Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Egg Said Nothing: Review

Shovels and missed opportunities. This was a book which could have risen to the level of literary fiction but flopped about in science fantasy and beta male fantasies. It probably deserves two stars but I've given it three. Where are the problems 1. flat characters with predictable problems 2. no dramatic tension 3. typical three act structure which would have been better as a five act 4. uninspired plotting....kinda reminds me of Jonathan Carroll's "The Wooden Sea" but not as interesting 5. missed opportunities to deepen character and plot....examples: we do not meet his mother until 2/3s of the way through chapter 13 and there are only 16 chapters. She has obviously traumatized him and he feeds off of her parasitically...yet she is only given one solid paragraph and then dismissed to pastiche and cliche. The waitress girlfriend we never learn much of....the whole relationship is the driver of the plot but she's a stick figure. Stealing money to live...there are whole sociological volumes waiting to be exploited here. The multiple selves....who could have missed this opportunity? The great idea is about 'gender relations'....christ almighty are we back in the culture wars where every pathetic idea gets its day? Then this meta-toot is never really explored...even cryptically 6. the prose style was flat and lifeless....all characters sounded the same and little attention was paid to style and dialogue. Was it a bad book...no. But it could have been so much better Okay for a light afternoon read if you don't want to think about anything at all...least of all the story. Yawn.

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