Sunday, June 22, 2008

The Great Man by Kate Christensen

What is up with award winners? Is fiction really such in dire straits? And if so, why did that bitch dissuade me from fiction writing by saying that I am "not a genius," if clearly you only need a word processor in order to win a PEN/Faulkner?

Okay, that is a bit harsh... But seriously, is this as good as we can get? A rather facile story of one man's women? Somewhat like The Women, it is a mostly female story about a man and the women who fight over his sorry ass. To be fair, I'm not sure how much I hate the book and how much I hate the story--a distinction that is really only needed in a book review or a writing workshop.

And do I hate the characters or how they are characterized? Teddy with Sancerre (my favorite wine and therefore, perhaps a source of my annoyance) and fancy food; Abigail with Zabars. I get it, consumer choices expose personality (especially in superficial New York), but in this book, it comes off as showing off and/or laziness. Even Bret Easton Ellis knows you can't build an entire character on his consumer choices.

So what is the big picture here? That the women are more fascinating than the Great Man. That love is complicated. That relationships are complicated. That biographers have an agenda. That death and talking about the recently departed brings up a lot of complicated feelings, including our resentment of this person and then guilt about that resentment. I don't think that all good books need to surprise me with philosophical revelations more deep than these, but they can reveal them in a way that makes them surprising, refreshing, not that remind me of my "deep thoughts" as a college freshman.

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