Come on authors, get real II

Posted in Old blogger by Twenty Major on November 30th, 2006

Previously I have opined that authors have let themselves down by making their characters eat meals which are just totally unrealistic and taking too long to describe the simplest of actions.

Now I have to take to task authors who want to show off and make everyone think they’re all ‘literary’ by having their characters read books which really don’t fit in with the rest of their profile.

I’m currently reading a book by John Connolly, and his books are generally quite good. They’re fast, interesting, detective thriller things and on that level they’re certainly above average. However, his main character, Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker - we get it, you like jazz!! - is not alone in his love of fancy books and poetry.

While most private detectives searching for a missing girl in small town America might pick up a newspaper to read while they had dinner in a diner our hero goes to a bookshop and buys a book of poems by e.e.cummings. He mentions one in particular because he enjoys its ‘gentle eroticism’.

His former partner in the police force his a library of great tomes and he and Bird ’share a love of Runyon and Wodehose; of Tobias Wolff, Donald Barthelme and, strangely, the Earl of Rochester, the Restoration dandy tortured by his failings’.

Excuse fucking me? Now, I’m all for books and for people reading them. Books are marvellous things and I love them very much but come on. I don’t want a private detective that kicks the shit out of people and kills people and goes around with two gay hitmen (seriously, one black, one white just for good measure. No really, he does) who then reads poetry as he scoffs bacon and toast in a greasy diner.

Can you imagine two New York cops sitting in a car discussing books?

“Hey Charlie, look at that dame over there. Woooeeee, she’s got legs to de sky!”

“Please don’t interrupt, Walter, I am trying to enjoy the short stories of Tobias Wolff.”

“Hey wow, I love him too. Forget the dame and doughnut shop…”

Next time just give the fucker a copy of the New York Times (let’s face it USA Today is a rag) and let him look at the sports section. The gentle eroticism of e.e.cummings my arse.

cummings, heh.