Two by Steve Martin
Sep. 15th, 2005 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishSteve Martin, Shopgirl
Clever, sweet, heartfelt. Martin writes from a detached third-person perspective that feels like a cross between an eighteenth-century novel and Kurt Vonnegut, if you can imagine such a thing. He violates the most basic rule of writing to tell us, constantly, what the current viewpoint character is doing, what s/he is thinking, and even some of why s/he's doing or thinking it. And somehow, it works. The tone's not as detached as you feel it ought to be, and the author lets you see-- just a little bit-- how much he cares about these people. So you care about them too.
Obligatory plot summaryish bit: Mirabelle, the shopgirl of the title, has come to California to find herself and forgotten how to do so. She strikes up a brief unsatisfying relationship with Jeremy, who's as inept as she, and then a longer but still unsatisfying one with fiftyish businessman Ray Porter. She grows up by the end of the novel, and Ray, too, makes some strides towards maturity.
I feel like the writing style makes the book move slowly, and that no one else will be able to wade through it. But I devoured it in two nights, and it's been something of a bestseller. Go figure.
Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company
Bleh. Reread Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time instead. Pleasure tries to be Incident only far more light-hearted, and comes off as trivial because of it. Daniel, the main character, is admittedly more functional than Christopher in Incident, but everything he does is just amusing, and no one ever gets mad at him for being, to quote Adam Cadre, really fucking annoying. He lies repeatedly to his therapist, he stalks the cashier at Rite-Aid and a realtor across the street, he refuses to cross curbs . . . he's a basically decent guy but lacks any sort of hidden depths that would make all these people put up with him. Plus a few points for comedy, minus an awful lot for a host of unbelievable characters and for a happy ending for no reason.
Clever, sweet, heartfelt. Martin writes from a detached third-person perspective that feels like a cross between an eighteenth-century novel and Kurt Vonnegut, if you can imagine such a thing. He violates the most basic rule of writing to tell us, constantly, what the current viewpoint character is doing, what s/he is thinking, and even some of why s/he's doing or thinking it. And somehow, it works. The tone's not as detached as you feel it ought to be, and the author lets you see-- just a little bit-- how much he cares about these people. So you care about them too.
Obligatory plot summaryish bit: Mirabelle, the shopgirl of the title, has come to California to find herself and forgotten how to do so. She strikes up a brief unsatisfying relationship with Jeremy, who's as inept as she, and then a longer but still unsatisfying one with fiftyish businessman Ray Porter. She grows up by the end of the novel, and Ray, too, makes some strides towards maturity.
I feel like the writing style makes the book move slowly, and that no one else will be able to wade through it. But I devoured it in two nights, and it's been something of a bestseller. Go figure.
Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company
Bleh. Reread Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time instead. Pleasure tries to be Incident only far more light-hearted, and comes off as trivial because of it. Daniel, the main character, is admittedly more functional than Christopher in Incident, but everything he does is just amusing, and no one ever gets mad at him for being, to quote Adam Cadre, really fucking annoying. He lies repeatedly to his therapist, he stalks the cashier at Rite-Aid and a realtor across the street, he refuses to cross curbs . . . he's a basically decent guy but lacks any sort of hidden depths that would make all these people put up with him. Plus a few points for comedy, minus an awful lot for a host of unbelievable characters and for a happy ending for no reason.