I just read James Hynes' Kings of Infinite Space. An office satire. With undead creatures. And sex. (Not in the same scenes.)
My official Thoughts While Reading It:
- I never, ever, ever, ever again want to find myself earning $8/hr to pay for the food I eat and the apartment I sleep in. I've been there and it sucks. IT SUCKS. Have I mentioned that IT SUCKS?
- This Paul Trilby guy, he's not supposed to be an Everyman character, is he? If he is, he's not a very good one. He's borderline psychotic. He drowned his ex-wife's cat in the bathtub. His condescension towards Texas suburbia is a bit overdone even for my tastes, and I'm a snobby Blue Stater who prefers Belgian beer to American beer, foreign films to NASCAR, and who plans to vote for Obama this November. (I'm relieved to see I was right. Apparently Hynes considers Paul Trilby to be his "evil stunt double".) If there's a true moral center to this novel, it's Callie the Oklahoma Girl.
- I hated Olivia more than I have hated any fictional character I've come across in months. I wanted to see her cut up into little pieces and then I wanted to see the pieces eaten by goats. In other words: Olivia is a very effective character. I wish I'd seen more of her.
- (Not that this will make any sense if you haven't read the book, but...) Just for the record, I didn't know what synecdoche meant either. But now I'll never forget it.
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