Customer Reviews

Pink

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

 

 

Though I appreciated and respect that Van Sant tried to create something different here, that alone was not enough. The central problem with the book is that the story line is far too weak. Some of my favorite authors also use a style that jumps around a bit and slowly pieces together a story (e.g., Vonnegut, Dunn, Robbins), yet Pink fails where these authors succeed. Initially, I found the book fun to read because of the varying style, fonts, perspectives, etc., yet quickly became bored with it as I searched in vain for an interesting story line that could be construed as gripping. Nothing of the sort presented itself. If an experimental and loose writing style alone does it for you, than this is a good book to read. If you desire content that will captivate you and sustain your interest, look elsewhere.

I'll admit it:

I bought this book because I liked the cover.

It has a matte finish, and I love books like that. It usually signals that there is something important inside. And with this being written by Director, Gus Van Sant, I thought that my suspicions might be confirmed. After all, the blurbs on the back described "Pink" as being like the works of Vonnegut. Enough said! Vonnegut is one of my heroes, and since I've read everything he's written, I figured an author *like* him would be suitable for the time being.

Oh, how misled I was!

"Pink" is a jumbled, nearly indecipherable mess of a novel. It is littered with characters about whom we give not a damn. There are scenes that take place in Orlando, FL, where I lived for a few years. It is apparent that Van Sant knows nothing about the area -- talking about highways, for example, that simply do not exist. How hard would it have been to take a look at a map? This is just one way that his lazy, thoughtless writing is evidenced. It makes "Pink" look suspiciously like a first draft -- written once, never to be checked for such details, or larger things, like, say, plot or character.

There are clever allusions to dead rock stars and dead actors, like that is supposed to somehow make the novel thought-provoking. "Hey, isn't that River Phoenix? And didn't Van Sant do a movie with him?" Yeah, and who cares? There are footnotes, which, I guess, are meant to be clever. They are not. This is not to say that they can't be. Dave Barry knows how to use footnotes. "House of Leaves" uses footnotes to excellent effect. These are just a waste of time.

Much like the entire book, as a matter of fact.

Perhaps the only good thing about it is the flipbook cartoon, which may indicate that Van Sant should really stick with moving pictures and abandon the literary ones.

Not recommended. At all. Ever.

Gus Van Sant, my favorite director, couldn't pull off this novel. Oh, what a bummer. Even his grammar is fairly poor. It's clear he's a visual person/artist - not just because he drew some of the scenes and people in the book, but the descriptions, too, are vibrant with great visual detail.

I'm avoiding the inevitable - fairly bad book. I agree with much of the reviews. It's an homage, dedicated to River Pheonix (a rather roundabout dedication that I know is one only because I read it is, and the word "river" is in the verse), that references perhaps a number of the young men Van Sant works with or, perhaps predominantly, River and Keanu. I couldn't help but think Affleck and Damon read this and preyed on the "dirty old man" to pitch their script; he does love friendships between two young men--something that plays so beautifully in his films, and so poorly with a fifty-something narrator who's part of the story.

In "Pink" the main character writes in the first person, but in the footnotes refers to himself as his name. He's an infomercial maker in his 50's and not very successful. He meets two young boys, Jack and Matt, and is intrigued by them. They've got a secret. "Pink" is their secret and I won't say what Pink is because we don't find out for most of the book.

One of the boys is eerily similar to the dead infomercial-spokesman/teen-idol, Felix. Felix = River Pheonix. He even died in the street outside a nightclub (Felix, that is) while his brother called 911; he is 23-years-old; and his complexion, described in amazing technicolor detail, River's. We've got lots of detail about Felix here and, as someone else wrote, how much of that is non-fiction? Ouch. I've read, too, about Van Sant's attraction to River Pheonix during the shooting of "My Own Private Idaho" - a film I adore to the pont of speechlessness (and I admit I'd found this attraction sort of hot) but, while oh-so-romantic on screen and so beautiful to watch, this book reads too uncomfortably like the journal of the "dirty old man."

I didn't care for the footnotes thing - they served to slow the book down for me - the print is tiny and the information in them pertinent to the story - i.e., not footnote material. I enjoyed the drawings; they looked to me like a storyboard, as it's not hard to remember who's writing this book.

But, it misses the mark. Ah, if the narrator had been younger... okay, I won't start editing. Wonderful, amazing director. Not such a good author. If it's a love letter of sorts, or a memoir, or journal entry to the memory of a lost friend, I appreciate that very much and, actually, I find the book's redemption in that notion. I love Van Sant's filmmaking and artistic sensibility so much that, perhaps, I have the need to think this was something he needed to get off his chest - as well, I've read this is an homage to his loss of River Pheonix. But, it really is different in concept than to experience.

If you don't have an interest in him, don't believe the "similar to Vonnegut" or other statements on the book jacket. It isn't. If you're an auterist, and want to see it, do - it's not wretched, but disappointing coming from this artist.

I initially purchased PINK after seeing on the jacket cover a quote comparing it to Robbins and Vonnegut. Unfortunatley all I found was the style of Robbins without the wit and the essence of Vonnegut but without the closure he provides. I had fun reading it, peeling through Van Sant's veiled references to contemporary pop culture icons Kurt/Courtney/River/Keanu,etc. But was ultimately dissapointed in the lack of "story" in this novel. Would I recommend it? Only to a masochist.

I was drawn to this book because I'm a Gus Van Sant fan, and I knew it dealt with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves and the filming of "My Own Private Idaho", one of my favorite films. I'm a shameless queer culture junkie, and anything suggesting salacious real-life happenings grabs my attention instantly.

Van Sant takes us on an interesting trip through his attempts to cope with the loss of River, who was a close friend. There are characters based on River, Keanu, Kurt Cobain, Flea, and others, and it's fun to try to guess who's who, and how much of the backstory is true and how much is, as the book is classified, fiction.

There's no doubt that Van Sant took liberties with his thinly-veiled characters, but if I had the chance to write about having a long-standing affair with Keanu Reeves, I probably would too, so I can't judge Gus too harshly for that self-indulgence.

What's clear is that Van Sant cared a great deal about the people he's written about, and that facing a sudden, senseless death of a close friend makes for difficult times.

You know how you check the sports pages in the summer for the Tour de France daily results, and all the riders are listed in order of their time in the previous day's stage? At the end of the list are names followed by the designation "abandoned race." That's how it was for me with this book, about 70 pages into it I abandoned it due to lack of entertainment or interest. I like Gus van Sant's movies, I like the book jacket a lot, and I like the little drawings in the book, but as for the actual words... No. The book is a convulated mess, sprinkled with characters loosely based on real people van Sant knew or knows (Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix among them), but none of whom are worth investing any time or energy in. It's really an experimental work at best, and even on that level fails to do anything new or interesting.

It's pretty rare to find something original, something that makes you think about something besides yourself (while providing insights into your own life), something that's worth reading again and again and again (1)...I think pink is like that. Like his movies, you have to let yourself get caught up in it...take Psycho, for example. It wasn;t scary, it didn;t really work, but that was the POINT: art that was brilliant a paltry three decades ago doesn't work now, even when recreated frame for frame, line for line. Maybe it's self-indulgent, but Pink does work. You get introduced to new...and you're missing out if you can't stop making yourself the center of everything you experience. I don;t know, I loved it, especially the end. (1) the footnotes are the best example of how good this book is

Hi falutin' gibberish

This book is remarkable for what it tries to do. Of course it won't appeal to fans of less experimental literature, but what do expect from Gus Van Sant? If you like anything he's ever been involved with before, you'll like the book.

That guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Really. It's awesome