When is a Campaign Book Not a Campaign Book?: Thomas Frank's "Listen Liberal"

The cover is still blurbing Frank for “What’s the matter with Kansas,” as if he hasn’t written other books since then, but I bet that is the one that keeps funding his lavish liberal lifestyle – wait, not liberal but something more than that. Lefter than that.

Anyways.

This was interesting for me to read since it is basically an anti-Hillary book, but it doesn’t mention the guy she’s running against for her party’s nomination. I just looked, and that guy (whatever his name is) isn’t even listed in the index. I’m not sure how conscious of a choice that was, but if she doesn’t win, this thing will be dated by mid-November of 2016. I have also been reading the complete works of the cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, and when I was reading this, I was reading his primary sources on the Clinton years. Which seems to be the springboard for her national exposure –as odd as that is. Seriously, New York elected her Senator when she’s owned a house there for six months. That’s democracy in action. Glad this meritocracy works. But the Tom Tomorrow cartoons really reminded me of the deficiencies of the Clinton years from a liberal perspective. I was in high school. I kept up on the news, but it was local papers, Time, and Newsweek, so there wasn’t much lefter-than-thou criticism that I was able to see. That’s rural boyhood for you.

I think the book does make the case against her, but for me I wasn’t ever really for her to begin with, more indifferent. I guess if the state is close and she’s the nominee I’ll vote for her, but it doesn’t excite me. I just hope someone captures the enthusiasm that has been generated by the campaign of the other guy (and makes all sorts of electoral reforms so we’re not hoping the Democratic Party will be the authors of our salvation.

A Truly Epic Love Story: Daniel Clowes' "Patience"

I checked this out of the library. When I saw that Clowes had a new book coming out, I put it on my wishlist, sight unseen and waited. Adam Grant’s newish book was due, and I returned it. The circulation lady at the desk let me know that this had come in. As she scanned, it, she said “patience is a virtue”. Looking at her eyes, I thought she might be flirting with me, but I’m about ten years older than she is and married and not interested. So I didn’t know what to say. I hope I smiled so that she knew I was friendly or at least not a sociopath.

I went home. Placed it in the table on my main living level. My wife wanted to go to this thing with her friend, a stand-up comedy open mike that had some mid-level talent. I drove her to it and then came home and started to drink some beer while messing around on twitter and other social media and writing a couple other things.

After a couple, I thought I would go and grab my new graphic novel. It seemed pretty straight forward. For about eight pages. The thing turns into this interesting time travel narrative. I’m not sure if the science works, but I am usually a stickler for world building making sense in the narratives I read. There were no red flags for me. Or that could have been the beers speaking, I’m not sure. The basic story is a man falls in love with woman who meets a violent end. He then does whatever he can to find out what happened. That means time travel in this event. Thinking on it as I read it, it wasn’t really science fiction because of the time travel, it was more a magical realism like Lethem’s “Fortress of Solitude”, where the fantastic helps tell the story.

Because what the story is is a really deep and moving love story that defies the traditional dimensions of space and time. I know I put this book on reserve because of the author, the truth is that he has let me down for the most part since the triumph of Ghost World. This may not rise to his youthful promise, but if it were a book by anyone else, we would be praising a new talent. It is worth the ride, even if there is something left wanting at the end.

Revisiting Fight Club: Fincher Improving Palahniuk

Being a teenage boy in the late 90s, the movie version of this book was totally on my radar. In fact, the movie along with American Psycho were both such a part of my self-identity that I went back and sought out the source material for the movies the summer after my freshman year so I could seek out the source material figuring if I liked the movies then I would like the books because of course the books were better.

There was – in that baby age of everyone being connected to the internet instead of just nerds – a newsgroup or a site that I think called itself the Cult. It was there I learned that Palahniuk thought that Fincher had improved on the book. (And it was not long before I burned out on Palahniuk’s works, feeling him just a one-trick pony who really couldn’t write people that deeply and female characters not at all).  At the time, I think I agreed, but that was unfair because I was such a fan of the movie that anything that deviated from the movie was wrong, because to me the movie was the source material. (Odd thought, I’ve never read any of them but there exist(ed) a market for novelizations of movies that were already books. Thought that was weird, but it may mitigate my feelings here. My first time I was disappointed in a movie vis a vi the book was Jurassic Park in like third grade, but I digress).

Ultimately, there are differences between what the movie was able to accomplish and what the book could do. I recently revisited the text, listening to it on audio, and I think I have it pegged. The movie is able to hand-hold you to the big reveal. I think that the seeds it plants are fun enough that it makes the movie worth rewatching multiple times. I remember catching something new on what must have been my 40^th viewing and having listened to the director’s commentary. Say what you want about Fincher, but his work is deeply planned out. The book on the other hand is shackled to the narrator. The movie uses this to great effect, allowing the narrative voice in to add emphasis to what is happening on screen, but the book is stuck with what would be the Edward Norton character for the whole time (and this is discounting the importance of the twist reveal and the ending. So I think the book works, but it might not be Palahniuk’s best. I would say that of the earlier books that I am familiar with, it may be the easiest to film, so that’s why it made his popular reputation. Invisible Monsters and Survivor may be more interesting as texts in themselves, but I’m not sure how you make movies out of them that could come close to Fight Club (For example, the only other book that I am aware of Palahniuk that has been filmed is Choke, and that worked on a much smaller scale, and let’s be honest, Sam Rockwell isn’t Brad Pitt or Edward Norton).

In the end, the book is mostly interesting as an artifact to compare in relation to the movie because that is what made the vast majority of the public aware of the author and his work. It is not a stand out text and the story wasn’t that deep until Fincher got his hands on it and was able to use some of the anti-corporate imagery and the idea of fight clubs to latch onto some sort of late 90s, pre 9/11 aimlessness he puts in the mouth of Tyler Durden. But we have both had our great war and our great depression. Yet the critique is as valid today as it was when written. I guess it is still worth sticking back in your mind…