This book makes me embarrassed to be a man. The fact that it has sold 400,000 copies makes embarrassed to be a reader. That it's justified as bathroomThis book makes me embarrassed to be a man. The fact that it has sold 400,000 copies makes embarrassed to be a reader. That it's justified as bathroom reading makes me embarrassed to own a toilet. To folks who happen to like it: hey, to each his own. My opinions are worth both sides of the two-ply they're printed on and nothing more. But as wussy as the words are, the whole premise---I'm an obnoxious alco-fuckaholic, but I know it, so the joke's not on me---lacks two things I'm sorta fond of: compassion and maturity....more
I doubt this book would have anything of the modest cult reputation it briefly enjoyed if it weren't for the myth of JT LeRoy that lent it some very dI doubt this book would have anything of the modest cult reputation it briefly enjoyed if it weren't for the myth of JT LeRoy that lent it some very dubious "authenticity." It's not that there isn't a compelling story here: mother/son dependency, sexual exploitation, transgendering---hey, it could have been something amazing had the author had any concern whatsoever for the writing and not in manufacturing a "legend" of a life story. But now that LeRoy has been debunked as a fraud, the attention this book received demands some accountability: why is the literary establishment so obsessed with "discovering" savants? Is its fixation with chic degredation really an act of compassion and social justice (save the lot lizards!) or just literary voyeurism? Why the belief that only people who've really lived that degredation can write about it? And why the hell would a real writer care about hanging out with Courtney Love, anyway? Even before LeReoy was "exposed" as Laura Albert it was pretty clear that it was never about the craft of writing, for there wasn't a bit of art to the book. As with so many things today, it was all about starfucking....more
I can respect other folks' positive reviews of SABBATH's THEATER. I'm normally a big Roth fan, too---I really got a lot out of AMERICAN PASTORAL, THE I can respect other folks' positive reviews of SABBATH's THEATER. I'm normally a big Roth fan, too---I really got a lot out of AMERICAN PASTORAL, THE HUMAN STAIN, and THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA. SABBATH for me just didn't do the trick, however. Part of my issue with it, I think, is that Roth hasn't really worried about form or plot in ages---his novels unfold now as dramatic monologues, episodic and without any real drive. As a result, there's a distance between the reader and the action that can make the reading a bit of a slog. It's tough enough to get through something relatively short like THE DYING ANIMAL, but when it's a big, self-consciously epic effort like SABBATH, it can be w-o-r-k. With a capital W even.
I also think it's a generational difference. For Roth and other Silent Generation writers, the idea of sex as liberation was indeed revolutionary. They were throwing off those cliched shackles of repression. Only nowadays we live in an entirely unrepressed age (even here in Alabama, believe it or not), and the old SG preoccupation with getting the guilt out of lust feels a little like fighting a war that was won a while back---like when I was a kid, maybe, around the time of PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT. For me, Roth on sex works best when his ideas of it are condensed into a symbol instead of allowed to ramble on discursively---the diaphragm in GOODBYE COLUMBUS or the sudden appearance of DEEP THROAT at the end of PASTORAL say something because they capture in miniature their era. But when sex is Roth's entire subject, his basic thesis is that desire is the one thing we have to strike out against death with, and that point gets a little old, especially when it's so literally demonstrated that the hero Micky decides to masturbate over the grave of his dead lover. No, seriously, he does.......more
Another book read for my coming-of-age encyclopedia entry. It's pretty clear this book won the Booker Prize because the Brits felt like flipping the bAnother book read for my coming-of-age encyclopedia entry. It's pretty clear this book won the Booker Prize because the Brits felt like flipping the bird to America. It's as if they said, "This is what we think you're capable of, you warmongering sons of *&$#^." (Remember 2003: The Year We Went to War. The Year Everybody Across the Atlantic Started Hating Us).
There is really nothing here to recommend. Take something topical (school shootings), add an all-too-obvious critique of contemporary society (the media demeans us), add a plethora of cartoon characters (the attention whore of a love interest, who celebrates here boyfriend's imminent execution by posing for Penthouse---natch!), throw in a bunch of supposedly "hip" slang, mix with a motif involving dookie. What do you get?
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