A Spot of Blah and In the Belly of the Bored

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

As I mentioned before, this was not nearly as good as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, but I suppose it’s not entirely fair to compare the two as a review of the one. But I will do so anyway, briefly. Everything that made The Curious Incident great is missing from A Spot: voice, pace, even its genre. Even if all of these things were exactly the same, I would still have a problem with this book because it was utterly and boringly (in parts) predictable.

And when your plot is predictable, things can’t be made better by good voice and pace. They just can’t. So I’m sorry, Mark Haddon. I know you’re probably just glad that you even wrote a second book after the success of your first one, so at least it’s out of the way and you can get back on track with your regular awesomeness. Or maybe The Curious Incident was a one hit wonder in the adult literature world. If this turns out to be the case, I hope you know that I will be very sad about it. But I will be investing in all of your children’s books for my sister’s children (given that I won’t be having any of my own and I doubt Beans really needs me to read him children’s books).

(As a quick side note, I just found out that The Curious Incident will be adapted into a movie by Steve Kloves (will be writing and directing). I’m not sure how I feel about this since I really like two of his Harry Potters and I didn’t really like the other two. Hrm. I learned this from Mark Haddon’s website, but since it’s not on imdb I’m not sure who I believe. I won’t get my hopes up just yet.)

When I say the plot is predictable, I generalize, because it’s more than the plot: it’s also the characters. Every single one of them: Jamie, Katie, Jean, George, David, Tony, and Ray. And possibly Jacob, even though he plays a very minor roll. From the moment the book begins and we learn the smallest bit of information about them, you know where the story is going to go. I will remain general in case you actually want to read this book. Just warning that the only way this will work is if you have had random pieces of your brain removed so you can’t see how obviously the book is laid out within the first few chapters.

Still, A Spot was mildly enjoyable. (Do I convince you? I’m not sure I convince myself.) Parts were funny and on the whole it wasn’t so horrible/boring/plain that I didn’t think it was worth finishing. Also there was a part that was superbly written and left me cringing and feeling physically ill (as was the exact point) while on the train ride home one afternoon that I’m pretty sure the people surrounding me thought I was going to poop my pants. What I was missing was the need to stay up all night to read it and finish it so I could find out what was going on (ahh more reminiscing about The Curious Incident, I apologize). Mark, that’s what I need in your next book. I haven’t given up on you. Yet.

In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Henry Abbott

As you already know, I didn’t finish this whopping 150 page book. Sorry. Really, I am, because I wanted to enjoy and finish this book, but things just didn’t happen that way. Mostly because, unlike in 1981 when this book was published, we have all seen Shawshank and therefore know and understand the ways of prison. What we haven’t learned from Shawshank has been picked up from various other sources, such as TV cop/law dramas and Dateline features (not that I watch either of these, I’m just guessing. I honestly don’t know where I get my prison information, but an educated guess would be these two).

What was great about this book was how good of a writer Jack Abbott was (just found out that he was released from prison and then promptly killed someone over a fight about a bathroom. This is infuriating. And wtf, Susan Sarandon? She named her son after him! I can’t believe this madness) considering he only had formal education until 6th grade, when he started going in and out of detention centers and then later to prison. At some point while he was in jail, he decided to start reading and educated himself with books sent from the outside world and somehow formed a really strong vocabulary, voice, and writing style.

While in jail, Abbott had major disciplinary problems, which is annoying until you start to understand his argument about growing up in juvenile detention centers instead of the free world. You actually never grow up and mature because you are constantly treated like a child.

Some sections were really interesting, others were more like I know, I know. Actually, the good sections were things we already know, but the way he wrote about them was so captivating that I’d be so into the book I would almost miss my station (this hasn’t happened yet, but I’m waiting for that sad, sad day).

How intriguing and interesting this may sound, it was very repetitive and little too heavy on the philosophy/politics for my attention span right now. So I stopped around page 50. Perhaps I will pick up the Norman Mailer that was being written during their correspondence.

Up Next/Currently: White Oleander by Janet Fitch and The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman