Customer Reviews

Wasted Beauty

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

 

 

If one were to equate Bogosian's first novel, Mall: A Novel, to his play subUrbia, then one could also draw a similar parallel between 'Wasted Beauty' and his recent play 'Red Angel.' The Jeff of both Mall and subUrbia were two closely related characters, much like the leading men in Wasted Beauty and Red Angel. In print, however, Bogosian is able to delve deeper into the characters' inner thoughts. When reading his work, one can just tell that Bogosian is an actor -- he often follows dialogue directly with subtext, which I liked. Rick, the main character in 'Beauty', actually has roots that go much further back in Bogosian's work than 'Angel'. He is reminiscent of the peeping-tom in Mall, who was a descendent of Bogosian's Recovering Male character from his solos. If you've been following his work, I would say you will definitely appreciate this book, and if you haven't, now's a good time to start.

This was the first novel I have read by Eric Bogosian (I'm currently reading Mall), and I am hooked. His beautiful writing as the three main characters (Billy, Rick and Reba) and the ability to switch between all three to first person will keep you reading. As the reader, you develop sincere feeling for these characters, even though on the outside they look like a raging alcoholic, a drug addicted model and a cheating husband. Bogosian dives deeper into each of their brains, making it a must read!

This isn't a bad novel. It isn't "bad" writing; it's "cheap" writing -- cheap thrills, cheap sex drugs & violence, cheap dysfunction, cheap degradation, cheap hatred, none of which are implausible or irrelevant in America Today. But the whole spread -- magazine ad spread, spread legs, spread face down in puke on the sidewalk, the spread between wealth and destitution, the spread between innocence and experience -- reads to me as mere sensationalist exploitation.

Is it Eric Bogosian's fault if people want to read such stuff? To wallow in filth and ugliness vicariously? Of course not! This marketability of misery, this rage for "rage," has been around for a long time. It was the theme if Bogosian's own stage drama and film Talk Radio, at the climax of which his avatar, radio host Barry Champlain, dies for our cultural sins.

So where am I going with this review?

This is a "grunge novel." Specifically, it's a grunge novel for intellectual readers, replete with allusions to Baudelaire, Hesse, and painter Arthur Dove. It's chock full of snappy sentences and terse, well-crafted descriptions. It's a pretty good grunge novel, but that wasn't what I was hoping for.

This book remains one of my favorites. For me it took subjects that I usually wouldn't want anything to do with and turned them into interesting, gripping tales. If you like this type of book I'm sure you will love it, and if you think a model heroin addict and sex-addicted married doctor isn't your cup of tea, I can personally attest that it might just win you over despite.