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I read My Little Blue Dress by Bruno Maddox because it was the book for the bibliogoth reading group I just joined. I have to say it's not a book I would have ever read on my own. It's very modern, about very modern people, it was listed as a comedy but I really didn't find anything funny about it. Now there are a few modern writers who I do enjoy reading and I find there work really amusing, Carrie Fisher, Stephen Fry, Ben Elton, Chuch Palatunik (I'm afraid I might have misspelled that). So maybe it's unfair to say this was totally the type of book I would never read, but there was one big difference between it and the authors I mentioned, which was they are funny and a little insightful.
I feel like I need to have something good to say about this book for the group, but I'm afraid I can't. I thought the writing was just bland, dull and terribly egotistical. I just don't understand the appeal of fake fiction. I want to go and make everyone read some Evelyn Waugh as a kind of cleansing. Not humorous, not at all gothic. I just kept thinking, "my god is this really what people read nowadays?" It was the lightest quickest read I've had in ages. And I'm including the child's book Harry Potter in that!
The book is a supposed memoir of a 100 year old woman looking back over her life. However it's written so poorly you understand immediately that it's not really her writing. Which is good as everything seems tripe and quick and dull. Then the book changes into the modern world where the old woman tells the tale of her "caretaker" and how terribly his life is. Now I found this particularly odd as someone whose been in the caretaking profession for 9 years. To see the idea that a couple months of it could turn you bonkers to be a little strange and unbelievable. Of course it turns out there really was no woman and he'd just been making it up as an excuse as to why he'd been weired to his girlfriend. But then as you kinda knew he was writing it and making it all up as he went as interesting twists go it really wasn't that interesting, or much of a twist.
I'm sure there was more of a point to the novel. The idea that history was now over and that everything was being repeated though wasn't really new, or particularly insightful. Far too much being explained by fashion choices which just came off sounding dull and contrived. Of course the author did spend a lot of time talking about how awful modern fiction was so perhaps it was meant to be that awful and that's what the joke was. But if that was the case surely there would have been a better way to get that message across.
I wonder what people will have to say about it at the meeting. I hope I'm not the only one who didn't like it. I hope next month we can read something better!
I feel like I need to have something good to say about this book for the group, but I'm afraid I can't. I thought the writing was just bland, dull and terribly egotistical. I just don't understand the appeal of fake fiction. I want to go and make everyone read some Evelyn Waugh as a kind of cleansing. Not humorous, not at all gothic. I just kept thinking, "my god is this really what people read nowadays?" It was the lightest quickest read I've had in ages. And I'm including the child's book Harry Potter in that!
The book is a supposed memoir of a 100 year old woman looking back over her life. However it's written so poorly you understand immediately that it's not really her writing. Which is good as everything seems tripe and quick and dull. Then the book changes into the modern world where the old woman tells the tale of her "caretaker" and how terribly his life is. Now I found this particularly odd as someone whose been in the caretaking profession for 9 years. To see the idea that a couple months of it could turn you bonkers to be a little strange and unbelievable. Of course it turns out there really was no woman and he'd just been making it up as an excuse as to why he'd been weired to his girlfriend. But then as you kinda knew he was writing it and making it all up as he went as interesting twists go it really wasn't that interesting, or much of a twist.
I'm sure there was more of a point to the novel. The idea that history was now over and that everything was being repeated though wasn't really new, or particularly insightful. Far too much being explained by fashion choices which just came off sounding dull and contrived. Of course the author did spend a lot of time talking about how awful modern fiction was so perhaps it was meant to be that awful and that's what the joke was. But if that was the case surely there would have been a better way to get that message across.
I wonder what people will have to say about it at the meeting. I hope I'm not the only one who didn't like it. I hope next month we can read something better!