I'm reading "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon for my Writer's and Comics class this term. Let me just say this right now. Mr. Chabon, you better hide your thesaurus. I will find it, and I will burn it.
I haven't been so torn about opinion on a book in a long time. Usually I can say, yes, this book is horrible in plot, but has magnificent writing. Or perhaps I can say that the concept and ideas are fantastic, but the writing is complete trash unworthy of the dirtiest landfill. This book? My God I can't make up my mind. I almost put the book down after the opening sentence. It was horrible. I haven't read a first sentence in a book as bad as this in ages. It made me want to cry. Then about halfway through the first paragraph I found "...he would learnedly expound." Why. Why did you have to say "learnedly expound"? It's awful. Then he shocked me with his descriptions. I haven't encountered anything like them. So strange, and yet...most of them work. I revelled in the beauty of the "flatulent poison-green ribbon"(6), and was in awe of "to bend and crimp the armature of a sturdy and elegant plan"(16) (though I had to use a dictionary to decide what the exact definitions of the words were to understand what the hell he was talking about...and I still don't really know). His way with words is amazing.
And frustrating. I have to keep a dictionary on hand while reading this work. It's not like I don't understand the words a lot of the time, it's just he uses precise definitions to glean meaning out of the words used. It's infuriating. I swear, he took a simple word, flipped to it in a thesaurus and stuck in something elegant in order to sound smart and profound. It makes me want to destroy the nearest object to me. Take for example, the most ridiculous line I have seen in a book for years: "But in his imaginings, Sammy found that, for the first time in years, he was able to avail himself of the help of a confederate." My God every time I read it I feel like I've killed a puppy, and I didn't even write it. Seriously, there are commas and stops in places that there shouldn't be, the sentence starts with "but", and it's long and broken. Oh, but we're just avoiding the elephant in the room here. Because, while all the points mentioned above are used effectively in writing, there's one detail that can't be forgiven.
"...avail himself of the help of a confederate."
What. The. Hell.
I am sorry, but there's a whole list of words that could have been used that would have made this sentence sound all right. Be passable. No, we don't do that here. It took me about five reads to understand what this meant. I was ripped out of the narrative to go to the dictionary, look up all the exact definitions of "avail" and "confederate", not because I don't know what they mean, but because I needed EXACT dictionary definitions to be able to decipher the meaning. For those of you at home, it essentially means that he could "see himself making use of an alliance." In context, Kavalier and Clay are in bed (it sounds worse than it actually is you pervs) discussing Kavalier's arrival in America and his ambitions. So Clay began to think of partnering with Kavalier to make comics. Why did we need to confuse everyone? This makes no sense.
Aside from my rage, the book is pretty captivating in story. When I'm not being dragged out by my pinkie toe into the cold by horrible sentences and stupid words, I actually enjoy the narrative. I recommend the book to anyone, but the editor in me is about one horrible sentence away from finding Mr. Chabon and using his thesaurus to beat some literary sense into him.
I don't care that he won the Pulitzer Prize.
Sorry if I sound like a pretentious dick, I just had to get this rant out. That sentence...God...
Also, for another interesting and annoying point concerning the term "Caterpillar Scheme" in the novel, visit:
http://paulmichaelmurphy.blogspot.com/2010/11/lesson-from-michael-chabon.html
Because I completely agree
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