Customer Reviews

The Big Question

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

 

 

There is a lot outrageous humor and genuinely funny moments in Chuck Barris' THE BIG QUESTION, but don't mistake this satirical novel for lightweight entertainment. It is a dark view of American society and human nature using the game show as metaphor. And who better to explore that metaphor than Chuck Barris, one of the great innovators of the game show form. Barris not only knows television, but he also has a gift for creating vivid characters both sympathetic and reprehensible, and THE BIG QUESTION has a big cast. Barris is an author who both entertains and surprises the reader with his deftness in weaving comedy and tragedy together. I found the book to be a compelling page-turner which I could not put down during the final 40 pages as the story came to its shocking conclusion. I read THE BIG QUESTION while on a cruise, so I can highly recommend it as both well-done popular literature and a good vacation read.

The Big Question is a game show which airs in 2011. Contestants compete for the chance to answer a final question which if they answer it correctly will take all their problems away by making them one of the richest people in the world. Downside though is that if they get the question wrong, they are executed in prime time.

The Big Question you start asking yourself as start is why do new characters and their storylines keep getting introduced? As the number of characters grow and we keep jumping back and forth between storylines, and periods of time, it does become a little confusing as to whose life you're reading. However all these storylines do cross paths with one other at some time in the novel, and the majority of these characters want to be contestants in the final chapters when the actual Big Question Game show airs.

The majority of the characters are actually very interesting, as are there life stories. Many of these eccentric characters would not be out of place in a Bill Fitzhugh, Dave Barry or Carl Hiaasen novel. Some are a bit far fetched or a little unbelievable and the predictability of what will happen to them or which other character's storyline they are going to cross is also a factor. The book is a lot of fun though, but the actual percentage of pages revolving around the Big Question (or Death Game as its original creator called the pilot) would be 10% of the book at most.

Other similar death themed reality TV show books you might want to check out are Richard Bachman's (aka Stephen King) The Running Man and also The Long Walk. The Jason Strain by Christa Faust where death row inmates are put Survivor style on an island and have to battle each other to the death (and also surprise guest the captured Jason Vorhees) where the winner is granted life in jail also may appeal to fans of the lethal game show.

The Big Question is an enjoyable book, it basically a heap of different character driven storylines, but their lives are quite interesting to read about.

The Big Question is a plot vehicle to tell the intertwined stories of about a dozen characters who are desperate, unhappy, or just screwed up enough to try out for a game show where they may be killed. Those that meet do so in the green room at the broadcast. None is particularly likeable but many of them have some decent depth written into them.

It's not about the game, it's about the characters from varying walks of life whose lives have little meaning to them. And the ending delivers.

I've spent the last hour revising and rewriting this review just to erase it, in favor of keeping it short and simple. This book spends way too much time developing characters (which is a good thing 99% of the time) and not enough time constructing a decent climax and ending. The book completely falls apart in the end, and you are left wondering why you've spent so much time reading about characters, just to have them exit the book in such a random and haphazardly way(not necessarily dying, just in case you actually do feel like reading this book and you thought I just ruined it for you).

There's more communication of the book's main point in the Author's Note (which is really an epilogue) than there is in the book itself. Chuck Barris is protesting the vicious, meanspirited nature of today's reality game shows by taking things to the extreme in that gameshow contestants can die if they lose in the final round. The story itself really isn't a rehash of "The Running Man" as some of the reviews say; the concept of a killing gameshow has been around for a long time and usually it's a government sponsored event which this is not--contestants are there completely on their own accord. (For government sponsored death, dystopic books such as "Battle Royale" and short stories such as "The Long Walk" and "The Lottery" come to mind.)
Most of the book is character development told from switching characters' point-of-view per-section with the show itself taking place in the last chapter or two, however some characters do meet interesting and untimely deaths throughout the book. In some ways, this is reminiscent of the big money round in gameshows: the book leads up to the expected payoff which comes and goes extremely quickly with a host of lesser contestants/characters dying off without even a whimper or a care from the audience. Some readers will find this boring, others will "get it". Shakespeare it's not, but it's an entertaining read...well, provided you're not looking for nonstop action.

'The Big Question' is about how far this country's love of reality shows might go. Would the country embrace a show where a contestant wins 100 million dollars if they answer the final round question correctly but is executed if they are wrong? The book is populated by a cast of characters that would seem perfect for a Robert Altman movie. This is Chuck Barris's fifth novel, 'Confession of a Dangerous Mind' being his most notable. I have read all five. This one is unlike any of the previous books. Barris aims high with this novel. While 'You and Me, Babe' remains my favorite Barris book, 'The Big Question' is worth seeking out.

I love The Big Question! Mr. Barris has a true talent for story telling and making his characters come to life. There were times, while reading this book, that I laughed out loud.

Chuck Barris is the creator and producer of such shows as The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show, so it's safe to say he knows a little something about television contests. However, if there's one thing that "The Big Question" proves, he certainly doesn't know much about writing.

"The Big Question" is the name of a theoretical television show, one in which the final contestant in the final round has the chance to win one hundred million dollars by correctly answering one big question. The downside? If they answer wrong, they are executed on live television.

It's not a particularly unique idea for a television show. In fact, its roots (and the themes that Barris only barely explores in this novel) are grounded in the same explotative prurience that made Barris' other shows (and modern day staples such as "Survivor" and "Big Brother") such big hits. It's not just about watching people succeed. In fact, it's hardly about that. It's also about watching them fail, and miserably. There's not a much more miserable failure than being forced to swallow lethal poison in front of a dozen cameras and a studio audience.

In spite of its pretty standard concept, I think the book still could've been interesting and engaging (that's why I bought it in the first place), but of this book's 277 pages, the disturbing game show makes up, oh, about twenty pages total. What is the rest of the story about? The characters.

The novel is populated with a whole cadre of lame duck personalities, and they are talked about at length, and in mind-numbing, excruciatingly poorly-written detail. The lonely widower, Vera, with a penchant for National Geographic magazines and mild alcoholism. The ex-con, gang-banger turned wealthy Muslim drug dealer. The gorgeous hooker with a heart of gold and an astronomical I.Q. Their backgrounds and attitudes and hopes and dreams are diligently explained, ad nauseum.

Of course, these characters' lives are on the line in this game show, and so a treatment of those same lives isn't unheard of. Again, it might even have had the possibility of being, if not entertaining, at least mildly diverting. The problem, however, is one of repetition, redundancy, cliche, and just, plain, pedestrian prose. Although, come to think of it, "pedestrian" isn't even the right word. Try "awful." Or "ridiculous." Or "preschool." It's really just very, very bad.

You may not believe this, but I hate (and hesitate) to be so harsh. But I also don't want to be anything other than honest. Although I laud Barris for giving his characters such, uh, rich histories (no one can say these people have no back-stories), he also gave them inauthentic, over-drawn dialogue. Most of the people in this story speak with the same studied nonchalance as an infomercial host/ess, their lines ringing about as true-to-life as your average episode of "General Hospital." Even beyond that, there are SO many people, the details of their life stories are glossed over and sped through, making it pretty much impossible to care about or even totally get any of them.

One of the characters, a crippled bum, is the mastermind behind the mortal television show. The cripple spends much of the book coughing and hacking (I think the phrase, "The cripple coughed and coughed," appears at least 100 times), but he also takes moments to contemplate how horrible it is to get old and die. At one point he laments the fact that a movie he'd made -- Confessions of a Dangerous Mind -- had tanked horribly. And, just to drive the point home, when the bum meets a famous producer on the street, he entices the wealthy man with promises of "the greatest game show ever," and then slips his name and number into the producer's pocket. The name? Chuck Barris.

Writers, generally speaking, write for themselves, but never before has it been so vacuously transparent. A novel that's about lives reconsidered and death faced head-on, "The Big Question" is basically one man's struggle to come to terms with his own mortality, an attempt to novelize someone's personal ruminations and insecurities as they accept the inexorable force of old age and decay. All people must fight the fear of life's fatal finish, we all grapple with the ultimate finale that faces us, so what's written here is, again, not so unconventional or unique, but it's also not unheard of. (Didn't someone once say that all art and entertainment is about either sex, love, death or money?) Perhaps Barris thought it would be funny, or thought-provoking, or philosophical, or even just entertaining.

All it really is, though, is bad.

The Big Question holds a big mirror up for all to see the complete lack of taste that permeates reality television, the serendipity of those chance encounters that can forever change your life and the harsh reality of ones declining years.

There are moments of hilarity that particularly resonate with those of us raised in an urban environment, there are moments of reflection that cause one to exhume deeply buried prejudices and the palpable tension as the story develops keeps the reader fully engaged.

I particularly enjoyed the subtle veiled references to Chuck Barris's personal life story and to his previous books.

I purchased seven copies to share with my fellow Chuck Barris fans.

Definitely a great book to take to the beach this summer. Be sure to look under the book jacket on the front cover.

Chuck Barris is one of the best novelists in America today. I will buy every one of his books.