Customer Reviews

Chicago Loop

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

 

 

I have been transported by Theroux's fiction, especially his Collected Stories and My Other Life. But this book has problems. As an exploration of the anguish of a man trying to face the innate aggression of male sexuality, it sometimes succeeds. But the main character does not cohere, and his psychosis is no excuse for the author's failure. It reads as though the character had been rewritten at least twice, but was never integrated.
There are also problems with the setting. It might seem petty and provincial to quibble about details of local color, but Theroux is after all a famous travel writer. The neighborhoods and buildings depicted exist, but the businesses and people he describes would never occupy them. A Polish-American woman says she is from "Milwaukee Avenue," which would be like a New Yorker saying he came from "Third Avenue." Most unforgiveably, she puts ketchup on her sausage. This horrifying lapse makes me wonder whether he visited Chicago at all, or just referred at a map.

Seeing the highly positive and negative reviews here I have to offer a mixed opinion. This is definitely on the very dark side, and at times it seems so disconnected from reality that you have to ask what the point is. But it's beautifully written, and if you're the type who doesn't ask that fiction be hunky-dory it's quite readable. I took it on vacation, which may seem perverse, but it's a page-turner in its way. It features what may be the kinkiest marriage in the history of literature. The book is a period piece from the late 1980s with effective use of icons of that time such as Robert Mapplethorpe's photography.

Having read Chicago Loop a few years ago, I felt compelled to offer my 2 cents due to the overly negative reviews posted here. It is a very good book by a great author, dealing with sexual desires and thoughts that some might find disturbing. I get the idea that this is what the author intended, and the hellish ride through the main character's psyche as he descends into the depths of despair and depravity is a hell of a good read.

The few negative reviews posted here can, in my opinion, be discounted. If you're looking for likeable characters or a taut crime sage, er... you picked up the book. This is as chilling an account of a psychotic's interior life as one is likely to read (it buries Ellis' similarly-themed, far less insightful "American Psycho). The protagonist, Parker, isn't simply unlikeable, he is - for a time - eerily unknowable, and the book's greatest acheivement is how it mirrors this notion in the cunning narrative tricks Theroux employs. Once Parker's soul is indeed laid bare to him and us, the descent is a harrowing one, but worth the journey.

Chicago Loop, another Theroux story about a man's double life, was good enough to carry me to the last page but if you are new to Theroux you can do better (Try Kowloon Tong or My Secret History). Theroux's depiction of loneliness and desperation is convincing. He paints both the lead and his victims (male and female) with a bold yet sympathetic brush. He also treads, successfully, a fine line by presenting the perpetrator as part victim and ultimately a willing and complete victim. Ultimately he raised in my mind the difficult question - what is a victim other than a victim of oneself? but was astute enough to not answer his own dangerous question.

The main character here may be the perfect "dual" personality, that we read about in psychiatric texts. A successful,handsome, fit 35 year old with a nice (slightly kinky) wife, who seems to love him, a happy 6 month old boy,BMW, House in the "Burbs, good job in real estate development. One wonders how this guy even began on his quest to Singles Scene Ads, violence, cross dressing, and general bizarre behavior. When he strolls thru a Mapplethorpe exhibit with his wife, and a friend of the "artist", he seems as normal as you or I. Granted, he has some strange "dates" in a sleazy Chicago Hotel room, but they are with his wife, after all! So you wonder how this guy gets to be so weird! Mr. Theroux pulls off this difficult task of convincing the reader that it all happens, and the reader gets a grand tour through some of the seamiest sides of Chicago, not to mention humanity itself! Another star in the vast opus of the supertalented Mr. Paul Theroux!

A few years ago, a friend told me to check out something by Paul Theroux. Trusting his judgment, I took this waste of time out of the library and lost a few IQ points with it over the weekend. I have run across the author's name occasionaly since then in this or that newspaper (at least often enough to remember that he likes to refer to Henry David as the 'other' Thoreau). But then I read that his recent memoir skewers a good writer, VS Naipaul. Seems Naipaul let Theroux down somehow. From what I can remember of CHICAGO LOOP, cultivating his talent may have been Naipaul's unforgivable sin. This thing is awful. To be avoided at all costs. If you want a cop with a dark side, rent Clint Eastwood's TIGHTROPE. Or a Brian Dennehy TV movie. Either one's better than this crap...

Paul Theroux is not a bad writer, but his novel "Chicago Loop" is one of the worst novels I've ever read. I didn't like a single character in this book, and the main character is no more than a twisted sexual deviant. I would give this book zero stars if that were allowed. I would not recommend this novel to anyone unless you enjoy reading about the psychological breakdown of a very unlikeable person.