and the part, I believe you once mentioned, about where a parrot it put, and she was shocked. She said she would make sure she read it before allowing her daughter to. My suspicion is that whoever picked the book hasn't read it themselves. Which is a frightening thought honestly.
I know we're all down on "gatekeepers" these days and we're all supposed to be "anti-elites" (though the definition of "elite" is being spread awfully thin) but I think Seanna is right that it's possible the people recommending the book haven't read it.
I always use the food analogy - I like ice cream sometimes but I'd be very surprised if nutritionists recommended ice cream as a proper meal.
Its funny as I was given one of your books for christmas having never read a crime novel before so I thought yay i have a whole new genre to explore and went to the library only to realise that the genre wasn't for me because a lot of the novels were all about murders of young girls and I don't want to read about that at all.
Glenna
There's a lengthy rape sequence of an autistic girl that I think should put most people off for a start.
On my travels I saw so many people reading Dragon Tattoo - I couldnt make any sense of it.
John
I'm all for gate keepers. Make teenage girls read Edna Saint Vincent Millay and Emily Bronte and Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson not Stieg Larsson.
Frankie
What baffles me is why ANYONE would want to read these books.
I wrote a review of a Peter James novel about a serial rapist in Brighton for The Melbourne Age - I was utterly appalled by the potrayal of women in the novel and the lurid, graphic violence that I really went to town on the book. I was so angry and negative that The Age never published the review.
That's weird. I met Peter James a few weeks ago. He was signing books at a boat show outside Brighton.( I was there for the boats ) "Dead Tomorrow" I think the book was.
Frankie
That must be the next one. I think I'll blog my review of Dead Like You next week. Someone has to call this asshole to account.
Super, Adrian. And thanks for the thumbs up on the Larssons, I have heard that the violence is sickening and I believe Marieke Hardy said likewise on First Choosdy a while back.
in the meantime - 'Hampstead table talk and gossip slow cooked for 315 pages?' how do you think my old pal Hanif K. fits into this? is he a gossip or a social chronicler, or something in between?
I net Howard Jacobson at a dinner party once and he was pleasant enough but he was almost drunk on his own self-importance.
I liked The Mighty Waltzer but find the rest of his stuff a bit 'meh'.
The Booker is just a back-slapping, mutual appreciation club now instead of rewarding good literature; some does get through but it's disappearing up its own arse
Gen
No comparison. I like H.K. His books are always about something. And they certainly aren't slow cooked, are they?
Rob
Talk about mutual admiration societies - the blurbs and reviews I read in the inside jacket were well over the top. The one that disappointed me most was Anthony Julius's ecstatic review. I've lost a little bit of respect for him now.
He seemed like a nice enough man. Not an extreme character.
There was a horrific murder of a woman in Brighton a few years ago. The man who did it was obsessed with torture porn. The law was changed because of this case.
Anyway what would you recommend for a funny book? who does funny?
Frankie,
Here's a few random titles that I found funny:
Lucky Jim (Amis)
The Old Devils (Amis)
Decline and Fall (Waugh)
Men at Arms (Waugh)
Summer Lightning (Wodehouse)
Catch 22
The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde)
Hithchhiker Quartet (Adams) (the fifth book is not funny)
If you're into surreal humour you could try:
The Third Policeman
At Swim Two Birds
and personally I find James Ellroy very funny but not many other people do.
Ta I'll have a look at some of those. I did start The Third Policeman but I didn't understand it and it freaked me out a bit. PG Wodehouse is my favorite author. I would like to find a modern day Wodehouse.
Frankie
A modern Wodehouse would be great, but alas...
Some people find Bill Bryson quite funny but he's not my cup of tea, for laughs anyway.
John, it wasn't me who said that the person who recommended it hadn't read the book.
I wasn't crazy about the Larsson, though for different reasons than you all. But I will say that young women not too long out of high school do seem to find some sort of deep identification with Lisbeth Salander, I think because they like the idea that someone who has been taken advantage of in both a systematic and personal way is capable of striking back in similarly systematic and personal way. The publisher for better or worse, has picked up on this identification and brought out these promo black wristbands that read "What would Lisbeth do?" Some younger female members of our staff snapped these right up.
Although I do think Larsson does exploit violence against women in these books, I think the popularity of the books, at least for women, has very little to do with being titillated by that.
Apart from Wodehouse who is sublime, I read Three Men in a Boat every year. Even thinking about the packing of the food and the research into illnesses makes me giggle.
Harry Hill's books make me howl with laughter but they are only for people with a passing knowledge of British daytime TV.
And, of course, Molesworth
Seana
WWLD eh? Sleep with creepy older writers for one. Gives hope to us all.
Rob
I have fond memories of Three Men in a Boat (not to mention the dog).
When I lived in Jerusalem there was a very small English language section of the local library and that was one of the titles. After avoiding it for a long time (how could something that old possibly be funny) I read it.
Laughed till the tears flowed.
As I've said when mentioning this elsewhere, what wouldn'tLisbeth do is more the question.
I looked at Declan's post after posting here, and it's a good discussion he's got going there, though I'd be very surprised if anyone participating in it changed their position at the end.
Re HK, Adrian - oh no no no!!
Gen
Have you read My Son The Fanatic?
Speaking of Stieg, I made it through a couple hundred pages of The Girl Who Played With Fire. To summarize: there was a random "man going to kill his wife" subplot that was way too easily thwarted and which didn't move the main story forward; countless instances of so-called "characterization" in the form of gratuitous sex and/or exposition about gratuitous sex; coincidence after coincidence after coincidence to move the perpetually stalling plot forward; literally dozens of occasions where the characters discuss Lisbeth to demonstrate, ad nauseam, how strange and incomprehensible she is.
Yeah, Stieg, we get it.
Needless to say, I stopped reading. But given that so many people are devouring these books, I'm left worrying that I'm not "getting" whatever it is to get about Stieg.
This review sums it up pretty well, I think.
Brian
I am the last person to ask. The success of Dragon Tattoo baffled me. I didnt get it at all. I'm not anti Swede. I loved Let The Right One In and some Menkell.
I have nothing substantial to add to the conversation. I just want to say that this post reminded me of something.
A decade ago I heard every going on and on about how great the new Margaret Cho CD was " Notorious C.H.O.: Live at Carnegie Hall". Now I love a great comedy album so of course I went and bought it. I didn't laugh once. Not a single time. I took it back to the store the next day and now Cho is on my shit list.
Brian O, I think your comments get more to my gripe with the first book, which was that it wasn't that well written, or really edited I guess, and I think my real peeve, which no one else seemed to be much bothered by was that the actual mystery elements sucked. I have a copy of the second, but doubt I'll ever open it.
Brian L., yeah Margaret Cho is a Santa Cruz kind of comic, and they ran the movie she made at the local theatre for a long time. I kind of liked her whole take on being on a short lived Asian American sitcom, but I kind of feel like she was of a certain moment in cultural sensibility.Then again, I might just be out of the loop.
Brian
I too have not found M Cho to be funny. She seems like a nice enough person but just not very funny.
Seana
The whole world seems to transit through Santa Cruz doesnt it?
It seems to be a very cosmopolitan small town. That must be quite fun.
Seana and John, it was me that said I didn't think the teacher had read it. I think John combined our names, which I take to be a bit of a compliment honestly.
Well, me too, Glenna.
Adrian, yes, it's surprising who comes through town, considering that no on the east coast seems to know that it is nowhere near L.A. and think it is very distant from San Francisco.
I liked the Larsson trilogy, for various reasons, one, that brutal violence against women is exposed, and, more importantly, Lizbeth Salander fights back and doesn't withdraw from the world after years of all kinds of abuse.
But, she does fight back against her abusers, including against the rapist. She outwits him and very cleverly, plots what to do and does it.
That is what resonates with many women readers, whom I know and others I have followed on the blogosphere.
One blogger reported rhat when he saw the movie, the whole room was quiet during the rape scene, but when Salander retaliated, every woman stood up and cheered.
Salander is very smart, courageous, independent and a fighter. However, she is vulnerable and has many insecurities, as is obvious. Who wouldn't after all that mistreatment?
That said, I did skip parts of the book because I have limits as to what I can tolerate about violence against women. And, with the GWTDT movie, I walked out of the room a few times or covered my eyes, as it's even more graphic.
I don't know that I'd want any teenage girls or boys reading this, as it's so brutal. And it certainly shouldn't be assigned by anyone who hadn't read it. And parents would have to read it, if their children did, to explain it and deal with the issues it raises, like violent rape and serial killings of women, combined with anti-Semitism and nazism. (And I couldn't watch much of that in the movie either.)
The third book resolves the whole story with collaboration of many strong women with Blomkvist.
Those women characters resonated with many women readers, too, and to me, was a satisfying ending.
I don't defend these books as great literature, but a well-told story, an epic, with a broad view, interesting characters, some social commentary and good resolution.
However, I can understand why some readers have problems with it and it's controversial. It is very hard to take. But controversy sells books.
And I just read Declan Burke's post on the issue of "torture porn" and related books, and agree with much of what he and Adrian have to say on that score, in general.
Kathy
You make your points excellently. I'm glad that people indentify with a clever young woman rather than a wet blanket, but I have to say he lost me with the breast implants...
Adrian, I meant, no of course they are not slowcooked.
Isn't My Son The Fanatic a film? and the Black Album a novel about similar themes. All simply smashing.
Read The Buddha of Sub. for the first time a year or so ago, after reading his most recent. It was a privilege even to read him backwards, so to speak.
Hmmm, the breast implant question...must stem from insecurities and vulnerabilities, doing something superficial to please someone one thinks cares, someone whose approval and attention one is desperately craving.
Gee, that doesn't happen by the thousands in the U.S. every year, and to women with husbands, fiances, boyfriends, etc. Does it?
And if I had children, they'd have to be 25 to read the Larssen trilogy, but I'd probably pull pages out or use thick markers to mark out paragraphs, or fast-forward the movie if they watched it.
And I wouldn't let a friend's 15-year-old daughter watch it. She's got enough issues to deal with, including how to walk home from school after dark, all the rules about that. She does not have to see psychopathic misogynistic nazi murders and rapists, no, no, no. That's for us old jaded folks who (unfortunately) know about man's inhumanity to man (or woman), sadly.
Kathy
Here's a recent comment I made on Peter Rozovsky's blog about book 1 which sums up most of my feelings:
Peter
But all my complaints about the flawed central mystery, the wildly over the top description of the rape, the clunkiness of the clockwork, the embarrassing sexual antics of the author's avatar, the tedious, old fashioned left wing anti Americanism/anti capitalism etc. are really only nit picking, my main problem with Dragon Tattoo was just how dull I thought it was. I really am at a loss to understand how anyone could have enjoyed that financial subplot for example. But, I guess, they do...
About the only thing I really liked about DT was the description of the Swedish prison. It seems like a perfectly charming retreat that we all could enjoy.
Brian O., you linked to a fine discussion of the Larsson novels. It does my heart good to see the possibility of bad writing acknowledged. Quality of prose is a non-factor in a surprising number of quarters.
As Slate suggests, Blomkvist almost certainly was an authorial sock pupper in the first book. This provided some of the novel's more enjoyable moments, but the book would have been better had Larsson been a good enough enough writer to disguise the sock puppetry better.
Glenna and Adrian: It would not surprise me in the list that someone would choose The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo for a school reading list without having first read the book. The book is a phenomenon, and some teacher of other educator may well have had the bright idea that its magnetism would attract kids.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter, I think that is exactly what happened. My friends daughter said the teacher gave them a choice of four books to vote on, and they picked Dragon Tattoo. The teacher then told them that was the only one she hadn't read and it should be interesting. My friend intends to read it quickly and inform her just how interesting the book is.
The Millenium books suffer from 'Respect for the Dead'. If Larsson hadn't died, his editor would have cut those books to the bone and they would have been better for it.
The Millenium books suffer from 'Respect for the Dead'. If Larsson hadn't died, his editor would have cut those books to the bone and they would have been better for it.
Our humble host on this blog has made precisely this argument. It's highly plausible.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
I believe that I could have edited The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo into a really tight, intellectually stimulating, cliche free, first rate mystery/thriller novel...
that would have sold about 12 copies.
Whoever was looking for funny books might try S.J. Perelman, Mark Twain and Stephen Leacock alongside the sublime Wodehouse.
For funny crime fiction, try Christopher Brookmyre, Garbhan Downey, Shane Maloney, Declan Burke, David Owen's Pufferfish novels, Malcolm Pryce, Joe Gores' DKA Files stories, Norbert Davis, the collaborations between Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer, Ken Bruen's collaborations with Jason Starr, and that's just novels and stories with a largely humorous intent.
Some of the laugh-out-loud funniest lines all of crime fiction are all the more effective because of their grim context. Read Bruen, Alan Guthrie, Bill James, and our man McKinty. Peter Temple's novels also abound in wit.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter: Thanks for recommending Malcolm Pryce.
I've been a fan of the Aberystwyth books since I first received the proof copy of book 1.
As a Welshman living in Australia, they're a nice cultural link as well as being bloody wonderful books
Adrian, you saying that the public are eejits? I think there's a constitutional amemdment against doing that.
Peter
More likely I'm the eejit.
Nah, it's more fun to insult the public.
Rob: The Aberystwyh books are a nice mix of nostalgia and several kinds of humor. I can't think of anything else like them in crime fiction. Jasper Fforde might be a very distant cousin.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
You know what I was thinking, after the success of Larsson's three books, isn't it a happy coincidence that another novel is found on his laptop, anybody could have written it.
after the success of Larsson's three books, isn't it a happy coincidence that another novel is found on his laptop
Yeah, that's a real shocker, isn't it?
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Yep! If the next one is a success, maybe they will find a couple more in his loft. I wish to stress I am not slagging Larsson off as I haven't read his books and everybody is doing a fair enough job of that here anyway. Also I am not adverse to violence in films and books, my fav movie when I was a young kid was Rambo. Don't like sexual stuff though, not at all.
Yep, I expect Larsson's post-mortem productivity will increase proportionately to his success -- early "writings" that shed light on the works to come, and all that.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
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