When I finally realized how behind I am in my literary reports and reviews, I debated whether or not to go back and comment on each of the books that we've read or to just move forward with Killing Yourself to Live, which we just read. I decided to maybe tie all of the books together, because I would say, other than the Master and Margarita by:Mikhail Bugalov, all of the last several books have been entertaining but disappointingly shallow.
Without giving a summary of each book, including my own expectations and then utter letdown. In thinking about this pattern, definitely some of the books were much more disappointing than others. For example, Fingersmith had an active plot that kept me engaged and distracted from the fact that many of the characters were one-sided and lacked the necessary depth for me to really feel any connection to their problems and supposed intricacies. The same is true of The Island, although much more so, as Victoria Hislop's book is the written version of a Greek soap opera; selfish characters were seemingly selfish for no reason, other than the trait's necessity for the plot to advance.
Running with Scissors is almost certainly not shallow and packed-full of entertaining anecdotes from a terrible childhood. Augusten is surrounded by the most selfish characters possibly ever portrayed, in fact so selfish that they believe their selfishness is a selfless necessity for the betterment of society as a whole. While I'm sure based on real characters, Burroughs must be exaggerating them in order to make the book more entertaining. At some point the hyperbole of the characters becomes repugnant and Augusten, the character, becomes tainted by their behavior. I stopped rooting for him and became annoyed that he hadn't taken any action to rid his life of them. By the end I was glad the whole lot of them was out of my life as my reading time had become more stressful than entertaining. As to which character is the most hated, the jury is still out. (Sidenote: the movie in no way captures the characters that Burroughs created, save the mother.)
Along the same lines, Klosterman's account of his cross country road trip to visit sites where musicians became legendary through death, had such great potential but was ruined by Klosterman's focus on himself. It seems he used the book as an opportunity to sort through his own (pathetic) relationship problems. In this case, he is the obnoxious character. I was giddy with anticipation when I read the first chapter of the book, where Klosterman outlines the premise, but as I progressed, the author's disrespect for musicians and seeming nonchalance about the reasons that various events had such a profound impact was exhausting and enraging. Honestly, I think Klosterman has an amazing memory that he has saturated with musical trivia, which is nowhere near the same as feeling emotionally connected to music and the people that created it. This is coupled with long stories about women that I failed to see the relevance of. That said, there were a few moments of interesting analysis. I thought that what Klosterman wrote about Kurt Cobain's death was exactly what I was looking for after I read the first chapter. Sadly it was the last chapter and too little too late. Jane said she would have loved the book when she was 18 or so, and I wholeheartedly agree.
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