The Virgin (by Erik Barmak)
Erik Barmak was nice enough to send me a copy of his book, The Virgin, which I finished over the weekend.
I enjoyed the concept of the book: a satire of a Bachelorette-like reality television show that is just plausible enough to be plausible. The final twist is clever, as are the machinations of the show's producers. And the writing is well-crafted. It's just the execution of the idea that suffers here.
The narrator, Joseph, is supposed to be crafting a persona in order to get on television. But over the course of the novel, neither Joseph's persona nor Joseph himself ever develops as a character, has any sort of evolution as a person, or becomes clear to the reader. And he's so self-obsessed that he can't adequately describe any of the other characters, either. He's just this vaguely disaffected guy for whom the reader has no sympathy, who can never get his shit together for either good or evil.
Another thing that bothered me was the race angle. The author describes four "Ethnic Guys" who are on the show and then explains that nobody cares about them. Sure, there's always one token Ethnic Guy and that one token guy always gets picked in the first round, so that the Bachelorette doesn't come off as a sexist, and then gets cut in round two. This is essentially what happens to Marcus, and it really could have been played for insight or laughs, but in the book, Marcus doesn't get a single line of dialogue or hint of personality, and the other guys supposedly ignore him entirely (when in real life, they'd bend over backwards to show they weren't racist, just like the Bachelorette). This isn't satire, it's borderline insulting.
Also borderline insulting was how the female lead kept being referred to as "the Virgin." I know it's supposed to be satirical, but the way it was done just bothered me for some reason. I can't quite put my finger on it. Then again, the final twist of the book (which I thought was clever and I won't spoil) mitigated it somewhat for me.
Anyway, I'm very sorry that I didn't enjoy the book more. I was happy to have a chance to read it.
I enjoyed the concept of the book: a satire of a Bachelorette-like reality television show that is just plausible enough to be plausible. The final twist is clever, as are the machinations of the show's producers. And the writing is well-crafted. It's just the execution of the idea that suffers here.
The narrator, Joseph, is supposed to be crafting a persona in order to get on television. But over the course of the novel, neither Joseph's persona nor Joseph himself ever develops as a character, has any sort of evolution as a person, or becomes clear to the reader. And he's so self-obsessed that he can't adequately describe any of the other characters, either. He's just this vaguely disaffected guy for whom the reader has no sympathy, who can never get his shit together for either good or evil.
Another thing that bothered me was the race angle. The author describes four "Ethnic Guys" who are on the show and then explains that nobody cares about them. Sure, there's always one token Ethnic Guy and that one token guy always gets picked in the first round, so that the Bachelorette doesn't come off as a sexist, and then gets cut in round two. This is essentially what happens to Marcus, and it really could have been played for insight or laughs, but in the book, Marcus doesn't get a single line of dialogue or hint of personality, and the other guys supposedly ignore him entirely (when in real life, they'd bend over backwards to show they weren't racist, just like the Bachelorette). This isn't satire, it's borderline insulting.
Also borderline insulting was how the female lead kept being referred to as "the Virgin." I know it's supposed to be satirical, but the way it was done just bothered me for some reason. I can't quite put my finger on it. Then again, the final twist of the book (which I thought was clever and I won't spoil) mitigated it somewhat for me.
Anyway, I'm very sorry that I didn't enjoy the book more. I was happy to have a chance to read it.
posted by mo pie at 12:00 PM
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