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David's Reviews > The Mulching of America
The Mulching of America
by
by
David's review
bookshelves: hideously-vile-protagonists, never-gonna-finish, read-in-2009, disappointing
Jan 17, 2009
bookshelves: hideously-vile-protagonists, never-gonna-finish, read-in-2009, disappointing
WARNING --- FIZZY GRAVY ALERT!!
Truth in Reviewing: I didn't finish this, didn't even make it to page 100. But I read far enough to know that I really just had no desire to punish myself further. Crews mines the seamy underbelly of the white trash south for yuks, and it's funny for a while. But subtlety is not part of his arsenal, so things just get weirder and weirder, until you're in a universe so bizarrely warped, you wonder what the point of reading on might be.
So I could (barely) forgive him the megalomaniac head of Soaps for Life, who terrorizes his door-to-door salesforce with Hitlerian zest. I thought I could forgive him giving The Boss a harelip and a huge Napoleon complex. Until one too many sentences like this:
"I always have na use a whip na drive all nu people about nike beasts, and nu have na nerve na nell me nure late because nu stayed out nair and sold of nure own free will?"
By the time the book's (anti)hero, Hickum Looney (yes, really), undergoes ritual humiliation by the rest of the Soaps for Life salesforce, culminating in his being stripped only to his skivvies, causing him to lose control of his bowels, left to drag his bescumbered body through the 90-degree heat in search of his car -- well, by then, I had my doubts.
The clincher was having Crews mention at least four times in a couple pages the motions of Hickum's wrinkled, shrivelled member during this car-seeking odyssey, not neglecting to remind us of the 'black crusty streaks' ....
Look, I love a book that mixes eschatology and scatology as much as the next guy. But it's a delicate balance, Harry. One which you singularly failed to achieve here. Unless you were trying to work out some deep toilet training issues of your own.
Life is way too short for this kind of lientery.
Truth in Reviewing: I didn't finish this, didn't even make it to page 100. But I read far enough to know that I really just had no desire to punish myself further. Crews mines the seamy underbelly of the white trash south for yuks, and it's funny for a while. But subtlety is not part of his arsenal, so things just get weirder and weirder, until you're in a universe so bizarrely warped, you wonder what the point of reading on might be.
So I could (barely) forgive him the megalomaniac head of Soaps for Life, who terrorizes his door-to-door salesforce with Hitlerian zest. I thought I could forgive him giving The Boss a harelip and a huge Napoleon complex. Until one too many sentences like this:
"I always have na use a whip na drive all nu people about nike beasts, and nu have na nerve na nell me nure late because nu stayed out nair and sold of nure own free will?"
By the time the book's (anti)hero, Hickum Looney (yes, really), undergoes ritual humiliation by the rest of the Soaps for Life salesforce, culminating in his being stripped only to his skivvies, causing him to lose control of his bowels, left to drag his bescumbered body through the 90-degree heat in search of his car -- well, by then, I had my doubts.
The clincher was having Crews mention at least four times in a couple pages the motions of Hickum's wrinkled, shrivelled member during this car-seeking odyssey, not neglecting to remind us of the 'black crusty streaks' ....
Look, I love a book that mixes eschatology and scatology as much as the next guy. But it's a delicate balance, Harry. One which you singularly failed to achieve here. Unless you were trying to work out some deep toilet training issues of your own.
Life is way too short for this kind of lientery.
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Reading Progress
January 17, 2009
– Shelved
Started Reading
January 21, 2009
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Finished Reading
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Lientery! So that's what it's called! If only I'd known, I might have spared myself that whole hushed rigmarole with the pharmacist. Now I just need a handy term for those 'black crusty streaks' and I'll be all set.Sorry, I guess I lean more towards scatology myself.
Primo David. Primo.