The Timeless and The Dated

Nouns, The Difference Between The Timeless and The Dated
Or: Why You’ll Probably Never Read “Like a Hole in the Head”
December 25, 2007
Revised From: December 1, 2006

If you ever attempt to read a “modern masterpiece,” it’s wholly possible you’ll be tempted to pick up “The Companion” to it, that will clue you in on all the references that were hip when the book was written but have since faded away. It’s partly a result of theater and film, that writing in a prop demands having that prop present, not an object that the narrative itself must constantly return to. When effective and read in time, this gives the audience a sense of immediacy about the text. An author always has to bear in mind his expectations for what things his audience will know and pick up on. Some authors will constantly push this tendency to the limits. Take for instance Jen Banbury’s Like a Hole in the Head. The narrative revolves around Jack London’s The Cruise of the Snark, yet despite the centrality of this text it is hardly described at all. One of the reasons you will likely have never heard of Banbury’s novel is probably due to this choice.

Banbury emphasizes London’s novel in such a way that it’s likely the audience will be left with the sense that there’s some sort of inside joke one will understand if they have read The Cruise of the Snark. However, that is not one of London’s more famous works, and even if one is familiar with it, it provides little insight into Banbury’s novel. Any linkages are extremely tenuous at best. As an element of realism, there is nothing wrong with this choice. As an element of fiction, however, this choice is terrible. The novelist should not emphasize the meaninglessness of choices they make if they seek to engage the reader.

In terms of other terrible stylistic choices, consider Banbury’s opening:

I woke up with a hangover and roof tar on my feet and a vague recollection of
pacing around up there half the night. I think I threw a bottle at the building
next door and somebody yelled something.

Again, this novel was recommended to me on the grounds that it “was the most accurate description of a hangover ever.” On retrospect, it occurred to me that this should never be a selling point. Consider how vague this opening is. “Somebody yelled something,” “a vague recollection,” “I think I threw a bottle at the building next door.” It’s sort of funny if you choose to read it humorously, but it’s funny in the way a bad college movie is funny: it’s unintentionally campy. Even if this is a drunken recollection, how can the protagonist be so unaware that they don’t know what their next door building is, or have some interesting way of characterizing it? And “somebody yelled something”? Funny or not, it’s simply bad writing.

Returning to my original point, though, I would like to discuss Chuck Mangione. There’s a slight chance you remember Chuck Mangione. He was a real (music) artist, and might be characterized as a real one-hit wonder. Even if you do remember him, there’s very little reason that you should. At the end of the second paragraph, Jill explains she left home because “the lady below me had put on her Chuck Mangione record so I was just as glad to be leaving.” Chuck Mangione is no longer a brand name that all readers would be familiar with. Chuck Mangione was an international success in 1977 with a jazz-pop single, “Feels So Good”. His songs were used in the 1976 and 1980 Olympic Games. However, perhaps his most significant current claim to fame is inclusion as a secondary character in the animated television program, “King of the Hill”. None of this information is provided by the novel. There’s a chance that the audience at publication, young adult males, were not born when Chuck Mangione was famous. Yet even if the reader understood the reference, it’s still not a great line. Why does Jill dislike the musical choice? Is it his voice, his melody? Is the record too loud? Has that particular record merely been played too frequently? The answer to this question is one of those little things that, when an author includes it, gives life and flavor to the world of a story. When it is not, the audience is pushed further away from the narrator. And why name the author of the record if the narrator, Jill, was unwilling to name the bottle or brand of alcohol she was drinking last night? The neighbor’s “loud record” or “annoying record” would at least indicate the nature of Jill’s grievance. Jen Banbury, however, opts for the brand name.

Films offset this lack of accessibility, because instead of relying on the mental representation of a brand name, they provide a visual representation of all the objects in a scene, eliminating the necessity of the brand name. If there were a film version of Like a Hole in the Head, the audience would not need Chuck Mangione’s name, but they would likely understand by how the record sounded in context as to why it was so irritating.

While talking to a character who is described with his most distinctive feature being a single glove on his left hand, the “glove guy” remarks, “I like the postmodern gangster films”, to which Jill responds, “Postmodern. That phrase is meaningless in that context. Completely meaningless. It’s a description some ex-weatherman idiot film reviewer probably thought up”. Why is it so meaningless? Could it be because Jill doesn’t actually understand the meaning of “postmodern” and thus can’t explain why a “postmodern gangster film” is meaningless? This makes it seem like Banbury herself doesn’t know what she’s talking about which, quite frankly, she probably doesn’t.

I have tried to point out throughout this article that you certainly can enjoy Like a Hole in the Head. There are certainly worse books out there. I wouldn’t feel compelled to discuss a novel that was strictly bad in every sense of the word. (Well, yes I would, but that’s aside the point.) However, if you happen to enjoy Banbury’s sense of humor, you’ll probably enjoy it. The thing is, with every passing year, as the referencs become more distant, they will first transform into nostalgic reminders of the 90s, and finally into mind-numbing trivialities. In essence, if you haven’t read this book already, you probably never will. It’s barely been a decade and the book is already dated. But hey, if you want to know what I’m talking about, you can buy a hardcover for 1 cent from amazon. Even if you don’t end up liking it, you can always use it to start a campfire.