May '10's Literary Dirtbag

Since I have no idea if there were actually people in Finnegans Wake (and I was tempted to nominate James Joyce, believe me!!!), this month's Modern Library Literary Dirtbag Award goes to Teddy Lloyd from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Mr Lloyd definitely goes above and beyond all of the the required dirtbag qualities: married with kids, but having an affair with Miss Brodie and then having an affair with one of his teenage students. Plus I didn't like when he told Sandy she was ugly. I bet one of his past mistresses cut off his missing arm. :)

April '10's Literary Dirtbag Award

My apologies for totally forgetting about this, in the wake of bribing myself to finish Kim.

April's MLLD Award goes out to the Russian guy from Kim who smacked the lama in the face and tears up his Wheel of Life picture that the lama worked so hard on. That was just wrong. I was glad when Kim rolled him down the hill and kicked him in the groin. I would have kicked him more than once there. Although in hindsight, I should probably thank this guy for bringing some action to an otherwise action-free novel. :)

The only other character who came close last month was Cecil Vyse from A Room With a View. I didn't think boring characters qualified as dirtbags so I couldn't really nominate him. :)

March '10 ML Literary Dirtbag Award

Drumroll, please....after much thought I had to give it to Simon March, Augie's big brother in The Adventures of Augie March. I re-read the part the other night where he ripped off his mother-in-law's shirt right in front of everyone because he didn't like the way she dressed, and I just got PISSED OFF. No one has the right to do that, no matter how rich and/or successful they are. He would probably go to jail in this day and age, anyway, so I can be comforted with that. He was also so smarmy about his success and his money. I hate people like that.

Plus I hate guys that have affairs as a rule. It wouldn't have hurt Simon to class it up a little and not 'ho himself around but unfortunately he had to go Full-on Dirtbag. Also guys that don't own up to their responsibilities (even if Renee didn't have the kid, he still should have been ready to step up, at least financially) are scum. So he has well-earned this month's award. Congrats to Simon.

March '10's Literary Dirtbag Nominees

Am having a dilemma as to who to pick for March's MLLD. Front runners are the following:

1)Rex Mottram from Brideshead Revisited: Total dirtbag and probably the guy I will end up picking. Slimy politician who 'converts' to Catholicism in order to marry Julia (and I say 'converts' lightly, because he basically told the priest he'd agree with anything he said). He also gets Julia the tortoise with her initials in diamonds imbedded in the shell, which I thought was BEYOND HORRIBLE. He also has affairs with other women....but so did most of the other people in BR.

2)Simon March from The Adventures of Augie March. He started out okay as the studious bookworm, but ends up being this super-angry guy who is successful in business but a real jerk. He yells at everyone, makes fun of his mother-in-law for the way she dresses (actually rips her shirt off in one scene), and is mean to his wife Charlotte. Plus then he has the affair with Renee, thinks she got pregnant and doesn't want the kid. What a lowlife.

February's ML Literary Dirtbag

After much debate (and about 100 more pages of Angle of Repose) I've chosen Anna Quayne as this month's MLLD. The Death of the Heart kicks off with her whining to her friend about Portia's messy room (hello? Has she ever met any teenagers EVER?), and admitting she's read Portia's diary on the sly and doesn't like what she sees. She kind of has a thing going with Eddie, whether it's against her will or not, because she encourages her husband to hire him at his business to get him out of her hair, and at the end begs her husband NOT to fire Eddie even though he deserves it. She knows exactly the kind of guy Eddie is, yet she lets Portia hang out with him. It made me really glad that she doesn't have kids of her own, and made me hope beyond hope that Portia got the hell out of Dodge after the year was up.

I have about 25 pages left of Angle of Repose, so a review should be forthcoming. :)

February's Nominees for ML Literary Dirtbag Award

Yes, folks, it's about that time. And for the first time since I began Journeys, I am actually having to 'reach' a bit to come up with someone truly deserving of this award this month, which is a nice and welcome change after months of enduring obvious, over-the-top scumbags like Sebastian Dangerfield and Gerald Scales.

Here is what I have so far. Feel free to vote in the poll on the sidebar, or you can email me your candidates too:

1)Anna Quayne from The Death of the Heart: the prim-and-proper, cold-as-ice, sneaky diary-reading guardian of poor Portia Quayne. She probably also had something going on with Eddie. What a great role model.

2)Yvette from A Bend in the River: it sounds like she slept with anyone with a pulse. What a 'ho.

3)Augusta Hudson from Angle of Repose: the supposed best friend of Susan Ward, she is rich, uber-possessive, marries the man Susan loves, and then proceeds to hate the man Susan ultimately marries, leaving Susan constantly torn between her best friend and husband. Way to be supportive, Augusta!!! She grates on my last nerve.

January '10's Modern Library Literary Dirtbag Award Winner

I had to go with fire chief Willie Conklin from Ragtime. Reading that section where he harrassed Coalhouse Walker just made my blood boil. I am always embarrassed to remember that there was an unfortunate time in this country's history where that sort of treatment of African Americans was acceptable, and that scene in Ragtime was no exception. I was pissed off when I read that. Willie Conklin was not only a racist scuzzbucket but was also a giant coward, because he went and hid under a rock when Coalhouse was looking for him. I think he got off easy when all he had to do was restore Coalhouse's car.

#93.....The Magus

My husband loves psychological thrillers. One of his repeat Christmas gift requests is the Saw box set. The Saw movies come from the Silence of the Lambs genre, and usually depict people that are given a choice between a gruesome, horrible death, and….well….an alternative gruesome, horrible death. “I love that they mess with my head,” he said, when I asked him what the appeal of watching people dig through boxes of razor blades with bare hands was. Suffice it to say the appeal of these movies is completely lost on me, which is why we do not currently own any of them.

Subsequently, the appeal of John Fowles’ 656 page epic The Magus, was also lost on me. Mind games abound in the story of Nicholas Urfe, a middle-class Englishman who ditches his non-committal girlfriend Alison and signs on to teach school on the remote Greek island of Phraxos. That’s apparently not all he’s signed up for. Nosing around on the island, he has the misfortune to meet Conchis, a rich and psychic recluse. Strange things happen whenever Nicholas spends the weekend at Conchis’ house. Conchis tells stories that are ostensibly about his own life, and then portions of the stories are brought to life by the people that live and work for him. Unlike the rest of us, who would run like hell if we saw someone walking around wearing a jackal head, something keeps pulling Nicholas back to Conchis’ house. One of those somethings is the elusive and beautiful Julie, one of Conchis’ friends and the biggest tease of them all. As the story progresses, the lines between fact and fiction become blurrier and blurrier, and Nicholas becomes lost in the bizarre world Conchis has created for him. Does he ever escape? How will this experience change his life?

Honestly? I was pretty much done by page fifty. I sat through Conchis' meandering 20-page stories, only to find out five pages later that they're all lies, and then five more pages later, find out that even the lies are lies. Ad nauseum. By the end of the book I no longer knew who the bad guys were, or who the good guys were, or if there were any good guys, for that matter. Who do you root for when everyone is screwed up? It turns out by the end of the book that Conchis has woven this surrealistic world specifically for Nicholas to teach him a lesson about the kind of person he is, and everyone in Nicholas’ life has been in on the game BUT Nicholas. I couldn’t help feeling a certain kind of pity for him by the end…but then again, he was kind of a dirtbag. I know a couple of guys from my high school days who would be GREAT candidates to go through this, if Conchis is still out there and needs new people :)

So in the end? Not my thing. Kind of like the Saw movies, but without the razor blades. It didn't work well for me as a novel, but it works awesome as a doorstop in the house on a windy day.

Grade: D-