tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post5009906309159727283..comments2023-10-03T11:41:21.191+01:00Comments on The Truth About Lies: The Perks of Being a WallflowerJim Murdochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-3601151787407258802012-06-06T18:29:29.144+01:002012-06-06T18:29:29.144+01:00No, Art, I get it. I got it when I read the book. ...No, <b>Art</b>, I get it. I got it when I read the book. It just annoyed me. All the coincidences and convenient happenstances in Shakespeare annoy me too if it comes to that. I am perfectly willing to suspend disbelief and do too—no one is going to tell me that everything that happens in <i>Waiting for Godot</i> takes place within two calendar days—but this book didn’t have that feel. As I said in the review this “reads more like a film script where everything has been crammed into the smallest space possible” and as a film script I’m willing to bend a bit more; I want it to be over in an hour and a half so, yes, cram away. I enjoyed the book. I bet I’ll enjoy the film if I ever see it. And I think there’s a good chance I’ll actually enjoy the film more than the book. Films are great at missing out boring stuff—Warhol aside—they just stop the camera and cut to the next relevant piece of action and so many modern writers who, like me (and Chbosky from the look of him), have watched far more than they have read produce books that are improved by that technique. Usually.<br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-52886968396529070932012-06-06T17:48:19.391+01:002012-06-06T17:48:19.391+01:00Well, as you know fiction doesn't have to be e...Well, as you know fiction doesn't have to be exactly like real life, and probably is better when it doesn't try to be. Real life can be incredibly boring for long periods of time, with significant events coming in clumps separated by long boring passages. And one thing fiction does is compress time. It want you to talk about things that seem unlikely, the series of coincidences that happen in some far more famous novels (Dickens comes to mind) are frankly unbelievable.<br /><br />In science fiction they were talking decades ago about the "willing suspension of disbelief." In other words, being willing to go along for the ride, and allow the "rules" for the novel to be set within the self-contained universe of the novel, rather than pick all the details to pieces. If someone wanted to be a nit-picker than of course even beloved SF TV series like "Star Trek" are full of holes. But then so is Shakespeare (speaking of incredible coincidences going on all the time).<br /><br />The thing with fiction, it doesn't HAVE to all be believable, or exactly like real life. What James Joyce and Virginia Woolf did as innovators was to try to present fiction as much more like real life—which is interestingly still controversial, because I guess most readers of novels still do prefer things to be neatly tied up at the end, and so forth. I think most readers still prefer their fiction to give them the illusion of realism rather than actual realism. (Andy Warhol's film of somebody sleeping all night long is pretty realistic. And dull.) <br /><br />As you know, "realism" in fiction is quite the artificial construct itself, with its own tropes and rules and expectations. The whole presentation of "realistic fiction" is to make the unlikely seem inevitable. And to do it without too much scaffolding (the mechanics of craft) showing. If we want to equate realism with what's likely, I'd give "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" higher marks than most of Nabokov. (Or Hemingway, for that matter.)<br /><br />(P.S. I was quite aware of my own sexuality by age 9, with significant personal milestones achieved at ages 11 and 14. I never had a single cigarette till I was in my 30s. I saw Rocky Horror for the first time probably in my late teens.)Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-57256294872188030702012-06-06T10:30:16.944+01:002012-06-06T10:30:16.944+01:00As always you make good points, Art. It wasn’t so ...As always you make good points, <b>Art</b>. It wasn’t so much the age because even though I was sexually aware at 11 (seriously) I never lost my own virginity until I was 18, it was the fact that it <i>all</i> happens in the book within a small timeframe. It’s not impossible; I just didn’t think it was likely. I was probably around 12 the first time I tried a cigarette and 16 the first time I got drunk, I got into my first fight when I was about 7—this is Scotland remember—but I was probably in my thirties before I first saw <i>The Rocky Horror Picture Show</i>. <br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-22581502321525587182012-06-05T15:05:24.387+01:002012-06-05T15:05:24.387+01:00For once, here's a novel I've actually rea...For once, here's a novel I've actually read before you reviewed it. A friend gave it to me a pole of years ago, and I read it then. I think you hit a lot of the main points, well done.<br /><br />One thing I'd like to add, though, is another difference between this novel and Catcher in the Rye. The narrator of Perks is postmodern to Salinger's modern narrator in that he is not a totally trustworthy narrator, i.e. a variety of unreliable narrator. Part of that is the anonymity, part of that is the epistolary form used. All of which I think are positive attributes of this novel.<br /><br />My friend who gave me the novel liked it because of the gay content, and that's why he gave it to me. I think that content is handled well, albeit it still stays within the bounds of the character, so I don't think it's gratuitous. <br /><br />I disagree with your points about all the firsts in the novel, because even the sexual firsts at age 15 in here, which you are skeptical about, well, I know some people in real life who made it all the way to 14 before discovering any of those things. There are pockets of culture here in the US, believe it or not, where that is in fact possible, and where sexuality is so taboo that if you were as psychologically disconnected as this narrator, it would in fact be possible. I did not perceive the narrator as passive so much as disassociative, which I have seen in more than one person I know. It might be a matter of degrees. But again, to me this was realistic psychologically because I have known people like that. So I didn't have any trouble with the various firsts happening at that age in the book.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.com