Customer Reviews

The Ignored

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I've read every Bentley Little novel with the exception of The Summoning. I've enjoyed every one of them to at least some degree, but The Ignored is by far my favorite. It was the first Little novel I had the pleasure of climbing into (and regretting climbing back out), so that may be part of its appeal to me, but I think it's mostly the stunningly original concept behind this book that makes it tower over his other work. If you've ever felt like an average person, someone without looks or personality traits that stand out from most others, then you need to read this book. I must be pretty "normal" because this story hit pretty close to home. I could really see myself in the narrator's shoes (this is a first-person story), so I found myself rooting for the guy even (especially) when things started to get violent. The types of people that the narrator hates, I hate. The types of feelings the narrator expresses, I've felt. I'll bet a lot of potential readers can relate to the material.

I agree with others' opinions about the similarities to Fight Club, though that novel (and movie) didn't have quite the impact on me that The Ignored did. Still, it's a very appropriate comparison, and if you enjoyed one, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you enjoyed the other.

What's odd is that even though there is quite a bit of violence in The Ignored, it's probably toned down compared to a lot of his work, especially University. Despite that, The Ignored disturbed me more than anything else he's written. Little almost always has some graphic scenes in his books that are not only hatefully violent but disturbingly bizarre, like something you'd dream but soon forget within ten minutes of waking up. What I mean to say is that Little is amazing when it comes to thinking up violent disturbing imagery, yet The Ignored's lack of it doesn't make it any less frightening. Don't get me wrong, there are still examples of that type of thing in The Ignored. What comes immediately to mind is when the narrator dresses up in a clown suit, goes to work armed with a knife, and...nevermind, I don't want to ruin it for someone who hasn't read it yet.

I can't think of a book in any genre or category that I'd give a higher recommendation to. The Ignored is listed in Stephen King's On Writing as one of the "best books of the last few years" or something like that, and I couldn't agree more. Not only is the story totally engrossing, but Little's style of writing is just perfect. I'm amazed when people confuse clear, concise, and effective (but simple) writing with *bad* writing. If you want to get bogged down with ineffective, purple prose that doesn't flow off the page, there are enough horror novels out there to last a lifetime. I'm thinking Anne Rice, Kathe Koja, and Peter Straub to start with. But if you're a "common man" looking for an absorbing page-turner, then Little ranks up there with the best of them.

Have you ever stood at the counter of a department store and felt the eyes of the salesperson pass over you on their way to the next customer? Or had people step in front of you in line as if you weren't even there? Then you might be one of 'The Ignored'. Bentley Little's novel is for those who seem to go through life un-noticed. The protaganist, Bob Jones, is so average that he exists only as a statistical anomaly and stops making any physical impression on those around him.

Bob falls in with a small group of individuals who are likewise ignored by society. This group begins to think that they are no longer confined by the morality of a society from which they have been excluded. I at first agreed with others who thought that the whole novel falls apart in the later stages when the action tends towards the fantastic but have changed my mind upon further consideration. I think that Little took the premise towards its logical conclusion. This novel is not for gore hounds looking for a cheap thrill. It's for readers who think while they read and are willing to consider the ramifications of a society that forces members to yell and scream for even the tiniest recognition.

Bob Jones is an average, run-of-the-mill guy. He has a beautiful girlfriend, has just gotten out of college, and is looking for a job. He is taken in at an office building, where his job isn't clear, his immediate boss hates him, and his colleagues seem not to notice he's there.

That's when Bob begins to suspect something. His favorite songs are all top-5 hits. His favorite movies are box-office smashes. He likes prime-time TV, enjoys fast-food chains and hotel-esque decorating.

Bob Jones is average.

But he's not alone. He is being watched, being prepared, by a man named Philipe, a man who possesses a knowledge that Bob wants to have. Philipe proclaims himself as a Terrorist for the Common Man...and he, and his followers, are also Ignored.

At first, life as an Ignored is interesting. Bob is finally among people like him, people who are Ignored. But then the glamor wears off. Philipe wants to do something, something big, something that will get the world to notice them.

But they are being followed...and there is yet another threat, one Bob must face if he is to survive, one burning question that needs an answer:

Can you be Ignored by the Ignored?

Bentley Little throws aside his blood-n-guts horror to bring you a disturbing novel about a man who is so average, he goes unseen by most people. I have praised Little for moving around the "thinking-man's horror" novel, but after reading this, I must say that he's good at it.

Back to my first question: Am I Ignored?

Little has tapped into our psyche here. So many of these things corresponded to me, I realized that I had never known how deeply a horror novel could move me. I think, after reading this, you will be questioning your lifestyle as well. "The Ignored" is a novel by a singular author, about those of us who...fit in a little too well.

OK, the following might be a strange review, because while I give this book the 5 stars it deserves (yes, it is Little's best book), I can't give Bentley Little himself, the writer, more than, say, 3 stars. As an aspiring writer with about 50 semi-pro magazine credits and 2 or 3 professional ones, I admit I sometimes use Little as an inspiration. If he can get writing like this published, then why can't I, I figure. But the ideas are probably not as good. Little is, if nothing else, a good idea man.

This is the Bentley Little paradox, in my opinion: He has some really great ideas, like the main idea for this novel, and can set up some great situations and plots, but he, well...he really stinks as a writer. He writes, at times, like a complete amateur. Like a ninth-grader trying to pad his composition. This is just one of the several infuriating examples of his style of writing (it is completely made up from the top of my head, but regular Little readers will be familiar with it): "He was upset, mad, not happy, and this did not make him feel good." That IS Little, right?

Example # 2: Mention "horror books or movies", mostly movies, about 20 times per novel. Like this: "It was surreal, like something out of a bad B-horror movie." He literally does this at least a dozen times per novel, possibly more in "Dominion," where he went crazy with the "horror" references. The idea seems to be, mentioning that this is a ridiculous idea, or could never happen in the real world, makes it believable if compared to a horror fiction. You regular readers once again know what I mean here. Two or three times a book, yes, go for it, but not a dozen.

Example # 3: On a lesser note, he likes to use separate paragraphs, during a character's thought processes, to put in the word

Evil

No, that was crazy.

But he couldn't deny it. The (person, place or thing) was indeed evil.

It was a cheesy word, something you might hear in a bad horror novel, and the word suddenly made him nervous, anxious, scared, apprehensive, not entirely comfortable.

But it was true.

The person, place or thing was...

Evil.

OK, enough sarcasm, only one more complaint. Example #4: Little doesn't seem to be able to edit out the minor events. Instead of writing, "He got into the car and drove away," like most writers learn to do within a year or two of first picking up the pen, Little will write "He opened the car door, slid in, adjusted the seat and mirror, checked the glove compartment for something

evil

found nothing, turned the key, put the car and gear, and drove off."

Again, you know what I mean. This is not a huge complaint. He just doesn't seem to know when he can skip over meaningless details.

OK. I'm through. Whew. After reading 7 of Little's 10 books, 3 of them in the past 2 months, I had to let off some steam. After all this, I really do LIKE Bentley Little. He is an idea man, I suppose, not an artist with the pen, but he doesn't have to be if he can write an entertaining enough story. I have already bought "The Town" and will read it soon. The only other books of his I haven't read yet are "University" and "The Summoning." "University" seems to be popular, and may indeed be better than "The Ignored," but so far this is the best one of his books I've read. Fantastic Twilight Zone feel and idea. So, yes, I am, and most likely will continue to be, a fan. I just have to learn to accept the occasional irritating writing that puts forth the ideas.

Thank you and goodnight.

Evil...

This is my first time as a reader of Bentley Little's work. The first 200 hundred pages of the book hooked me but then what began as an interesting premise ran out of gas as it became too much of a weird science-fiction story. It seems like Mr Little got too engrossed in wanting to finish the book that he piled event upon event and made it look rather messy and nonsenical towards the end. The first part of the book focused on a true all-too credible everyday horror...it could happen to me, to you, to anyone. We could be simply "Ignored" as he puts it. The second part was as if influenced heavily by film director David Lynch. Good imagery, but far too surrealistic and far-fetched...thus blowing what could have been a very good book all around. If Little's books all follow the same kind of style then perhaps I won't read another one of his. It will take me a lot of a goading and persuading if I really must.

Submitted for your approval, one Bob Jones, an ordinary man, a man so completely ordinary as to be unnoticed. But where the common man goes without recognition, he is unknown to even those who know him. Mr. Bob Jones, the average American, who will start a search for himself... among the Ignored.

Did you ever read the Dilbert strip where he becomes invisible to his coworkers because his work had turned completely irrelevant? Well, what had been just an ingenious joke is now seriously explored by Bentley Little in this novel. Ludicrous? Granted. Outrageous? Of course! Not scary? Well... if you think so, you obviously haven't given as much thought as Mr. Little to all the possibilities in this.

Let me get out of the way the complaints I have on Little's writing style. The way the narrator tells the story can be irritating: he keeps nagging on the fact he is Ignored, over and over. He behaves at first like a wimp. And he seems clueless to the fact that he is driving people away from him. It's enough to make you wish you could grab this guy by his neck and shout at him.

That said, that's just part of the whole picture. The story is told in first person by Bob, and we grow aware with him, as each eerie scene follows the other, that he starts dropping from the face of the world, right in front of everybody's eyes... and no one notices. He struggles to understand what's happening to him, but this is just too bizarre to comprehend. It's just appropriate his narration comes through as alienated as him.

Alienation... The novel seems at first to be about this. But as Bob investigates further into his condition, he realizes he might have become so transparent because he is so average, so middle-of-the-road, that he will never stand out among the crowd. He is a man that goes with the flow, never doing more or less than necessary, never stepping out of the line. That's when the real subject of the story appears: conformity. Bob is so bland and predictable as to become irrelevant.

If you don't think this is enough to make this a horror novel, then one of several is the matter with you: You either don't care to find real issues in popular fiction and just want haunted house scares, or you are so confident in your individuality as to consider this conformity thing a big crock of crap, or you have just grown so numb to the problem as to not give a damn.

Other reviewers have complained that the story should have been left at some point prior to the ending, that it just went on and on after making its point. I differ. Even though some of the secondary plots are never completely solved, Bob Jones' odissey would lack meaning if it wasn't told in its entirety. He would have remained an static figure until the end. But this way, he becomes alive.

Mr. Bob Jones, a man who started to fade among the crowd and screamed out loud to be rescued.... from among the Ignored.

The Ignored takes a little too long to get going, but when it settles into it's pace, there are several flavors in it that you will want to taste.

Bob Jones is an average guy; average in college, average in his marriage, and average in lifestyle. Bob accepts an average job at a software company called Automated Interface as a Documentation Writer. Not exactly what he expected from his life.

At first, Bob feels left out, but its not long before Bob realizes he is utterly ignored. He even discovers a day missing on his paycheck because no one knew he was there. Stewing in this new revelation of his life, even so far as becoming hostile, Bob's marriage falls apart. It is only after Bob decides to kill his boss that things begin to change for him.

Philipe comes into Bob's life, welcoming him, and lets him know he is not the only Ignored human being. Bob takes up with Philipe and others who are Ignored, staying in hotels and eating at restaurants without paying. But Philipe is not the average Ignored, Philipe has an agenda.

'The Ignored' starts fresh, slows down its pace considerably in the middle, but perks up in the final chapters to really dish out some fresh ideas and terrifying alternate realities. By the time Bob finds an entire city of Ignored, the pace of the novel is off to another fresh start and will lead you to a wonderfully fiendish ending.

Bentley Little has a knack for taking an ordinary component, ordinary person, or ordinary object and create a shivering aura of dread around it. Little will not cleave open your brain with a hatchet to extract horror, but rather insert a hardly noticeable tube to drain it slowly and surreptitiously.

Referenced in 'The Ignored' is the classical horror piece 'The Great God Pan' by Arthur Machen, so don't forget to brush up on this classic either before or after reading this book.

If you want to taste Bentley Little before diving in, I also highly recommend his collection of shorts called 'The Collection'. I also recommend his other works, 'The Walking' (my favorite), 'The Mailman', 'The Association', and 'The Store'. Once you get hooked on Little, its hard to ... ignore him. Enjoy!

For 159 pages, Bentley Little's "The Ignored" is one of the most disturbing psychological horror stories I've ever read. The main character, Bob Jones, who's as average as his name, suffers a crisis of isolation that is so acute and real you'll find yourself cringing.

The beginning of this somewhat disjointed novel starts off with Bob getting a new job at the nondescript Automated Interface, Inc. He is utterly miserable there. Unable to make friends. Dismissed by his coworkers. Tortured by his supervisor, who hates him. The experience weighs on him and his relationship with his girlfriend, Jane, who eventually leaves him over it. The detachment from others drives him toward an act of violence, which is captured by Little brilliantly.

Taken alone, this first section of the book is fantastic. It's a just-a-step-behind-reality nightmare that shines bright with the small details of life.

The rest of the book doesn't quite live up to it, though. Bob meets with another man suffering from this "Ignored" syndrome and they get together with other similarly afflicted men. These men fashion themselves as "Terrorists for the Common Man" and start out doing childish pranks, and later elevate their plots to bigger and bolder things. The idea is to strike a blow for all the people who are ignored in the world. Since these men never had any friends in their lives, this terrorist clan is more like a high-school club: there's a kind of juvenile sugar rush to their activities. Along the way these men take many detours, find a man in a power position who's Ignored, get chased down by spooky gray-suited guys, and even meet an Ignored of the opposite sex. While these guys have the spirit of youth, they are not benign: they rob, they kill, they even rape.

If I have one complaint about "The Ignored" is that after the first section of Automated Interface, the novel becomes very unfocused. I'm not sure if Little wanted to avoid following a typical plotline (which is fine by me) or if he just couldn't figure out what he wanted to do with the story. It all stays lively, exciting and interesting, though. I'm not a big fan of where the story ends up, and I found the ending to be a letdown. It felt like Little had set up questions he could not answer.

The theme of the book also becomes muddled. At first, it seemed obvious Little was making a damning case against the homogenization of America. Later it had the feel of a cautionary tale of how a person's personality can be taken over and absorbed by a group. Other messages get thrown about, too.

Though I've listed a few complaints, none of this detracts from what is a very entertaining novel. Bentley understands how to keep action flowing and there's never a dull moment in this book. I was hooked right away and looked forward to each new turn the novel took. I think, overall, it could have had a better conclusion, but this is definitely one of the more intriguing and compelling novels of its kind that I've read recently.

Bentley Little made a big splash early in his career, winning the 1990 Bram Stoker Award for First Novel for The Revelation, and receiving another Stoker nomination for Best Novel for 1993's The Summoning. Over the last decade or so, he's averaged a book a year, producing novels with titles like The House, The Town, The Association and The Policy, and a collection named (surprise!) The Collection. During that time, readers have come to expect certain things from Little's work, including a focus on modern social issues, quiet horror that somehow feels more graphic, and a black, ironic sense of humor. Perhaps Little's strongest works, The Ignored (1997) and The Store (1998) are veritable showcases for all these qualities.

A Kafkaesque tale of the ultimate underdog, The Ignored relates the story of Bob Jones, an ordinary man who discovers that being average carries many risks. Fresh out of college, Jones obtains a job with a software company called Automated Interface. At first enthusiastic, Jones comes to loathe his job and his colleagues, who seem to be shunning him. Much to his dismay, Jones finds that he's being ignored not just by his office mates, but by everyone, to the point where he has become invisible to most. Jones eventually discovers others who share his malady, banding together with them to commit terrorist acts in an attempt to get others to notice them. Doing so, Jones embarks on a complex voyage of self-discovery.

A cautionary tale, The Store details one man's fight against a heartless chain store called, simply, The Store. The Store seems to come out of nowhere to mar telecommuter Bill Davis' (like Bob Jones, he works for Automated Interface) idyllic existence. One day, a sign appears along his daily jogging route, announcing that THE STORE IS COMING. Several weeks later, The Store is open for business, winning over the people of Juniper, Arizona with its wide selection and low prices. But soon, The Store reveals a darker agenda, driving local stores out of business, lowering overall employment, and insinuating itself into the daily life of the small town, to the point where its employees take over the local police force, schools, and the town council. Dismayed over this turn of events, Bill takes the fight directly to the founder of the chain, the mysterious Newman King. Little does he know that in confronting King, he's putting his soul on the line.

Little has always been one to take his time in relating his tales of the macabre, allowing a strong sense of paranoia and dread to build around his protagonists, threatening their sense of well being and safety; by the time that they recognize the legitimacy of the fantastic threats they face, events have usually overtaken them. The protagonists of The Ignored and The Store are no exceptions. Fortunately, Little doesn't allow either of his carefully etched protagonists to wallow in self-pity---both quickly decide to fight once they realize how desperate the situation has become. It is their struggles against formidable obstacles and seemingly implacable foes which make Little's work so arresting.

Both novels resonate with modern audiences, delivering timely, relevant messages about individuality and conformity. Both tales are related with plain, straightforward prose, in leisurely fashion. Little walks a fine line in each, never revealing the origins of either horror, leaving those afflicted to wonder "Why Me?" It is the thought that their lives can be similarly (if not as fantastically) disrupted, rather some of the more gruesome set pieces that Little creates, that lingers in the minds of Little's readers.

A keen observer of modern culture and mores, Little chooses to comment on what he sees through horror fiction. Whether it be a vision of isolation, or weird forces taking over, his talent lies in taking even the most mundane aspects of our daily lives and twisting them a bit, forcing us to consider them anew, even if it is only at the safe distance provided by the more fantastic elements of his work. Although the seriousness and moral purpose of the author are partially cloaked by his extreme subject matter, they shine through regardless, providing a dark mirror where readers can safely confront the more troubling facets of their day-to-day existence. Violent, perceptive, morbid, grotesque, funny, and above all, personal, Little's novels serve as potent reminders that most of us have it pretty good.

"The Ignored" was an interesting read and about average for Bentley's stuff, but as usual with his books, it eventually fails to follow through on it's initial promise. Definitely on the different side (and coming up with interesting concepts is easily Bentley's strongest point as a writer), but once again his novel is plagued by one-dimensional characters with no real depth, which in turns leads to a feeling of incompletion upon finishing the novel.

Also, as usual, the ending is weak and paper-thin, but you're definitely going to be turning pages to find out what happens next. Good for a lazy afternoon read but it's not going to change your world or make you a diehard BL fan.