The Solution to the Maze

Well, I finally finished Hugh Laurie's The Gun Seller this week. At about the middle of the book, when the maze-like plot finally started to clear up a little, there were a few enjoyable moments. It is about a gun seller (the villain) who is involved in military-industrial-complex-type nefarious deeds.  The hero (first person narrator) is a smart, strong man facing moral dilemmas throughout.  Of course, there's a beautiful dame or two thrown in for good measure.

It was entertaining, for the most part, and once the action started, there were fewer moments of excessively wordy descriptions (or perhaps I had gotten used to them by then), so I was able to forget I was reading a novel and start to care a little about the characters.

I'd recommend it to those who like Hugh Laurie and are curious about what he's like as a writer. But if you're looking for straight mystery/spy thriller fiction, better go elsewhere.

Words, Words, Words!

After putting it aside for a few weeks, when I plunged in again with Hugh Laurie's book, The Gun Seller, I began to notice a certain similarity of style to another book that was full of words, a book written centuries ago entitled The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne.  This book, a serial that started in 1759, is known for its multiple digressions and mixed-up chronological order, both traits that make it hard to read today. Yet once you get into it, it is rather strangely entertaining and funny--as long as you don't expect it to be like a normal narrative. It was the style of Sterne's book that came back to me when I began reading Laurie's book, to the point that I wondered if he consciously imitated Sterne, or whether it's simply a traditional British way of writing comedy.  Here's a sample from Tristram Shandy:

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost;—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that in which the reader is likely to see me.—

You may have noticed that the above quote is a single sentence; indeed, it is the first sentence in the book.  Can you see the resemblance with Laurie's narrative?

Of course, any book that begins in this way is going to present challenges.  One of the challenges, in my opinion, is that such attention paid to words makes readers very much aware that they are reading a book, and that the book is fiction. With such a style, you can't entirely suspend disbelief and get immersed in the action. Reading Tristram Shandy or The Gun Seller is like sitting in a theater, trying to enjoy a play, but the person next to you is constantly poking you in the ribs, saying, "Did you get that? Isn't that a riot?" It makes for slow going, to say the least.

I'm finally getting to the part where there is some action, however.  I'll write more about that later.

In the Middle of Things

I'm starting this blog in medias res, or in the middle of things, you could say, since at this point I'm about 18 books into my quest. (See the list, in the left hand column.)  I started this project in the summer, and since then I've read a few histories, some novels, and a science book.  I'll be telling you about those books as I go along, taking a detour off the here-and-now road to discuss The Beak of the Finch or The Professor and the Madman or one of the others.

At the moment, I'm in the middle of a novel called The Gun Seller.  It was written by Hugh Laurie, who many of you probably know as the star of the TV show House.  I really like the show and the actor, which is one of the reasons I decided to get the book.  Curiously though, the book was published in 1996, long before the TV show got started and the actor became well known to the U.S. public.  It's Laurie's only novel to date, though he's apparently done other writing--screenplays, articles, songs. (I got biographical information from the only official website that I know of for Hugh Laurie, from Fox.) 

Laurie's obviously a multi-talented fellow, but I'm not sure what to make of the novel.  It's apparently intended to be a not-quite-serious take on a spy novel, something I figured out right away from the tone and the excessive verbiage.  I thought, is this guy serious?  There were so many words!!  I must confess I was put off by that when I first started the novel--so much so, in fact, that I stopped reading it.  It was just too hyperactive, if you can imagine a book being hyperactive.  Well, here's a sample:

Now, my question goes like this: do you break the arm quickly--snap, whoops, sorry, here let me help you with that improvised splint--or do you drag the whole business out for a good eight minutes, every now and then increasing the pressure in the tiniest of increments, until the pain becomes pink and green and hot and cold and altogether howlingly unbearable?(3)

That was only one sentence, mind you, and it was two paragraphs into the opening scene. Can you blame me for being a little bit put off?  I guess it is supposed to be humorous, but I found it nerve wracking, so I set it aside and read a couple of histories and a serious mystery novel before I returned to it, but I must say, even though I know it's supposed to be like that, the wordiness still distracts me.  I can picture Hugh Laurie saying the words, though, which helps me get into the spirit of things.

I'm still only about 2/3 the way done--partly because it's not a book you can really entirely get into (for the reasons mentioned).  But I'll talk more about that and the book's other features in my next post.