Spoiler (sport) Alert

When it comes to literature I hate to be a hater. There are so many wonderful books and gifted authors out there that I think it’s much better to be a cheerleader.  And why waste this space and your precious time with a negative diatribe?  But two books recently made me forget my own code of conduct.  I just shelled out $25.98 for the Kindle editions of these lemons and I’m pissed.  I’m going to go off on a rant here.  I was robbed and I don’t want you to be.

The first loser is called Me Before You by some Brit twit named JoJo Moyes.  And to be honest, it is exactly the kind of book I would never buy anymore.  In that first place, it’s new fiction.  And I don’t read new fiction anymore.  Because I’m an autodidact, I love biographies and histories. If I’m going to read I may as well learn something.

And, as an English literature major, I was exposed to the best.  The  oldies: Austin, Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens, Donne.  And the goodies: T.H. White, Nancy Mitford, John Le Carré, Dorothy L. Sayers, Elizabeth Von Arnim, E.F. Benson, John Galsworthy, Evelyn Waugh, Tom Stoppard, Oscar Wilde.  When I read fiction it is usually written by these guys.

When it comes to American fiction, I always make time for Edith Wharton, Alice Hoffman, Elinor Lipman, Anne Tyler.  And that literary giant and citoyen du monde, emigré extraordinaire, Vladimir Nabokov.  Right or wrong, the rest is all Oprah’s book club to me.

But this time I was duped.  By the New York Times Book Review and Liesl Schillinger.  Here’s what the Times wrote: “In Moyes’s memorable novel, a young woman who assists a wealthy quadriplegic, devises adventures that they can undertake together.”

Eh.  Not enough to get me interested in breaking my No New Fiction Rule.  But here’s what Ms. Schillinger wrote: “When I finished this novel I didn’t want to review it.  I wanted to reread it.  Which might seem perverse if you knew that for the last hundred pages I was dissolved in tears.”

Hmm  Now that was interesting.  Ms. Schillinger has classy literary credentials.  She has written for the New Yorker, New York Magazine, the New Republic and, to change it up and drop the word “new” from her resume, the London Independent.  These are great bona fides for any critic to have.  It means you can trust their opinion.  Usually.

And I have read thousands of book reviews and have never recalled seeing a professional say that a book had been so moving that it made her want to read it again right away and weep for one hundred pages. (Funny.  When I was done reading it, I wanted to brech.**)

** See a Yiddish dictionary.

I was intrigued, and that curiosity, combined with the fact that I am armed and dangerous with a Kindle, allowed me to give in to a freefall moment of impulsiveness.  I down-loaded a sample.  (I sample everything but I don’t always commit.)  But this time I threw caution – and $14.99- to the winds when I hit “buy.”

For the next two hours I was busy reading- first with skepticism, then with bored detachment, then with wry amusement, and then with shock and dismay, as it slowly dawned on me that I had been taken to the cleaners by the tag team of Ms. Moyes and her stooge/accomplice, Ms. Schillinger.

This book is a load of melodramatic nonsense.  In the prologue, the hero is so handsome, witty, charming, rich, debonair, and blessed with every upper-crust advantage spiritually, physically, and materially, that you know something horrible will happen to him.  To paraphrase Chekov’s rule:  If you show the audience a gun in the first act, it must go off by the end of the play.  Here the “gun” goes off before Chapter One.

And then, of course, there’s a girl.  Why?  “There’s always a girl in the picture” to quote the immortal Preston Sturges’ great movie Sullivan’s Travels.  And while I’m at it, you’d be much better off watching that comic masterpiece than reading this maudlin, predictable argument for mercy killing.  Or reading this post for that matter.  In fact, there are very few things I can think of that would be better than watching that movie- except maybe watching his other masterpieces The Lady Eve and The Palm Beach Story.

(So if any of you quit reading now and head for your DVD collection or Netflix, I would be the first to understand.  Just come back later, okay?  I need you way more than the late Mr. Sturges does.)

This book is a whole new genre: Handicap Porn.  It’s Fifty Shades of Grey for the Dr. Kevorkian fan club.  (I’m sure that most people who are in wheelchairs themselves have too much self-respect to want anything to do with this bilge.)  I will not dignify this tripe any further other than by saying DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.  And Ms. Schillinger, I will meet you at dawn any place you name.  Choose your weapon- thesaurus or O.E. D.  Up to you.  But I demand satisfaction- and a refund.

Update:  I just read that MGM has acquired the feature film rights to this junk.  “JoJo’s book is frankly one of the most unique, emotional and engaging love stories written in recent years,” said Jonathan Glickman, MGM president of the motion picture group.  “We’re thrilled to collaborate with her on creating a classic film romance that lives up to this exceptional novel.”

OMG and WTF!?!  Do not go see this movie either.

The next no-excuse-for-a publisher is Frank Langella’s ghastly attempt at a memoir, Dropped Names.  Frank Langella- famous actor and lately in the news for giving Barbara Walters a case of chicken pox when, suffering from shingles, he imprudently kissed her.  It seems that Mr. Langella’s storied career has brought him in contact with the most illustrious names in the twentieth century.  And he didn’t have a nice thing to say about any of them.

And to add insult to injury (and to save on his libel suit bills) most of the bold face names he drags through the innuendo-slinging mud or ugly anecdote are conveniently dead and can’t defend themselves. This literary post mortem was so snarky and mean-spirited (in many cases about actors or public figures that I admired) that it really upset me.  Shame on him.  And shame on me for giving in to the urge to look at someone else’s dirty laundry.

But just to even the score I, too, can drop names like Mr. Langella.  Although I haven’t had the career that Mr. L’s talent afforded him- by luck or circumstance- I can personally tell you that I have rubbed shoulders with some very famous people.  Like Ringo Starr.  Never in my life did I ever imagine any scenario where I would be in the same ski locker room as a Beatle.   Or in an elevator with Madonna.  But I was.

In 1986, after a day at the swimming pool, six year old Nick and I were riding in an hotel elevator with Madge and her bodyguard.  My son chose that exact moment to reach into his backpack and pull out a gun.  A watergun. The bodyguard and I jumped at the same time to protect our charges. No harm no foul.  But this was a real ice breaker, trust me.  We talked for awhile.  She was stunning- five two, teeny, green eyes, platinum hair- she looked like an eighteenth century marquise.  And she couldn’t have been nicer.

These two- and other A list celebs I’ve had the good fortune to meet- were gracious and charming.  Naturally they do not appear anywhere in Mr. L’s poison pen letter of a book.  And the sad fact is that Mr. Langella took self-satisfied potshots at people not of his sexual orientation, as well.  Those ugly comments didn’t make me look down on any of the dearly departed he had outed or slurred.  It only made me lose all respect for an actor I had admired since I first glimpsed him being a rat bastard to Carrie Snodgress in Diary of a Mad Housewife.  Typecasting, as it turns out.

So there you have my two thumbs-down reviews.  Completely impartial, I promise you.  And did I happen to mention that I don’t understand how these exercises in mediocrity saw a book store’s light of day when my agent tells me that I won’t be published until I’m a Kardashian?

You see, in today’s high-risk world of publishing, “famous” sells.  “Notoriety” sells.  Being a good writer doesn’t necessarily mean a thing.  You’ve got to have some dirt splashed on you to get some buzz on your work- and time on “The View.”

Hey, does anybody know Frank Langella?

I’ll take my chances with the shingles.