Ed King. By David Guterson (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
Interesting retelling of Oedipus. I listened to the audio version, and that was maybe a mistake. A few long, boring passages that I would have liked to skim through, some painfully unnatural-sounding dialogue. And if you can't do a good English accent, better to skip it altogether than attempt a poor one. Creepy Humbert Humbert-type, super-narcissistic Internet search tycoon and an amoral gold digger were the three main characters, and I felt that at least two of them got what they deserved. I am weary of the bleak portraits of Seattle that every author from the area paints. Having finished Guterson's "The Other" which I loved because of its depth, I had high hopes for "Ed King". Instead, it was back to the bleak portraiture of the northwest, imbued with negativity from the characters. One of my peeves is that while some authors paint a vivid portrait of place, Guterson names places but never gives the locations character or roundness. Like every other cliche northwest portrait, the focus is the weather. Grey, dark, bleak and rainy. Seattle has that but it also has spectacular sunny days July through October with a bright technicolor landscape from which to draw. He also names neighborhoods without ever drawing out the character of those neighborhoods.Of course everyone who lives here is a techie. That's old, boring and cliche. Only a few from here are homegrown techies. Most of the geeks come from outside of Washington State to work in the tech industry. Washingtonians have deeper and richer histories than Microsoft. That is lost in this book which starts in 1962 and fails to pull out the real history of the city. The characters are also cynical and each has an air of sleaziness or criminality attached to them. For that to be effective or make you want to have empathy or even care a little about the characters there has to be some redeeming quality.Given the importance of Walter, he is never fully rounded and I felt nothing on his demise. Diane was an out an out con artist and again, I felt nothing for her. Simon isn't drawn well and it became confusing during Ed's teenage years as to how old he actually was - at first he seemed like he was about 18 or 19 and suddenly he's back to 16 or 17 and a high school junior. He moved from 19 to 27 in less than a chapter and it didn't feel like those formative years were filled with experiences beyond sex. While the book is meant to evoke thoughts of Oedipus and Electra, the incessant descriptions of sex got boring quickly without evoking the above mentioned real stories about the agonies of those loves and the soul searching. I know he can write soul searching because I really felt that in "The Other." This time, the souls were empty.I will pass my copy on to others who are interested in the author but I won't recommend it - I will be interested to see what conclusions those avid readers and fans of the author draw from it.
What do You think about Ed King. By David Guterson (2011)?
Not a bad novel, but some of the plot comes together a little too contrived. It was interesting.
—Ash
Inspired me too re read Oedipus. That has to be a good sign.
—appy
Good but not nearly as good as his Snow Falling on Cedars.
—Florence
