Wednesday, 07 December 2011

I keep giving conservative cultural criticism a chance, and I keep getting burned.

This post is about a book review I do not understand, but as it appeals to conservatives and I've committed myself to trying to understand conservatives, I'm going to try to make sense of it.

Those who are familiar with [Stephen Hunter] will understand, and those who are not–well, what are you doing reading a book review by me when there is writing out there carved by a master?

The man carves his books? A little Old Testament for my taste, but to each his own.

“Soft Target” is the new Hunter thriller that takes place in a thriller writer’s fantasy land: America, the Mall. Appropriately, it combines the two things America loves the most: shopping and violence.

If I wrote that the author of this review would number me among the terrorists. That said, the fact that he puts quotation marks around the title can only mean he aspires to write for the New Yorker, which is fortuitous given his obvious hatred of America. (He doesn't even mention Jesus among America's favorite things, which means he's obviously at war with Christmas.)

Ray Cruz is Hunter’s new John Wayne ... The novel fleshes out so many characters and tells the story in such a thorough way that Tarantino would be jealous.

The best advice about what books to read comes from people who only watch movies.

Hunter’s greatest gift is his style, his prose. He’s been called the “populist Faulkner” and for good reason.

I have no idea what that means. Perhaps the sentences that follow that one will illuminate.

He’s no Vince Flynn and he’s no Tom Clancy. His characters inhabit a harsh world that is unforgiving and follows no set code of good wins over evil. His characters inhabit a place called reality where Hunter’s simple yet delicate and violent prose comes alive. His heroes are not perfect and his villains are never black and white.

Nothing about prose there. Maybe further on in the review?

Hunter’s novels also appeal because of their visual style, and this one is no different ... He feeds us the exact images and verbs our inner beasts need to gobble up in order to be completely consumed by the story. Hunter has perfected the craft of the thriller by keeping his prose simple a la Hemingway and giving us the details other writers shy away from, all while providing these in the context of a visually striking world only a man who reviewed films for decades could give us.

This book is like a movie! You should watch it in your brain! It's like Hemingway only also Faulknerian! They were both writers I am name-dropping!

Dec 7, 2011 2:06:36 PM | Books, Literature, Politics

3 Comments

nostalgebraist

This is a very funny post, but when you call this "cultural criticism," aren't you propping it up just so you can knock it down?

It's a poorly written, amateurish book review on what appears to be a conservative pop culture website. Surely the internet is full of poorly written, amateurish book reviews by conservatives, just as it is also full of poorly written, amateurish book reviews by leftists, apolitical people, people with unusually small ears, etc., etc.

(Unless I am missing something about this particular website or author that makes them a particularly good/representative example of "conservative cultural criticism." And I probably am.)

When I read the title of this post, I thought you would be writing about, say, something from The New Criterion. (Say what you will about The New Criterion -- and you'll be right -- but they definitely publish writers who are better than this hack.)

Posted by: nostalgebraist | Wednesday, 07 December 2011 at 08:34 PM

Beacher

Hunter’s greatest gift is his style, his prose.

Posted by: Beacher | Friday, 09 December 2011 at 12:55 AM

hrsn

The author is army reserve kid struggling to get a CC education in southern Maine. Hat's off to him....he's reading and writing book reviews rather than getting into real trouble.

But yes, Andrew Breitbart and all his websites are loathsome.

Posted by: hrsn | Tuesday, 13 December 2011 at 09:32 PM

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