The Last Picture Show

 

The Last Picture Show – Larry McMurtry

There have been several instances where I have enjoyed reading a novel so much, that I went out of my way to watch the movie. This was a rare example of the opposite.  I recently watched the wonderful 1971 critically-acclaimed film, and since I had enjoyed other novels of Larry McMurtry, it was a no brainer to pick this one up.  I even paid the full price for a digital copy via Amazon! That’s not like me at all.  I’m a cheapskate when it comes to….well…..everything.

Well, this was a very good read and the film was a very faithful adaptation.  I have to admit, though, this book made me kind of queasy.  It definitely wasn’t what I expected. I mean, I knew the story, but I was surprised at how graphic this book was.  For a novel written in 1966, I’m surprised that many of the hard-right religious organizations didn’t try to ban it.  Maybe they did and I’m just unaware.  This book was a very crass, X-rated look at life in a small town in Texas during the early 1950s. The fact that the book is somewhat autobiographical makes it even more disturbing.

The small town where all the action takes place is named Thalia. It’s fictitious. From what I can tell, it’s somewhere north of Fort Worth and somewhere south of Wichita Falls.  There’s almost nothing for the residents to do in this town, and 90% of the action involves sex.  When the story begins, our 3 high school protagonists Sonny, Duane, and Duane’s girlfriend Jacy, are all virgins.  Not by the end of the story. Oh no.  What’s so sad in this book is that sex is never utilized as a way to demonstrate affection and/or love.  We see sex used as a weapon, and excuse for boredom, and a notch on some sort of ladder of maturity.  Although the 3 main characters are high-school seniors, the adults in the story aren’t any better.  To the best of my recollection, there were only two married couples in the story, and although the two women in each of these couples had a lot of sexual intercourse in the book, none of it was with their husbands. Of course, we get the notion that their husbands wouldn’t even care if they found out their wives were diddling around.

Particularly disturbing is Jacy’s mother Lois.  This mother and daughter are quite the pair, and the apple obviously did not fall far from the tree.  When Jacy seems to sleep her way through the entire town for less than ethical purposes, we’re not too surprised when we meet her 40-year-old mother.  Lois is a far cry from any standard of morality and seems to encourage her daughter to live her life in the exact same manner as she, herself, does.  These people are pretty callous. The reader may want to consider using an Excel Spreadsheet to aid in keeping proper track of who sleeps with who in this story.

If it seems like I’m talking a lot about sex it’s because that seems to be the only thing that ever happens. The story is supposedly somewhat autobiographical, but that does little to alleviate one’s queasiness.  For all of the modern-day rants about how immoral today’s society is, people should read a book such as this to counter that argument. It would dispel any kind of ridiculous notion that everything was all Andy and Opie in these small towns across the nation.

There are rare times when everything isn’t sex, sex, and more sex, and I wish some of these areas had been explored more. Example: the Thalia high school basketball team is pretty underwhelming, and being such a small school in a small town doesn’t help. Duane and Sonny are both on the team (the coach has to practically beg the high school students to play on the team. There really isn’t much interest for anyone to play). The team travels to play a game in a neighboring town where the basketball court is so small, that the foul lines are actually drawn on the walls.  So a lot of players injure themselves running into the walls with various degrees of concussions etc.  To make matters worse, the referee is the Home Economics teacher at the school who doesn’t like, nor know anything about, basketball.  He’s only drafted into his job by the high school since it’s determined that he gets paid an awful lot to teach girls how to cook and clean, so he must supplement his money doing other things.

I laughed at that portion of the book. I didn’t laugh much elsewhere. I’m glad that I saw the movie before the book since it added a strong level of believability to the story.  The movie wasn’t that much different, but it allowed me to see things a bit more clearly and actually made it more believable that people could get through their day to day lives the way they do.  Larry McMurtry is an author that I hold in high regard, and actually viewing the movie gave me a much better perspective of the points he was trying to enunciate as he told this somewhat dismal tale.

Although the point isn’t strongly made, the “last picture show” element to the story alludes to the fact that in the 1950s, television slowly appeared on the scene which meant that fewer and fewer people were going out to the evening movies or the weekend matinees. It’s meant to add an element of sadness to the story.  I confess, though, that my thought was that if everyone in the town of Thalia eventually got a tv, maybe they would have something to do other than cheap carnal sex all of the time?

 

 

 

 

O'Hara's Choice

 

O’Hara’s Choice – Leon Uris

I’ve learned a few hard lessons over the years while reading so many books. Here’s one: You know how when you buy a book, there’s a blurb of praise from another well-known author on the front cover?  Something like: “A magnificent spell-binding tale!” – Stephen King.  Well, 95% of the time, the author “giving” the praise never even read the book.  This is simply a publisher’s trick to make you buy the thing.  You wouldn’t think well-known authors would prostitute themselves stooping this low, but I guess business is business.  Another hard lesson: Many books written by an author weren’t really written by that author. Read that last sentence again. I found it fishy that one of my favorite authors, Clive Cussler, used to generate one book every year or so, and then all of the sudden he seemed to be writing 4 or 5 per year.  Each of these multiple releases had a co-author, of course, and apparently Cussler had very little to do with these books; they were all basically written by the co-author.  What Mr. Cussler actually did in terms of development of the story, I have no idea.  Again, it’s a business.

Well, I’m bringing this up because, in the case of O’Hara’s Choice, the author (Leon Uris) had already died before the book was released. Many times, publishers will go through the corpse’s writing desk (metaphorically of course) looking for anything the late author may have started.  Another author, or group of authors, is called in to formulate a finished product.  Michael Crichton is guilty of this.  Well, I mean HE’S not guilty; he’s DEAD, but you know what I mean.

Leon Uris was a great writer of historical fiction way back when. My guess is many current readers have never heard of him, but back in the 1960s and 1970s, his gripping tales that took place in areas such as Berlin, Dublin, Warsaw, and the newly formed State of Israel were incredibly rewarding works of literature.  This book doesn’t belong with his classics. It doesn’t come close.  It’s embarrassingly bad.

It starts off with an interesting premise. It’s a few years after the conclusion of the U.S. Civil War and we meet a group of soldiers who are referred to as “marines”.  We’re introduced to about 4 or 5 of these veterans, we learn of their upbringing, their participation in the awful war, and of their current situation.  They’re proud of who they are, but most people are unfamiliar with the monicker “marine” and everyone wonders if this eccentric group will ever move forward or be relevant in the current United States military.

Sounds like an o.k. premise, but things spiral down in a big way.  My guess is this as far as Leon Uris got before he passed away.  So what do publishers do with this interesting premise?  Nothing much.  They should have left well alone.  I’m not sure why I even bother discussing it, but one of the Marines – O’Hara – has a son named Zach who is coming into adulthood.  Zach falls for a young rich sassy belle named Amanda.  Amanda has gobs of money.  Her parents, of course, don’t want her associating with someone beneath the family such as a marine, so we have yet another tepid tale of unrequited love.

You can probably guess the drill (pardon the pun) at this point.  The lovers must stay away from each other. They date (and are even pledged to marry) others, they purposely avoid each other – Zach even requests military duty that will take him far way – but you just can’t escape love.  The story isn’t terribly original nor interesting.

There’s an attempt at a subplot with Amanda’s father, who is very rich, trying to wheel and deal with the leaders of the government that would actually help the future of the marines. This makes things more complicated since his daughter is in love with one of them.  Yes, her father admires the marines; as long as they keep their grubby hands off his daughter.  Again, though, this never really goes anywhere.

This was a painfully stupid story. It might have worked had Uris actually done the writing, and even then, I imagine he would have taken the story in a different direction and not made this thing so unbearably sappy.  This was an injustice to the legend of Leon Uris.   On a happier note, he’s written some great books that have been forgotten by many.  I would recommend titles such as Exodus, Trinity, Mila 18, Battle Cry, and The Haj.   Those were great.  This one was not.  Rest in Peace Mr. Uris.  I’m sorry something like this was done to you.

The Exchange

 

The Exchange – John Grisham

This is probably the worst John Grisham book that I’ve ever read. This one was even worse than “Skipping Christmas” which somehow managed to bring an entirely new definition to the word “awful”. This book was nothing but a money grab; as if John Grisham needs any more money.  This book was heavily padded with so much unnecessary information, and it seriously makes me never want to read another one of Grisham’s books again.  I probably will, but the aggravation is quite high within my veins at the moment.  I’ll certainly never BUY another one of his books. I’m thankful I didn’t buy this one, and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier that we have some called a public library.

Probably the biggest rip-off is this book is billed as somewhat of a “sequel” to the breakthrough Grisham novel “The Firm”.  That was Grisham’s second book and the one that propelled him into superstardom where, arguably, he never left.  It helped that the book was made into a blockbuster movie starring Tom Cruise as the main character.  Sadly, this book isn’t really anything of a sequel.  The story really doesn’t need to revolve around the now-famous fictitious lawyer Mitch McDeere and his wife Abby.  No, this story could have been told using any sort of legal punchline, but bringing McDeere back into the literary world probably caused a few more coins to cling in the coffer then had this been a story with a novice Grisham character as the lead player.

It's now been 15 years since McDeere “escaped” his crooked firm in Tennessee and is now residing in the upper East Side of New York City. Being a brilliant lawyer, he’s now a prestigious partner making gobs of money with some new high-class legal firm in the center of the legal universe. He and Abby now have twin 8-year-old boys that go to the “best” school (obviously) in New York City that costs Mitch $57,000 per year. For each child, that is.

Mitch is rather cynical, which I guess you really can’t blame him.  He and Abby seem more like rich business partners with a critical eye towards everything than they seem husband and wife.  She’s involved in some sort of “cookbook” business so they have all sorts of aspiring chefs come to their home and cook exquisite meals.  This is all quite unnecessary and it simply gives Grisham another chance to pad the pages with useless details of various scrumptious meals day in and day out that the family “sample”. It’s really quite ridiculous that we have to read such trivialities.

Anyway, as the story starts, Mitch’s firm needs him to do some obligatory pro bono work and try to get a convict out of the clutches of the impending death penalty.  The convict and his underachieving lawyer reside in (gasp!) Memphis!  So Mitch is faced with the dilemma and fear of having to go back to the city that gave him so much trouble.  He goes, meets the lawyer, and the convict manages to commit suicide in prison.  The suicide seems a bit fishy. Is foul play involved? Are we being set up for another one of Grisham’s “the death penalty is awful” books?  What exactly is going on here?   Mitch really doesn’t care that much, so the death of the convict allows him to head back to New York.  Of course, he has to stop in some remote town in Tennessee to meet up with a former colleague that he once knew at the infamous “firm”. This colleague didn’t get the FBI deal that Mitch received, so he ended up going to prison for several years. He’s now trying to rebuild his life and career in some remote small town where he can forget the past.   So when Mitch drops in to see him, there’s still some hard feelings and bad blood based on everything that has happened.  We read about this strained relationship a bit before Mitch finally heads back to New York.   I guess what we have so far is the beginning of what could be an interesting story.

Well, if you’re paying attention so far, be advised that this part of the “story” is now over.  No, really.  It’s finished. It’s over. It never goes anywhere other than what I just described. What gives?   It’s almost as if John Grisham began writing this story, but decided he didn’t like it.  Rather than throwing away his idea and starting over, he decides to leave this literal trash in the main book anyway even though it has nothing to do with the eventual “main” story.  Did I mention Grisham seems to be “padding” his book? Aren’t editors supposed to catch these sort of things and advise against them?

So now the “real” story begins.  Sadly, it only goes downhill from here. Mitch is now assigned to represent a firm who was contracted to build a bridge in Libya for Khadafi and his thugs.  Of course, Khadafi doesn’t want to pay for this mammoth undertaking after he realizes he’s made a half-a-billion-dollar mistake, so Mitch gets to travel to Libya!  Oh, what fun this could be!  Doesn’t everybody dream of travelling to Libya on some sort of business trip?   Mitch goes with a young associate who is drop-dead gorgeous, and she gets kidnapped there.  Of course she does.  By who?  And why?  It is Libya after all, so the possibilities are endless.  So Mitch and his “new” Firm try to figure out why this happened and what they need to do about it.

Even though the story was pretty bad at this point, it only gets worse.  I mean, anytime you have a story with high-priced lawyers, terrorist countries, brutal thugs, and a literal damsel in distress, you just might be able to eek out a somewhat interesting story.  But it never happens.  No, I mean it literally never happens.  Oh, sure, the ransom is paid  (you may accuse me of including a “spoiler” by revealing this point, but if that saves you from reading the book, trust me – I’m doing you a favor) but there is absolutely no drama.  There is no tension, nothing that makes you want to turn the pages (except of course, to hurry up and finish).

Grisham spends more time talking about the various places that McDeere travels and the exotic food that he eats during his quest to free the associate.   Does Grisham not get how inane this is?  Someone has been KIDNAPPED for gosh-sakes.  Let’s not dwell on the quantity and the quality of the food. 

This book was an incredibly painful read.  Let’s hope we’ve read the last of Mitch and Abby.  To be brutally honest, I wouldn’t be disappointed if we’ve read the last of Grisham. He really sunk to a new low here.