I grabbed the box. On the front of the commemorative tin proudly sat a picture of a smiling Asian couple, with the words “Happy Anniversary Baby!” across the bottom. Its not that I have anything against Asians. In fact, I adore their delicious stir-fried cuisine. Still, I don't love it enough to display a random couple of Asian-American descent in a prominent place in my home. Needless to say, Snapfish sent me the wrong puzzle. Amy and I decided to put it together anyway, hoping that maybe they'd put the correct puzzle in the wrong tin.
As pieces started to come together, it was clear that this wasn't the puzzle that I ordered. We finished putting it together anyway – seriously, this girl cannot stop with a puzzle once she has started – despite knowing that we would be disappointed with the result.
This is exactly the experience that I had this week with James Frey's novel, Bright Shiny Morning. I “ordered” the novel wanting the same mind-blowing, life changing affect that A Million Little Pieces had on me. When it arrived and I took a quick glance, I noticed that it wasn't exactly what I had hoped for. But I decided to have some faith and put the puzzle together anyway. And then I was left with the literary equivalent of a pair of Asain lovebirds, staring back at me, not at all what I had wanted.
Frey's writing in Pieces changed the way that I thought about autobiographical writing entirely. In my very first post on this blog, I ranted and raved about Frey's bravery and honesty, about how much the book broke my heart and inspired me. So reading Frey's novel, Bright Shiny Morning, seemed like a natural progression. However, I was extremely disappointed. Where is the brave, unprecedented writing that we saw throughout Pieces? Where are the gritty details, the poetic sentences, the cringing physical descriptions? The first book was raw and honest. Bright Shiny Pieces seemed almost exactly the opposite.
From the very first page, the characters and their situations are heavy with repetition, cliché and vague language. I think that repetition and very general description are tools that Frey is trying to use to achieve a certain effect here, but the only effect i'm getting is laziness. Pick up a dictionary and find a better word for 'hate' or 'drunk' so we don't have to read them over and over again. If I see one more repeated adjective, I'm going to confuse this book for a Twilight novel. I suppose that the style (if you can call it a style) is the same that he used in A Million Little Pieces, so I'm not sure why it feels so different here. I guess in Pieces it was easier to accept choppy sentences and repeated phrases because the guy who was writing them was just so fucked up. But these characters are sober. They're awake, they're smart, they haven't damaged their brains with 10 years of massive continuous drug use. What works for one book doesn't necessarily work for another.
“She reaches the bottom of the stairs sits down on the last step puts her face in her hands hates herself, hates her job, hates this house and yard, hates the street and town, hates that she's here five days a week, hates cleaning doing laundry washing dishes dusting. Her face is in her hands and she hates that she has no confidence. Her face is in her hands and she hates that she allows [her boss] to humiliate her. Her face is in her hands and she hates that her life is not what it could have ben. Her face, her hands. Hates.”
Say it with me kids. Hates. We get it.
Other than the vague droning language, there are some other bones that I have to pick with Frey's novel. I think that the book is supposed to be a series of vignettes that link together in order to show the reader that although LA is a massive city, every little piece matters. Ideas like this work beautifully, when done correctly, although they can be a bit theatrical (think the movie Crash). I think that the key to making stories like this work, at least in a long piece, is to make sure that every miniature story pops. If each character doesn't stick out enough in the reader's mind, they can all start to blur together. If there are too many stories, its tough to remember what the heck your'e reading about.
Frey's characters are all completely flat. Those that are supposed to be innocent are innocent through and through, the evil has no soft side. For example, here is a snippet of the litany we get from a famous actor. “He picks up one of the fashion magazines flips through it he's better-looking than all of the men...he puts it down. He picks up another one. Same thing. Another one, same thing. He wonders what his life would be like if he wasn't so good-looking. He would probably be a world-renowned professor at a prestigious eastern university. Or maybe an English university.” This crap is nonstop. Because of his vague, unoriginal language, all of the stories bleed into one big blob. I start forgetting who is who. There's a couple that moved from Ohio – are they the ones with the meth problems? Is the hispanic girl the same who got raped in a parking lot earlier? And to make things even more difficult, there is no pattern to when the stories appear. We go right from the wealthy actor, an obnoxiously egotistical closeted homosexual, to the man who started Putt Putt Bonanza. Then on to the homeless man who lives in a bathroom. Then we're back to the gay actor. Suddenly we're with the spanish maid. And then we're with the couple from Ohio. And then back to Putt Putt Bonanza. Intermingling story lines can be a wonderful way to let multiple characters have a voice within a single novel. But I don't think Frey did it right.
Another problem? Mixed in with these characters we are supposed to be getting to know, there are random vignettes that dead-end. We hear about a man who owns a gun store maybe twice, and then he disappears. A woman gets raped and decides that she is either going to shoot her attacker or herself, and we never find out which. Different people are swerving in and out like crazy, to the point that your mind is running in circles trying to keep up with who matters and who is a throw-away character.
I will fully admit that most books like this tend to come together towards the end. That I am absolutely cutting off my nose to spite my face by retiring the book early instead of trudging through to the end to see what happens. And may I say that it is quite unlike me to give up on a story halfway through.If I kept reading, there's a big chance that everything would get tied up nicely into a work of moderate skill and sense. But I have over 250 pages of Bright Shiny Morning remaining, and I just don't think I can do it. And why should I, when there so many other books awaiting my love and affection?
The only character that really stands strong is the city itself. The city is large, cruel, schizophrenic. Frey does a great job painting the scene of the million dollar mansions across the street from the bums sleeping in dumpsters – of wealthy beach goers trying not to notice the homeless teenage girls moaning with hunger at their feet. It is difficult to hear that a city like this truly exists, but that is what the novel needs. Frey seems to have taken the gritty, pessimistic lens that he had focused on himself in A Million Little Pieces and instead turned it towards the city. The book sort of feels like a panoramic view, but with annoying little kids running around in the way. There's beauty in there somewhere, but you just can't seem to get them out of your line of vision so you can really enjoy it.
If you're looking for a book that takes all of the above pieces and puts them together in a way that actually fits, I suggest Bret Eason Ellis' Less Than Zero. The book, which was called a “modern-day, California based Catcher in the Rye”, may deal almost exclusively with the wealthy, but I still think that it gives a clearer picture. Plus, I actually enjoy reading it, instead of wanting to stab my eyes out with an icepick. If you're looking for a view of the mean streets of California from a lower socio-economical, more screwed up perspective, Nic Scheff's Tweak does an incredible job. I would recommend these two over Bright Shiny Morning any day.
Frey, you had your chance, and we're over. It was nice while it lasted. It's not you, it's....no, it's you. It's definitely you. There will always be a special place in my heart for A Million Little Pieces, but I'm afraid that I'm on to bigger and better things. Along with ordering personalized birthday gifts from Snapfish, I am putting this novel into my “not worth it” file.
stab your eyes out with an icepick?!?
ReplyDeleteyour writing makes me smile and cringe at the same time. not many things can do that.