The Birthday Blunder

A recent trip to The LA Times Book Fair to celebrate my son's birthday was okay, but not the big event we anticipated. However, many authors were there to promote and sign their publications. One such author was personable, engaging, and witty as I asked him about his novel, written to coincide with a museum opening feting Bob Dylan. I asked that he sign the book with my son's name, but I told my son that he would receive the book after I finish reading it.

I cannot get into it. The character names are off-putting, with either deeply meaningful or playful names, such as Tieresias from the Greek tragedy Antigone, as well as the not-so-subtle play on Bob Dylan's name for the lead character. The dialog is reminiscent of a Dick Tracy cartoon: choppy, intended to be wise-cracking and filled with satire, but coming across as childishly amateur. The "film noire" approach probably would work if the novel were a screen play, but it's not and it doesn't. The setting of "Old Hollywood" is both trite and cliche. All in all, the author tries so hard to make it work that it doesn't.

However, the most egregious error is the lack of understanding that the word mute means unable to speak, while the word moot means subject to debate, arguable, unresolved, as in a moot point. The author joins a long line of writers, most of whom are non-professionals, who insist that the point is mute -- and to me it's important that the point is moot -- especially if you make the (mute) point twice in the same chapter!

The book has gone to class with me, to a doctor's appointment, and to bed, but I've read the same opening five chapters three times now and finally have realized that I'm not going to make it to the next chapter, much less to the end. I have, however, had some solid sleep on the nights that I've tried to get past the exposition ... .

I'll hand the book off to son and let him have a go at it: although we have similar tastes, we also differ in our likes and dislikes, so this gift may be right up his alley. After all, he stayed for the end of the The Players, while I walked out after a meaningless hour spent trying to figure out why time, treasure and talent were spent to make the film. To this day, son insists that the ending made the film, but I need something along the way to engage both my intellect and my interest or the end comes a whole lot sooner for me than it does for either the book or the film!