Last week I finished reading “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” by Michael Chabon. It seems like a lot of people who read this compared it to “Kavalier and Clay”, which is a waste of time since K&C was a masterpiece. On its own merit, I thought YPU was a good read, though it did start slowly and at times it seemed to me like Chabon was showing off more than usual with his turns of phrase, and kinda cluttering up the story a little with fancy wordplay. But that’s a minor complaint. I finished it on vacation, on my brother’s warm back patio one morning while drinking coffee and listening to all the exotic east coast birds.
The book had a special resonance for me since my “novel” takes place in the same region of southeast Alaska. I bet most people who read it don’t know Tlingit is pronounced “Clickit” for instance. True story!
At the other edge of the literary spectrum, I picked up another paperback in the airport at 5:30 am in Raleigh, NC as we embarked on our trip home. I wanted something dumb and easy for the flight, and BOY did I get it. “Chasing Harry Winston” is the third book by the “writer” who brought the world “The Devil Wears Prada”, a book I did not read. The movie was okay, probably better than the book. This woman is a shitty writer, average at best.
It makes sense that the Harry Winston jewelry brand is right there in the title, since I have never in my life read a book with so many name brand mentions and product placements. In one passage, a character is described surfing the web (fascinating!!), and the author takes the time to pad the shit out of the page by spelling out each and every site she visits. First she went to MySpace.com! Then over to WebMD! Then she checked out gofugyourself.com! I am not kidding.
The story itself is ridiculous, of course. Cookie-cutter chick lit garbage. Appalling that she was paid money to churn it out. The “plot” centers around, naturally, three gorgeous, wealthy, successful New York women in their early 30s, and their search to nab equally gorgeous, more wealthy, more successful men. Everyone is very materialistic, self-obsessed, whiny, etc etc. The men are all charming and perfect. Not even a crooked tooth among any of them, surely, much less a (eeeeeek) blue collar job. One of the dudes is actually “a banker at Bear Stearns.” LOL. I wonder how that worked out.
YET here I am finishing the book, probably today on my way home. It’s the epitome of light reading; about as challenging as the comics page. And it reminds me with every clunky sentence and heavy-handed exposition: I could do better than this. I know it. My first drafts were better than this.
