Within the past ten minutes I finished a novel that drew out a mix of emotions and a chaotic theme of weird ideas. The novel is called Hell and was written by a man named Robert Olen Butler - of whom I had previously never heard until seeing this book in a Barnes and Nobles one day while out greedily looking for a book to read.
I saw this book on the shelf, clearly labeled Hell in big red letters and a comical devil on the front. The caption under his name said he was a Pulitzer Prize winner, so my first instinct that this would be some ridiculous and idiotic rendering of the "view from Hell" went out the window.
I picked it up and read the jacket. A novel about a famous anchorman that does not currently exist in our world in Hell. He is surrounded by famous people to include Shakespeare, Nixon, Henry VIII, Jezebel, and many others. The thought struck me again that this would be...stupid? Less than literary? Something along those lines.
However, I bought it anyway. The part of me that I share with Jason draws me to stories about the Devil, Hell, torment and suffering. I have a strong draw towards the religious, not because I am in any way religious, but because I love symbolism and religion has more than its fair share of fingers in that particular pie.
I digress.
I have just finished the book and it was, for lack of a better descriptive adjective, awesome. The end, especially, made me smile a little inside and inspired me to type this up. I am trying very, very hard to become more of a writer than I currently am. I may fail, but I know that if I don't at least write SOMETHING every single day I will fail. So this.
A couple of captions from the book that may draw you in or turn you away will follow in comments. For now, I need to push edible substance into my throat hole and stave off the feeling in my belly of annoyance.
"And maybe it's why we're all of us damned, he thinks. Maybe a mother can join herself to an image of a son until she can't, and a man can join with a woman till he can't, and the can't part of it means it's not doing the mother or the husband any good anymore, for herself, for himself, for his arrogantly self-absorbed self, you just want to get away from the other and you'll stop at nothing till you do. And with all this thinking, he finally thinks none of it sounds right, none of it, and he thinks maybe the thinking itself is the problem, your mind is free but it's free all to itself, you're never more alone than in your mind. Only in our bodies are we together. Maybe it's all about the thereness, there's nothing more there than every moment lived in these tortured bodies in Hell, and there was nothing more there than the life we led in these bodies on earth."
ReplyDelete"And inside Dick Nixon: My old man's cheeks and forehead would flush bright red and my saint of a mother knew what was coming and his fists rose and I backed out of the kitchen door and I put my hands over my ears because of the sound that would follow, and even the touch of my own hands startled me, nauseated me, made me drop them, and then there was only the running away from the sound. What a coward I was. I ran as fast as I could, but I knew I would be tough someday, I knew I would never back down. And this is perfectly clear. I am not an abuser. With Pat it wasn't about being tough, it was about touching. When I hit her, it was about touching, and it was about touching whenever I sought out the backseat of White House limo SS100X, my favorite, the one I always insisted on. I was the President. It was the restored midnight-blue Lincoln Continental where Kennedy was shot. I would ride around right in that same backseat. The very spot. They touched him there. And they could touch me if they wanted to. I wasn't going to run away."
ReplyDelete"Of course," Cheney says. "But the fundamental process for men like you and me is this. The stupider the president - or any leader - the mroe power you arrange for him. And the more secretive you make him. Don't disclose a thing. The insular, unitary leader. Finally he's got so much in front of him but at the same time he's so cozily private that even the stupid man who's too stupid to realize he's stupid will realize two things. He needs somebody to do the real work for him, and nobody will know the difference."
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you've read it or not, but you should read The Paperhanger by William Gay. Read it in my lit class and loved it.
ReplyDeleteI will write it down to look up and read. Always feel free to tell me about any good books. I shall absorb them all!
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