Jane wrote:
"I read 1974 when it came out and found it to be very
atmospheric, nasty and no holds barred when it comes to
depicting police,journos and any other assorted scum that
make up the main characters...just my type of book."
Sounds like my kind of book, too. It just moved higher on my
TBR pile.
I was just thinking about this, the appeal of works with no
sympathetic characters, sometimes despicable characters. As
long as they are interesting, I'm hooked.
I've been meaning to order Jason Starr's Nothing Personal for
a while. This review on Amazon finally got me off my
ass:
"I did not find this book to have any positive message for
the reader. All of the characters are so self absorbed that
they care more about their personal wants then the needs of
their spouses or children. This book propogates the belief
that it is alright to live this way - because
"everyone else does." Todays culture encourages people to
read garbage like this in the guise that we will see the
people suffer for their wrong doings, and therefore not act
in these manners. . . ."
I don't know about you, but I don't read books of this sort
as cautionary tales. As a matter of fact, I don't even
require a bad ending for the bad guy. And if it's a tacked on
"oops, time for the anti-hero's comeuppance" ending, I may
even resent it.
"Usually in the mix of characters there is someone that the
reader can side with (the protagonist), but if I knew any of
these individuals I would choose not to associate with them.
So why would I want to read a book about them?"
Me, I like a glimpse of the other side, but at a safe
distance. I sure wouldn't want to meet people like these in
real life, either, but I enjoy reading about them. There's
probably a bit of "there but for the grace of God go I," but
I think there's more of the flip side, imagining what would
happen if all of society's mores were simply shrugged
off.
Funny how a negative review can become a positive
endorsement.
Mark
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