Customer Reviews

The Bellybutton Fiasco

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I totally disagree with the previous reviewer. I believe that both authors of this co-authored fictional novel owned dogs during their youths. That's not to suggest I condone dog ownership or childhood, only that I acknowledge such things occur, even in middle class neighborhoods with a spice rack in every kitchen.

This floridly wretched work is the creation of two young book editors (one a Salon contributor) who wrote an article for Harper's magazine arguing that Xlibris and other for-fee online "publishers" are in fact exactly the same as old-fangled vanity presses. To prove their point, they concocted this intentionally bad book (subtitle: "A Fictional Novel"), making it an amalgam of all the dreadful elements familiar to slush-pile readers everywhere. Xlibris was happy to "publish" it, though as the authors pointed out in Harper's, there's a big difference between actually publishing a book and just printing it. And there's a big difference between the average digital vanity press novel (with which Salon Books is, alas, pelted) and "The Bellybutton Fiasco," a really pretty funny mess of a book. It's what you might call a coming-of-age thriller about a sensitive young boy in the throes of first love who discovers that he has the power to shoot flames out of his navel. Not that the authors stick very close to the story line, though. There are a lot of blistering movie reviews, and a hilarious passage in which Bob Costas and Doug Collins commentate on the Trojan War. There are parodies of earnest protests against irony ("But it gets old -- this knowingness. It wears a mask that eats its own face") and of bad sensitive literary fiction. Plus, it contains a review of itself. And all of this can be yours.

this was obviously written by two smart alecky publishing types--it reeks of the stale air and desperate humor found in the slushpile trenches. (how can something be both pile and trench? when it's slushy, i guess.) but it's pretty funny. in a puerile way. if you're the kind of person who likes to get stoned and play star wars trivial pursuit, i guess. it tries a little too hard, though. especially in the wyndham lewis sections. and i could have done without the homage to jerry lewis, not to mention the alexander pope/elton john/kissinger conspiracy theory. the movie reviews are great! but I don't think either author ever had a dog.

As the authors' piece in the December 2000 issue of Harper's Magazine makes plain, this book was written as a practical joke on the online publisher Xlibris. Was the joke funny? Very. Is the book funnier? Yes. Bissell is a writer who, today, seems everywhere: in Harper's, in anthologies, in quarterlies, the list goes on. His first real book, Chasing the Sea, is due out in a few months. So Bellybutton may have real collector's value someday, especially if his star keeps rising, and there is every reason to think it will. He and Younce managed in this book to have written a small absurdist classic. There are parts of this as funny as anything I've read. Some of it is clearly filler, too, so you have to stick with it. One thing is certain: this book is on equally knowledgeable terms with X-Men as it is with Joseph Conrad. I suspect this is Bissell's influence. There seems little he is not able to write wonderfully and fluidly about. In the end, Bellybutton is highly recommended.