Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
By Robert Looby
I was suspicious of DBC Pierre. Every other newspaper was telling me that DBC stands for ?dirty but clean? and filling me in with the grimy details of his colourful past. Could it be that all this back story was compensating for a lack of front story? He was, after all, sharing the bestseller shelves with Cecilia Ahern, whose story is that her Daddy runs the country. All very unfair, but publicity departments have done their jobs too well. Photogenic novelists, feckless novelists, novelists famous before their first novel ? all have taken their toll on the open mind. As have ballyhooed literary prizes, and Pierre won prizes sponsored by Man, Whitbread and Bollinger with this, his first novel.
But a few sentences of Vernon God Little should be enough to convince anyone that this is a not just a PR snow job. With a minimum of exposition, Pierre gets down to establishing a narrative voice which is at once naﶥ and knowing, crude and poetic but always convincing and very, very funny. Opening it at random I find the following: ?He takes off his hat to slide into the roadhouse, cool and straight, like he?s wearing guns. Then, when he?s nearly inside, he gives his balls a squeeze? I shuffle into the building without touching my balls. Nobody seems to mind? (173-174). It?s ambiguous but I like to think that nobody minded that the narrator went into the roadhouse without touching his balls. The language is colloquial and often vulgar, but never dull ? not even when the speaker is Taylor Figueroa: ?Like, my best friend turned up, from inside the party or whatever, and this guy went away? (217). I don?t know if Americans really talk like this but Pierre certainly makes it easy to believe they do.
Vernon God Little is the story of the aftermath of a high school massacre and the accompanying judicial shambles and media circus. Small-town depravity, pettiness, gullibility and greed are dragged out into the open in a plot that is bound together (if that?s the right word) by faecal matter. The teenage narrator, Vernon Little, though frequently naﶥ and often outsmarted, appears wiser than his years because of the idiocy of the adult world around him. He is judged and damned by the media and his community because, among other things, he is too impassive. Though Glen Campbell?s ?Galveston? has an effect on him, he is not as susceptible to kitsch as his elders and betters: ?I stare at the painting beside the laundry door. A clown holds up a fucken umbrella, and bawls one big tear underneath. Mom calls it art. [?] I look inside the card and see a love poem?. There ain?t puke enough in the world for today? (78). Mass-produced emotion (?It?s Wuv!?) might make him puke, but small acts of personal kindness get to him: when an ?ole lady? asks him if he?s alright and brings her hand to his face he meets it ?like it was the hand of God? (150).
The book is an attack on the sensationalism and shallow emotionalism that titillate Jerry Springer?s audiences. It seems almost superfluous to say it is a satire of American pop culture ? what serious novel celebrates sensationalism and cheap emotion? ? but this is a particularly effective one, perhaps because the focus remains on the narrator rather than the publicity and controversy around him. About the only representative of the big bad media we meet is just a small-time hustler. There is no insider?s exposé ¯f the workings of NBC, CNN or Fox News. The reader only gradually and dimly become aware of the media hoo-ha surrounding Vernon Little, an honourable addition to the line of disaffected child commentators on the adult world.
Pierre gave a talk in Dublin in November entitled ?the Death of Satire? but judging by Vernon God Little satire is alive and enjoying rude good health. Never mind the prizes, the indulgent treatment from BBC 2, the Mark Twain and JD Salinger comparisons and the rave reviews (we?re all in this together); just read this book.
Printable
version |
Email this review |
Send comments
Digg
this review | Add
this review to del.icio.us | Add
this article to reddit | Add
this review to google bookmarks
Other Stories
These articles from Three Monkeys Online may interest you.Reading the fine print - The European Constitution
While there has been much discussion about the rejection of the European Constitution by French and Dutch voters, there has been little debate as to its acceptance by other European States. There is thus a distinct lack of discussion about what the Constitution actually contains. Robert Looby ventur
The Ratzinger Report - An introduction to Pope Benedict XVI
How political will Benedict XVI's Pontificate be? What will his stance be on Neo-Liberalism? Will 'pelvic politics' dominate his reign? Three Monkeys Online discuss Benedict XVI with veteran Vatican correspondent, John L. Allen jr.
Defending History - Deborah E. Lipstadt and Holocaust Denial
Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt became a household name when David Irving sued her for libel. The trial, Irving vs Lipstadt, in a sense, put the Holocaust on trial. Irving lost his case, with the court accepting that he had "persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evide
Spending imaginative capital - Michel Faber and The Fahrenheit Twins.
The Fahrenheit Twins, is the new collection of short stories by Michel Faber, author of the novels Under the Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White. In interview with Three Monkeys Online, Faber discusses the short story format, referencing pop culture, and how and why he like
Reproduction of material from any ThreeMonkeysOnline pages without written permission is strictly prohibited
Copyright © ThreeMonkeysOnline.com
All rights reserved. ThreeMonkeysOnline
