I feel like this blog has, within the last month, transitioned to a book reviewing blog as my writing stalls and I use that time to play Nethack read instead in search of ideas to steal.
I was sent an uncorrected proof with big letters telling me not to quote from this material without permission or without comparing it to the final book. Since I’m unclear as to whose permission I am supposed to seek and I don’t have a copy, nor am I planning on getting one, of the finished book, I guess I won’t be quoting anything. But then my review seems kind of random without examples to refer to. Such is life I suppose. Feel free to use my review as a sort of scavenger hunt through the novel if/when you read it. So here we go:
1. Ben Lerner has a much more impressive vocabulary than I do. Either that or a thesaurus. Why are there so many big words? Is he trying to impress me? Because I would have been happy with easier words for my pea brain to understand.
2. The protagonist of the novel, who I am also going to call Ben Lerner, maybe be the most white, wealthy-ish, middle-class Brooklyn-dwelling resident ever to star in a novel. In other words, Ben Lerner is so self-involved as to be the most boring person ever put forward as a novel’s central character. It is infuriating that Ben Lerner (the author) thinks that I am supposed to be deeply interested and invested in Ben Lerner (the character). I don’t need to read another Great American Masculine Novel. They are always so tedious.
3. Unless, of course, this tediousness is satire. Is Ben Lerner (the author) writing a boring novel to draw attention to how preposterous it still is that we revere the American, white male, masculine prototype as the novel that defines great literature? Is that what’s he doing? Part way through I started to feel that I was the victim of a very elaborate hoax regarding the purpose of the novel. Perhaps this is why Ben Lerner (the character) keeps mentioning how much money his advance was, to highlight the ludicrousness of traditional publishing mores?
4. Equally, Ben Lerner (character or author) could just be a jerk. My writing earns me approximately $60 per year, because I am quite an unsuccessful writer. I don’t need to know how publishing houses are just throwing money at Ben Lerner (the character) to produce half-witted detail-everything-around-me-no-matter-how-trivial novels.
5. There is a scene where a bunch of rich, white people do designer drugs at a party and everything gets fuzzy and oh my G-d is it boring and cliché and unnecessary. And boring. I really want to stress the boring part.
6. There was one point in reading where I thought that the stream of detailing all the minutiae in Ben Lerner (the character)’s life was like In Search of Lost Time. I am sure that was intentional. I should have marked where I felt this in my copy, but I’m pretty positive it was in Section Two: The Golden Vanity, which was a self-contained New Yorker story and has the ability to stand on its own outside the novel.
7. You know who was interesting and not boring and why don’t we have a book about her: Noor, the woman Ben Lerner (the character) stocks food with at the food co-op. I would totally read a book about Noor, without question.
8. Like most male-gaze novels, Ben Lerner (the character) has a lot more women willing to sleep with him than I would find necessary. I mean, there’s only really two women in the novel who sleep with him, but that’s way more than seems likely, but maybe if you’re a quirky, white, wealthy-ish Brooklynite, you’re just swimming in sexual options.
When I started typing this review, I wasn’t as down on the book as I am now. Now I’m pretty down on it. He did go to Marfa, which reminded me of The King of the Hill episode when they go to Marfa and I wished King of the Hill was still on Netflix. The novel is made up of random thoughts like this. I’m sure other white, male, authors will like it.
10:04 by Ben Lerner went on sale September 2, 2014.
I received a copy free from the publisher via a goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.