{"id":1667,"date":"2016-04-22T07:02:09","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T14:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=1667"},"modified":"2017-12-18T08:31:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T16:31:00","slug":"review-vernon-god-little","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/22\/review-vernon-god-little\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Vernon God Little"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vernon<\/a>
\n Vernon God Little<\/a> by D.B.C. Pierre<\/a>
\n My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just finished Vernon God Little<\/em>, or should I say, polished off. Some people toss leftovers into any old bucket and throw them into the refrigerator; other people lovingly arrange half-eaten slabs of meatloaf and why-bother-smears of mashed potatoes on a plate and wrap it all with cellophane. I\u2019m not sure which more deserves the term “polish-off” when I’me sitting there at the kitchen table having eaten the half-lava \/half antarctic mess, and no thanks to my fickle microwave.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a novel that won the Booker prize in 2003. I\u2019m going to make some assumptions: it was written by someone who not born or raised in Texas. It\u2019s possible I\u2019m wrong, but my understanding is that the Booker prize goes to British Commonwealth writers. Maybe D.B.C. Pierre was born in London and was moved to Central Texas at age three months, lived there until his writing years came upon him, and moved back to England to pen a tour de force<\/em>. Maybe I\u2019ll make meatloaf for dinner again tonight, so good where those leftovers.<\/p>\n

I can tell you that the first third of the novel felt like a non-Texan trying to write what a Texan would sound like. A non-teenager trying to write what a teenager would sound like. I can think of no other novel that used the word \u201cpanties\u201d this often. And the phrase \u201ca learning.\u201d This read like someone who was neither Texan nor teenaged, writing for people who are neither Texan nor teenaged, in a voice that they would expect to be Texan and teenaged.<\/p>\n

Except that I\u2019m neither Texan nor teenaged, and I was unconvinced. By the second third I was, at least, inured to the voice. Also caught up enough to follow the cavalcade of characters and distracted enough from my own confusion at the in medias res<\/em> beginning. So I had enough momentum for the final; third, thank goodness.<\/p>\n

Because that\u2019s where Vernon God Little<\/em> shifted from a stylistic barrage and a bit of fun to an outlandish fantasy version of the American Media Justice System ™. There\u2019s willing suspension of disbelief when it comes to a style that cops a tone (Texan teenager written by non Texan teenager). But that suspension was stretched to the breaking point and snapped. I was no longer in the novel. I was outside, just reading it.<\/p>\n

Which is why I had to polish it off. I stuffed my gullet. I\u2019m not the only man in America who is the family garbage can, eating leftovers so they won\u2019t go to waste, eating them so we can wash the dishes needed for something else. I needed my e-reader and brain back so I could read a different book.<\/p>\n

Which I plan on doing after some Pepto and a few good belches. <\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vernon God Little by D.B.C. Pierre My rating: 3 of 5 stars I\u2019ve just finished Vernon God Little, or should I say, polished off. Some people toss leftovers into any old bucket and throw them into the refrigerator; other people lovingly arrange half-eaten slabs of meatloaf and why-bother-smears of mashed potatoes on a plate and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: Vernon God Little”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-qT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1668,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions\/1668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}