Customer Reviews

Resentment: A Comedy

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

... Indiana is one of the best, most incisive writers inAmerica. He's funny, ferociously angry, incredibly conversant, andhis books--including Resentment--put a frame around our culture's insanity. He's not only highly entertaining-he's necessary.

Like some 19th century Russian, Indiana grapples with BIG issues of morality and the human condition. In his epic vision, Los Angeles comes across like Mortville, the nightmare town from John Waters' masterpiece Desperate Living. The hapless characters, each rendered frighteningly believable by witty, insightful prose, are all on collision courses with each other's wanton perversity and unchecked megalomania. Wickedly funny and unsentimental, Indiana is never unempathetic as he unflinchingly depicts the car crash of contemporary society. Can't we all get along? Perhaps not.

Indiana takes a searching look of the Los Angeles I know, and more importantly, that I don't know. The presumptive topic of the book is told from the viewpoint of Seth, a writer out from New York to profile a bland, glossy movie star for a bland, glossy magaine, and when he can snag a seat, to cover the Menendez trial (here called the "Martinez" trial). There are almost too many diversions and subplots to count, but Indiana's stream-of-consciousness flow of words keeps the momentum going.

He manages to take potshots at Dominick Dunne, John Gregory Dunne, Joan Didion, Leslie Abramson, Scientologists, the Chateau Marmont, and a ton of other semi-recognizable names, but figuring out who's who isn't all that important.

Those who are repelled by gay sex and the demimonde probably should stay away. (...)

This book made me reconsider my views on the Menendez brothers. The main character, Seth, is obviously the author, who covered the trial. He writes in an unusual, almost stream-of-consciousness style, which, along with the graphic (mostly gay)sex, will put off many readers. However, this book is never dull and often thought-provoking. The characters are fairly well-developed, though harshly treated. My only complaint is the end, which isn't awful, but neither is it especially satisfying.

Like some 19th century Russian, Indiana grapples with BIG issues of morality and the human condition. In his epic vision, Los Angeles comes across like Mortville, the nightmare town from John Waters' masterpiece Desperate Living. The hapless characters, each rendered frighteningly believable by witty, insightful prose, are all on collision courses with each other's wanton perversity and unchecked megalomania. Wickedly funny and unsentimental, Indiana is never unempathetic as he unflinchingly depicts the car crash of contemporary society. Can't we all get along? Perhaps not.

Indiana's best book yet is a torrent of words which, for all its seeming randomness, is never off target. The gimmick here is a disguised retelling of the Menendez trial, but there's a lot more going on than that. In the end, Resentment is one of the most hateful, loving, and accurate portraits of Los Angeles.

if you have a compulsion to back check previous works, what you have here is the fictive scaffolding put in place by the same keen eye that finally elucidated the horrific connection between Walt Disney characters & the imagery of Francis Bacon (...we all felt it, we just hadn't thought about it...). there's little mercy for reader or character, in fact some episodes seem implanted like a surprise bowl of insects to make you squirm- but West Coasters will surely appreciate allusions to the beneath-the-surface activities of the OTO & Scientologists, the walk on cameos by Kathy Acker (in disguise, in memoriam?), psychokillers and annoying movie stars- all the SoCal fixtures a la Pynchon's 'Lot 49' or Stephen Wright's 'Going Native' are inflated to new lunatic proportions by Indiana's careening lingo.

It's difficult to be angry at this book that trivializes a tragic murder that involved intimations of child abuse, incest--difficult because, finally, it's just plain silly. Indiana distorts everything so he can cackle at it--including readily identifiable people, and the city of Los Angeles. His characters are objects for his weird scorn of everything--the brothers, the mother, the reporters. Satire is one thing, but malice for the sake of malice is another, and this is a very weird piece of malice.

The title may see it all--Gary Indiana seems to resent everyone, especially if they're attractive or intelligent (like Dominick Dunne). He has no insight into the people he so recklessly attempts to portray (even minor characters that are easily identifiable), and he seems to think that he can aim poison at them without regard. The whole thing backfires--including his weird views about Southern California--and the reader ends up laughing at this silly concoction, not at the characters involved in a real tragic event.

The characters in this book are all easily identifiable, centering on the participants in the famous Menendez Brothers trial. Not one of the participants escapes Indiana's venomous attitude and ridicule. Even the minor characters involved in the fringes of the trial are objects of contempt. This trial involved real and serious issues, and Indiana has reduced them all to props to be aimed at, by him. Perhaps someone will write a novel with him as a character; there would be a lot to satirize. On top of it all, the book is sloppily written, as if he could hardly wait to set down his attack on living people.