How Is Dan Brown's "Inferno" Like "Doomsday Preppers"? Hint: Fun Factor

Posted on November 9, 2013 by williamjcobb

So I’m juggling the reading of about six different books right now, for various reasons, including Stephen D. (I think the “D.” is important here) King’s When the Money Runs Out: The End of Western Affluence (which I should really blog about before the money runs out and we can’t afford our laptops to read blogs anymore, but I’m guessing there’s some time for that), Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (rereading to make sure I know what I’m talking about in class), and Dan Brown’s new novel, Inferno. I have my reading quirks, as I imagine others do, and am mainly reading this one during my daughter’s swim lessons, when I sit in the bleachers at the YMCA pool and have to kill some time. Brown should get some kind of odd trophy or award, which is usually reserved for films: The So-Bad-It’s-Good Award. Although even that label doesn’t quite do him justice. The writing is awful. Simply awful. Clumsiness, corniness, and sloppy language abound. But . . . the book is fun. It’s preposterous and diabolical and fun. I realized it’s a little like that Doomsday Preppers show on the National Geographic Channel: full of conspiracy theories and clumsy people trying to prepare for the apocalypse, but fun in its own weird way. Although I can’t stop imagining Tom Hanks with that creepish haircut as the main character, Robert Langdon, from the risible (I’ve been waiting to use that word) film version of Da Vinci Code.

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Cormac McCarthy/Ridley Scott's "The Counselor": No Country for Old Men II, or No Country For Anyone in Love With Penelope Cruz, Either

Posted on October 28, 2013 by williamjcobb

So on its first weekend in my neck of the woods, I caught Ridley Scott’s new film The Counselor, with the screenplay being by none other than the great Cormac McCarthy, finest novelist of our times: It was a, um, horrible experience. Not for the faint of heart, as they say. The ending is a gut-wrenching kicker. A shocker, although you do see it coming. Not horrible as in bad or badly done, but horrible as in sheer horror. As I don’t like to give too much away when a film debuts like this, and be forced to inject the ol’ Spoiler Alert, I’ll try to keep my comments on the analytical-but-not-revealing level:
Cameron Diaz, who is not exactly one of my favorite actresses, actually does a knockout performance as the wicked vamp, Malkina. Watch out for her. McCarthy often has a character who embodies some kind of evil, and in this case it’s a woman, Diaz, which is a twist for him. It also probably has the most sex and sex-related talk than all of his novels (I know, this is a film, and maybe that’s why), though there’s some great sex-related moments in Suttree (1979). (I once titled a story “The Witch of Fuck,” from a line in Suttree, and the journal that published it leaned on me heavily to change the title, which I did, and which now appears in my new book of stories The Lousy Adult as “The Next Worst Thing,” published just this month.)
Javier Bardem is one of the kookier, more enjoyable characters, and he should have given more time on screen. Brad Pitt, another actor I’m not thrilled with, does a great job as a hipster/cowboy drugworld entrepreneur, but you won’t like his final moments. Basically everything good in this world goes bad. Before I saw it I thought it sounded like No Country for Old Men II, and now that I’ve seen it, I think that’s fairly accurate. Michael Fassbender is good, but his character is somewhat limited. Greed does him in, but it’s also complicated by love: In his zeal to shower his love, Penelope Cruz, with a “cautionary diamond” (there’s a good scene at a diamond merchant’s office in Amsterdam), he gets in over his head, and gets involved with the wrong people. To say the least.
But The Counselor does raise an aesthetic question: Can a story be too horrible? I think the answer is Yes. My wife says I owe her one for taking her to a movie depicting such despicable behavior, and for its violence to women. I like Ridley Scott’s films, and I imagine this one will become notorious. For instance, at one point the story swerves to a discussion of “snuff films,” which is perhaps a definition of something too horrible to watch, and unfortunately, even though The Counselor is fiction, it’s tainted by that proximity to something as disgusting and sadistic as a “snuff film.”
My favorite part concerns another element of proximity: that of the nearness and elbow-rubbing of great wealth with great depravity. The diamond dealer is right is his soliloquy on “cautionary diamonds”: There are certain objects of desire, like a 3.5 carat diamond, that create entanglements you can’t comprehend, what people will do for money, or what great evil great amounts of money can encourage. Set in El Paso, Texas, with some tangential scenes in Juarez, Mexico, and London, The Counselor is a 21st century morality tale. A series of stylish interiors bought with dirty money (or so it’s implied by the film’s end) contrasts with the dry, bleak landscape, and combined, the images create a kind of frightening poetic backdrop. If you can stomach it, this is a film you have to see.

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On Hanna Rosin's "The End of Men": The End of Men? Maybe Not, But Thanks for Asking

Posted on October 26, 2013 by williamjcobb

So I’ve been reading Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men (2012)—why? out of sheer obstinacy, no doubt—which is at turns annoying, blockheaded, fascinating, fun, and scary. And for all those responses, it must be doing something right. I would have loved to review this one when it first appeared. It’s a study in contrasts: the first chapter, which at times reads as both gullible and myopic, is about sex, especially of the (mythic) “hook-up” variety, and for my money, should have been placed elsewhere, if not eliminated altogether. It’s the least convincing section of the book, and right out front. But after that unfortunate beginning, some of the chapters are both fascinating, and, at times, unintentionally funny. I’d love to do a parody of the typical anecdote in one of the later chapters. The pattern works something like this: It depicts a hard-working young woman somehow romantically linked/shacked up with a loser boyfriend/do-nothing husband, and how their typical day unfolds. All through the use of ‘semi-fictional’ identities, full of demographic tags: “Rebecca, 31, a part-time paralegal who is working her way through law school, gets up early to make breakfast for her six-year-old daughter, Jasmine, and her loser boyfriend, Chuck, 33 (and looking a lot like 40). Chuck hasn’t worked since his car broke down on the freeway two years ago, when he was fired after he walked home, dispirited, and cried on the phone while complaining about his bad luck to his mother. Chuck spends most of his day eating pizza, masturbating, and watching reruns of Nascar races or football games. He’s decided to grow a beard, and tries to help out with the care of young Jasmine, but really, he’s hopeless. Meanwhile Rebecca works all day, comes home and studies Chinese for two hours, and now and then takes advantage of the sexually available Chuck to relieve some tension.” It’s funny in its own way, and sad, too: Much as I can laugh at it, and feel superior (Hey, I don’t eat that much pizza, and I do have a job), I have to begrudgingly admit that at times her anecdotes more or less accurately describe the 21st century Feckless Male. The book has more in common with Charles Murray’s Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 (2012) than it would like to admit (Rosin being a Liberal feminist, and Murray most definitely not), I’m sure. It also spawns some juicy knee-jerk reactions, like this amusing one, here. I think everyone should read it, if for no other reason than to give us something to argue about, and a laugh in the same breath.

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Review of Wilton Barnhardt's "Lookaway, Lookaway," Plus My Daugher as a Horse

Posted on October 21, 2013 by williamjcobb

So I feel like a bad blog Daddy now, neglecting my child for so long, though I’m not neglecting my real daughter, as the photo below will attest—or at least judged by the standard of taking cool pictures of her wearing a horse mask. And if we have to make a choice, I’ll gladly trade being a good father to a flesh-and-blood daughter rather than my little blog Oliver, whimpering boldly, “Can I have some more, please?” So here’s my review of Wilton Barnhardt’s comic Southern novel, Lookaway, Lookaway, that appeared in the Dallas Morning News, here.
The review actually came out in early September, but I was working as a “deep cover” cop with a biker gang, and couldn’t access a laptop. Because, you know, biker gangs aren’t really “Mac people,” and with me being a Mac person, I couldn’t navigate the beer-smelling PC that Scarface Sammy offered me, right after saying something derogatory about my manhood, because, you know, I took the time to actually read a book. And split an infinitive! It’s hard to infiltrate a biker gang (called, aptly, “The Dangling Modifiers”) and not make a grammatical slip now and then, if for no other reason than, you know, to be cool. So meanwhile, my daughter as a horse:

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"The Lousy Adult" Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You (If There's One Left: "Online Shopping, Anyone?")

Posted on October 4, 2013 by williamjcobb

So I’ve been neglecting this blog of late, working to finish a first draft of a new novel, one that involves a woman holding a teenage boy hostage, some experimental sex-drug studies, and other various mischief, but advance copies of my new book of stories, The Lousy Adult, have just arrived. Of course I’m tickled pink (like the cover). Two of my all-time favorites are included, “What Happens to Rain?” and “This Whatever We Have.” Most of the stories are set in the West, where there’s always a lonesome train whistle blowin’. Or at least the wind, while a Neil Young song plays in the background.

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Review of Bob Shacochis's "The Woman Who Lost Her Soul"

Posted on September 17, 2013 by williamjcobb

So my book review of Bob Shacochis’s The Woman Who Lost Her Soul appeared in the Dallas Morning News last Sunday, and can be found here. One thing remarkable about the book is that it’s quite long (720 pages), and I wonder who reads long novels these days. It seems there is never enough time. But I realize there are other books of equal length or longer that reached the best seller lists, so apparently there is still room for the long novel, which is good news. I particularly thought The Woman Who Lost Her Soul got better as it went on, as the story grew more and more complex, and Shacochis intertwined a series of stories that spanned from WWII to the mid-Nineties.

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On Being in the Center of Everything, With a Nod to the Master, Vladimir Nabokov

Posted on August 22, 2013 by williamjcobb

So I’ve just returned to my home in State College, Pennsylvania, a name that must rank high on a list of Least Imaginative Monikers, but it does have an odd distinction: It’s (more or less) exactly in the center of the state. (Perhaps to make it equidistant for all the college kids and their parents? Overheard at the local Target: Mom: “Honey, do you need some more pencils?” Son: “Mom? We don’t use pencils anymore.”) About a month ago I was in the center of Utah, in the town of Green River, which has this amusing wall mural:
I like the little dried-up puddle in the foreground, like an homage to the first paragraph of Vladimir Nabokov’s masterpiece Bend Sinister (1947), which has to rank as the No.1 best puddle description ever. It’s the first novel I read (at age 19) by him, and I’ve been a giddy Nabokov fan the rest of my life. In common parlance, “They don’t make ’em like that anymore.” If  you haven’t read all of Nabokov’s fiction, drop whatever you’re doing and do so now. Here’s the cover of the first edition.

I actually have a first edition Lolita (1955) and The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941), both of which certainly are, in common parlance, way cool.

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Encounter With a Lawman in Kent Haruf's Fiction Country: Hats Off to Sheriff Ken Putnam

Posted on August 16, 2013 by williamjcobb

So I’ve just driven 900+ miles to reach the (shopping mall) mecca that is St. Louis, Missouri, and leaving Colorado I was tooling along at the wheel of my ultracool Subaru Forester (well, let’s say it’s nicely functional, which isn’t really that cool, is it?), and perhaps I wasn’t watching my gauges as well I should have, and perhaps I was trying to make better time than I should have, but one way or the other, I found myself with the dreaded flashing red-and-blue lights in the rearview mirror, ready to bow down and accept an expensive speeding ticket and go on my way, shamed and in DOT debt (is that a word?). In walks Sheriff Ken Putnam of Cheyenne County, Colorado. This is the part of the state made mythic (and important) by one of our best novelists, Kent Haruf, most famous for his recent trilogy Plainsong (1999), Eventide (2004), and Benediction (2013). Like a character out of one of Haruf’s novels, Putnam was a good man, polite and respectful, and pointed out that driving even five miles over the speed limit would result in a fine of over $90. But he was letting me off the hook, this time. I thanked my lucky stars that I wasn’t in Cormac McCarthy country, where more than likely the man who pulled me over would be a crazed hitman/killer (a la Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men) with a pneumatic cattle gun in his hand, ready to punch a hole in my head. This good man shook my hand and sent us on our way, where we later saved a turtle (or is that tortoise?). Thanks, Sheriff!
Plus we liked his hat.

And here’s the tortoise we saved. The little armored beast was trying to cross the road (or was it The Road?), or maybe trying to commit suicide. One way or the other, we picked him up and carried him into a field, where he’s now wondering who were those strange people, and causing some slow mayhem, no doubt.

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Goodbye, Colorado, With a Great Horned Owl Sendoff

Posted on August 15, 2013 by williamjcobb

So it’s not exactly Phillip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus, but yesterday, after a summer of writing/backpacking/river-rafting, I had to leave my beloved Colorado home to head back East, and it was a hectic packing morning. I was rushing about, filling bags of stuffed animals for my daughter, dashing down to the backyard to take down the badminton net, and I saw something fly above my head: a beautiful Great Horned Owl whom I’ve been trying to capture on film for over a year. I ran up to the house, got my camera, and this fine, healthy specimen of Bubo virginianus posed for me, and bid me a fond farewell.

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Back From Beyond: On Miles and Miles of the Ridiculous Names of RVs

Posted on August 5, 2013 by williamjcobb

So for most of July I’ve been traveling in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, rafting the Green River in Utah and then backpacking in Yellowstone, which was all lovely and adventurous, but going from place to place was a drive nearing 3,000 miles. Egads. I keep expecting RVs to die out, the way the dinosaurs did, but no, they’re still here and clogging up the roadways. All kinds of them, my (least) favorite being the ones as big as a tour bus for ZZ Top, often towing a car. Their names are always ridiculous, too, like Zephyr, Hitchhiker, Adventurer, and SeaBreeze. Let’s try for a little honesty, people. What about Gas Hog, Behemoth, or Campsite Monster? Lumbering Beast, maybe?
Meanwhile I’m back reading, reviewing books, and working on a new novel. But in the meantime, I’ll share this pic, taken on the outskirts of Idaho Falls, Idaho:

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