Shaft here, coming at you live from Brussels (that’s in Belgium, by the way) whilst on a family vacation. As some of you may recall, I was fortunate enough to win the music/literature linking contest a few weeks back (through my Velocity Girl/Primal Scream reference — incidentally, I wore my Velocity Girl “Setting the Night on Fire with Rock and Roll/Kicking Ass and Taking Names Tour” t-shirt as pajamas last night), and received a couple of books as prizes, one of which was Dreaming of Gwen Stefani, by Evan Mandery.
Mr. Mandery was even in the A-T-L for a reading that I was unable to attend, but Mr. DJ got the book personally autographed by Mr. Mandery (a lawyer like yours truly), who signed it “To [my real name] — My condolences on your choice of career, but congratulations on your excellent choice of friends [referring to the DJ].”
The book is pretty short (chalk up a point for the good guys), and pretty straightforward. Not to mean inconsequential or lame, but not groundbreaking in terms of originality of concept. The protagonist, Mortimer Taylor Coleridge, is an overeducated [probably] dork who works at Papaya Queen making hot dogs, feeling like he deserves more out of life. He becomes obsessed with something and focuses his life on achieving this singular goal to which he has turned his entire attention. I won’t fill in the blanks for you, but they’re on the back of the book.
So the joy of reading this isn’t so much about being surprised at where the story goes, but rather about the construction of the tale (alternating third-person narratives with excerpts from Mortimer’s journal), which toggles you back and forth between what’s happening and how Mortimer views what’s happening.
The book cover calls it “A Confederacy of Dunces for the VH1 generation”, which is big talk to someone who adores that book, but taken in the light-hearted tone in which it’s stated, it’s not out-and-out blasphemy. They’re very different kinds of books, and it’s an apples to oranges comparison. But to the extent you’re talking about stories centered on main characters that you are fascinated by but probably wouldn’t hang out with in real life (but find yourself rooting for), they fall into the same big bucket.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:40 am
Shaft: You are now officially an International Player. If you had been able to make it to the reading, I think that you would have found a lot in common with Mandery (check out his web site). I’ve got this one on my stack from the reading, so I’ll weigh in at some point in the future.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:26 pm
If you wanna help a brutha out with, say, a case of Westvleteren 12, I wouldn’t protest. Hey, all I’m asking you to do is drag around 40 pounds of beer for a few weeks and then ship it to a guy you hardly know in San Fran; is that really too much to ask?
But you HAVE to drink some while you’re there. In fact, forget whatever other crap you had planned and start drinking every beer you see. And I think you’re going to be in town for the Tour of Flanders. Dang.
Maybe if I concentrate really hard, I can pull off some kind of Freaky Friday brain switch.
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Beer and cycling? Why aren’t we there, Flav. Let’s call in sick tomorrow and go on a road trip.
Shaft, try out this bit on your Flemish pals, they love this one: When Holland plays the Netherlands int he World Cup, who do the Dutch root for?
Kills them every time.
April 5th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Well, on the soccer kick (pun intended), I bought two soccer jerseys while in Paris — Zidan’s for my son (so that he knows to headbutt anyone that insults his mom or his sister), and a Barcelona jersey for moi because it looks cool. So yes, I bought a Barcelona jersey while visiting France. Go figure.
Bonsoir.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
[...] After finishing Dreaming of Gwen Stefani on my trip to Europe and posting on it from other parts of the world, I also managed to get through Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris, at the tail-end of my trip. As I’ve mentioned in prior commentary, I was extremely excited about this book, given its overlap with my occupation as an advertising lawyer. [...]
April 29th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
[...] As those of you who feverishly follow this blog know, I was the fortunate recipient of a couple of autographed books (gratis) a number of weeks back — Dreaming of Gwen Stefani, and Small Town Punk. I posted on Gwen Stefani earlier, and I had the pleasure of finishing Small Town Punk, by John Sheppard, this week. [...]