Book Review Trio:

          Today's post touches upon the subject of insecurity since today's post is my contribution to Alex J. Cavanaugh's Insecure Writer's Support Group.  All of us have our moments of insecurity because life itself is never totally predictable and none of us knows what the future holds for us.  We have good reasons to be insecure every once in a while at least.

          With that thought in mind, it makes sense that fictional characters often struggle with self-doubt and some level of apprehension about the world around them and the future they face.  Conflict often is related to feelings of insecurity.  An insecure character can be interesting to follow as we watch them deal with life's turmoil and hopefully experience growth as a result of coming through that turmoil.   My three most recent reads provide good examples of insecure main characters.

         J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye had been hiding amongst my books for quite some time before I finally found it.  This highly lauded book had been on my list of must reads for the past forty-some years.  When my lost paperback copy reappeared I decided that I must read it before it disappeared again.

          The story's main character Holden Caulfield seems about as insecure as one can get.  He's an adolescent dealing with the same struggles that boys his age have probably always dealt with and in that respect this book retains its relevance.  The novel follows Holden's wayward adventures over a week-end after he has been kicked out of school.

          My opinion is that this book is highly over-rated.  Perhaps it was a bit radical for its time and came to portend some of the changes that occurred in the three decades following its release, but now the book seems rather quaint, almost like a black and white film from the fifties.  Holden Caulfield may represent a certain element of dissatisfied, aimless over-privileged youth who might be interesting to look at but not to emulate.  This guy is no hero and not particularly admirable.  Sure, we see glimpses of goodness, but he's got a bad attitude for the most part.  This may be a result of his upbringing and the surroundings in which he lives, but still I found it difficult to root for this guy.

         The book is a decent read and thankfully short.  I can see why controversy has been generated by Catcher, but by today's standards of what young people are exposed to in modern entertainments this book is pretty mild stuff.  As a study in the insecurity of adolescence and the transition into young adulthood, Salinger has done a pretty good job.  I tend to think that this was the author's intent.  However, many readers have apparently likened Caulfield to their own lives and have sadly set him up as a sort of role model.

           The insecurity brought on by an oppressive society and an uncertain future is the theme of Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel A Handmaid's Tale.  The main character of Atwood's cautionary tale lives in a world where trust in others and confidence in any hope for the future is a thing of the past.  What we learn about the young woman who is the focus of the story suggests that she was probably dealing with insecurity throughout her life which perhaps makes it easier for her to accept the gloomy circumstance in which she finds herself when we meet her.  There is very little in her life to offer a promise of hope or happiness.  Her daily existence is a rote pattern of mere survival.

          Atwood effectively creates a believable world of dysfunction and paranoia, but an agenda comes across in her story-telling.  The author has an obvious distaste for religion and traditional conservative values which for me detracted from my enjoyment of this novel.  Though the nature of the story calls for a feeling of detachment, the approach caused me to care little about any of the characters and the reading experience became more of an analytical exercise.

          The Handmaid's Tale is proficiently written and the story is interesting, but it still felt somewhat ponderous to read.  My biggest objection to the book is the tacked on ending.  Using the gimmick of purporting the story to be a found record by scholars in the future, the speech at the end came across as rather silly to me and diminished the power of the real story presented in the novel.  The book would have worked better for me without the added ending.

           I recently won a copy of L .J. Sellers' The Arranger and read it during my recent trip to Tennessee.  This is dystopian novel which I found to be more believable than Atwood's tale.  Sellers creates a world twelve years in the future that is familiar, yet logically has diverged into a society plagued with homelessness and lack of jobs.   As I read this I couldn't help but accept that the author had come to some astute conclusions of where we might be heading.

           The characters in this novel display insecurities that are in part a result of the societal decay which looms over them, as well as their own personal flaws and concerns.  Ex-cop Lara Evans has doubts about her age, physical stature, and past mistakes as she participates in a national endurance competition called The Gauntlet.  Paul Madsen is a dull government worker whose insecurity about his appearance and status causes him to turn to devious illegalities in hopes of eventually winning over the woman of his dreams.

          The paths of these two characters weave their ways to a denouement that, though somewhat contrived, is satisfying and entertaining.  The characters are well-drawn albeit somewhat stereotypical, but it worked for me in the capacity of this novel.  The Arranger is pure entertainment, fun and riveting, and left me feeling psyched like a good action film.

          Since writers often channel themselves into their characters, it makes sense that insecurity would show up in those characters.   If a work of fiction is going to come across as realistic then insecurity must be an essential part of the formula.   After all, a perfect and totally secure character would probably be pretty boring in the end and rather annoying as well.

           Do you have any favorite insecure characters?   How do you think an insecure character might reflect the insecurity of that character's creator?



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Talk Like a Beat Day

         

Bob Denver as
Maynard G Krebs

             The first beatnik that I distinctly remember was Maynard G. Krebs.  He was a character in the television show "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis".  Maynard was played by Bob Denver who later gained fame as the Gilligan who was stranded on an island when the S.S Minnow was shipwrecked during a three-hour tour.  Maynard was the stereotypical image that most Americans had of those who were lumped into the Beat Generation category--a sort of white bread version of a group reviled by many.

           Jack Kerouac's On the Road is a literary manifesto of the Beat Generation.  Although in some ways I would consider Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield to be a truer precursor to Beat.   Recently as I was reading Catcher, somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking this kid's gonna grow up to be a beatnik.   But then again it's probably more likely that he became a banker or a politician.

          Movies and TV shows often portrayed the Beats as unkempt slackers who spouted modern poetry to the accompaniment of bongo drums.  They had a hip way of talking in a special slangy jive lingo that became part of the parody.

        Today, October 7, has been designated as Talk Like a Beat Day by the UK paper The Guardian.  I've never been very good at picking up dialects or talk styles.  I guess I can say "aaargh" and "ahoy mateys" but I don't talk like a pirate very well so I never got into Talk Like a Pirate Day.  But I've always gotten a kick out of hearing others do it.  Same with this Beat talk.  It might be funny to hear people doing it, but I doubt whether I'll be able to pull it off like other cool cats might.

        The whole Beat Day thing was brought to my attention by long time friend and new blogger Kelly Robinson.    More about this chick next week when I do my Pay It Forward post.  But listen up all you cool cats.  You need to be hip and talk like a beat today.  Play fair and don't be square cause today being hip is in the air.   Can you dig it?

        Who's your favorite beatnik?   Are you a Bob Denver fan?   Whatever happened to Holden Caulfield anyway?








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Right Before My Very Eyes....

           For over a year I've been trying to find my copy of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.   I had started reading it and only gotten into the first few pages when I lost track of the book.   In all my years of reading I had never read this iconic novel.   Salinger's death last year reminded me to dig my paperback version out of the garage and finally read it.  I did.  Then it disappeared.

          Buying a new copy was not something I wanted to do.  I knew it was in the house somewhere.  Sometimes I would remember it and look around to see if I could find it.  I rearranged all of the books in my garage in hopes that Catcher had somehow made it back there.  I spent considerable time and energy over the past year trying to find the book again.

         Then the other day I found it right here in my home office on one of my bookshelves.  I wasn't even looking for it--I was looking for another book.  There it was right before my very eyes where I had probably looked at it a multitude of times without realizing what it was I was seeing.

          Now that I have found it again I am going to place it in my stack of to-read books that I had posted about before the Christmas holidays.   After I have read Catcher I will post my thoughts about it.   But first I'm going to finish those books from my holiday reading list.

          One of those books is Perilous by fellow blogger Tamara Hart Heiner.  I was part of Tamara's book tour back in December, but I had not yet read the book due to my preoccupation with NaNo.  Now I'm almost finished reading Perilous and will offer my review here next Tuesday.  After that I will try to get through the rest of my list.

           Have you read Perilous?  Have you read Catcher in the Rye?    Did you ever look for something to eventually find that it was right there in front of you the entire time?  Why do you think this sometimes happens?

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