Hello and happy Wednesday and what a busy week it has been already. Cruising with Jay's literary meme down the dark ends of New York's darkest corners, rubbing elbows with the "elite," living double lives! What an interesting read this was and an excellent addition to the shelves of BOOKWORMportal this little piece will be. While I may not fully agree that Jay McInerney is the modern Fitzgerald I do see some similarities in writings styles when comparing them side by side. We get to view a world through a young man who has entered a fast paced world and gets absorbed in it.
As I mentioned in my first post about this book, it was written in 2nd person, which if done right, is one of my favorite styles of writing. McInerney does it well because he added an interesting element, he omitted the extra voice that we are accustomed to. Traditionally, one would read "then he placed his keys on the table" rather than "you place the keys on the table." It essentially puts you in his mindset as though you were living the story. "Here you go again." Yet on the other side we never are formally introduced to the protagonist of the novel. He remains nameless, so we remain unattached...until the end that is...I don't want to give everything away but there is a moment where we get a real sense to why he is the way he is and see a much more sensitive side to a man who lacks emotion through 90% of the book. We are led to the crux of his very psyche. However, this one and only touching moment of the novel does not last long and he ultimately returns to his hedonistic lifestyle.
As a side note I definitely get a sense of what McInerney was feeling at the time in which this novel was written. He was fired from his job, he had lost his wife to another man, his mother had died, and I get a sense that he didn't know how to deal with all the grief much like his character.
One major similarity I found in writing styles between McInerney and Fitzgerald is the ability to point out human nature in the darkest most unflattering way possible. In Gatsby I noticed a lot of affectations in people much like McInerney does in his novel. The "elite" seemed well off and proper but below they were liars and cheats but as long as they kept up their false persona they were highly regarded. I only say elite for Gatsby because everyone in Bright Lights, Big City seemed to be the dregs of the city.
False persona's were the norm and if a person seemed genuine it was foreign and innocent. The protagonist lead a double life and somehow we never truly get a real sense of who he really is because both versions we are shown were meant for him to fit in somewhere. Transvestites seem just as real and any woman in the novel, his sentiments at first seem real, "you are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of
the morning" which makes us believe he is a stand up guy but he constantly contradicts this statement. He always seems to find some sort of illicit activity to participate in, usually in a bathroom in a seedy nightclub. Also, to me, the love for his former wife seems artificial at best. He always liked that she was a model but "slumming it" with him. It was all okay as long as she wasn't a real model. After she leaves, it is as though her possessions become more significant than she ever was to him. I don't think even the protagonist ever really realized the phoniness of the relationship and the best line to describe it was "when did she become a mannequin?" which in part, is a very revealing sentence for the whole novel.
So again, this novel was an interesting one but I still prefer my antihero to have a little bit of class and social grace like Gatsby. However, for the time being the 80s I think this is a socially relevant novel, especially for a fact paced drug induced New York that McInerney was living in when he wrote it. Overall Id give it a 4 out of 5 for storyline (I am a sucker for a masked memoir), 4 out of 5 for style, 4 out of 5 for delivery.
One last though, I found out this was turned into a movie. I wonder how it holds up since most of the monologue is from a 2nd person point of view. It looks a tad corny but I am willing to give it a go.
