Casey's review of Indecision
Indecision
by Benjamin Kunkel
I am still trying to figure out my thoughts on this book. So now all it gets is three stars and a measly two sentences, but some glorious day when it all sinks in, it will get less or more stars and a bunch of rambling paragraphs that, if I'm very lucky, three people will read...
So now I've waited my allotted time and maybe it's been too long. Proof that it's worth just writing these things immediately...ah well...
The first half of this novel struck me as awful. It reminded me of someone trying to write a spoof of a self-obsessed rich white kid, all kinds of cultural signifiers and culturally relevant situations, but no depth to the narrator and elements of his personality that are inconstent/make your skin crawl. Case in point: in the space of about 20 pages, the narrator moves from:
1. Skewering some rich kids in his neighborhood for the high quality of clothes they're wearing during a night out on the town, juxtaposing their outfits with his bathrobe that he threw on just...more
I am still trying to figure out my thoughts on this book. So now all it gets is three stars and a measly two sentences, but some glorious day when it all sinks in, it will get less or more stars and a bunch of rambling paragraphs that, if I'm very lucky, three people will read...
So now I've waited my allotted time and maybe it's been too long. Proof that it's worth just writing these things immediately...ah well...
The first half of this novel struck me as awful. It reminded me of someone trying to write a spoof of a self-obsessed rich white kid, all kinds of cultural signifiers and culturally relevant situations, but no depth to the narrator and elements of his personality that are inconstent/make your skin crawl. Case in point: in the space of about 20 pages, the narrator moves from:
1. Skewering some rich kids in his neighborhood for the high quality of clothes they're wearing during a night out on the town, juxtaposing their outfits with his bathrobe that he threw on just before leaving the house as proof of his devil-may-care, 90s-style indie-bohemianism
to
2. Going golfing with his father and commenting on how much he likes wearing nice clothes in situations like this, detailing the quality of the private country club he's playing at and even detailing his outfit, describing his pants as 'pistachio green' and his sweater as some sort of pink-mocha combo, if I remember right.
Whereas Kunkel's buddy Gessen does a good job chronicling educated urban people and all their foibles, Kunkel himself seems unable to extricate himself from his own membership in this social class long enough to make any interesting observations about it. Instead, the reader is treated to 150 pages of a self-obsessed post-college guy dependent on his daddy and unable to decide what to do with himself and not sure what woman he's in love with and...it's boring just describing it.
And then the book takes this complete left turn, as the narrator heads to South America to meet some woman he knows. Once placed out of his element, forced to make decisions, forced to do something other than waste away day after day in a self-imposed prison of wealth and apathy, he becomes a pretty interesting dude, as does the book. There's a bit of a love story here that is done tactfully and believably. Above all, the narrator begins to sound real, sincere, someone to relate to, someone to be invested in and concerned in the outcome of his life.
Following this pretty rad section, the book takes another left turn and plows headlong into global politics and political theory. And this I totally loved, even though it arrived completely out of nowhere, even though it was kinda heavy handed. I don't really see such open and decidedly opinionated political anlyses pushed in fiction anymore - or movies or music, for that matter - and it struck me as a breath of fresh air (though if I'd been around in the 60s/70s, it probably would have struck me as cliche - the 2000s are weird). I read Dos Passos 49th Parallel recently, and throughout it thought, damn, I wish there was someone today doing this sort of thing. I'm glad Kunkel did.
Overall, I'd say he's a first-time author, and if he doesn't waste half of his next book trying to involve you in a poorly drawn character that tries to paint a certain type of person with too broad and too predictable of strokes, it will be rad. I hope he tries to weave politics throughout the entirity of his next work as well, as it came too late in the game here to make as big of an impact as I think it could of....less
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