I have no problem admitting that I usually don’t understand the rationale used by the judges who award the Man Booker Prize, but the morning I opened my newspaper and read that the award for 2003 had been given to DBC Pierre’s debut novel. Vernon God Little, the spoon I was using to transfer my kiwi yogurt from the bowl on my kitchen table to my mouth suddenly froze in mid-air, about halfway to its destination, even though my mouth remained open. Surely I’d misread.Letting my spoon fall back to my bowl with a clatter, I quickly scanned the article. No, I hadn’t misread; Vernon God Little was indeed, the recipient of the Man Booker Prize for 2003. Well, I reasoned, one of two things had either taken place: (1) Either I’d suddenly taken leave of all my abilities to discern good literature from bad (the most likely), or (2) the Man Booker judges had. Then I read Professor John Carey’s (the Chair’s) comment hailing Vernon God Little as “...a coruscating black comedy reflecting our alarm and fascination with modern America.” Now, I understood. Perfectly. The British were exacting revenge on the American reading public. But why? I could easily see this coming from the French, who I admit, I adore, but I’d always assumed the British and the Americans to be the best of friends. I recently decided to reread the book to see if my feelings about it, after my initial reading, had changed.Vernon God Little is the first person narrative of fifteen-year-old Vernon Gregory Little, a very unlucky native of the small central Texas town of Martirio and a strange pastiche of Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield, Jesse James, and Pat Bateman, the psychotic killer portrayed in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho.Vernon, or Vern, as he prefers to be called, begins his story in a holding room at the local sheriff’s office, dressed in nothing but his underwear and his Jordan New Jack Nikes. He’d like to spit polish those New Jack Nikes, but he really doesn’t see the use, considering the fact that he’s close to naked. He’s there, and he’s close to naked, simply because his best friend, Jesus Navarro, chose that day to murder sixteen of his classmates before turning the rifle he was using on himself. (Unless one has the arms of a gorilla, I still haven’t quite got it how one turns a rifle on oneself. A hand gun, yes. A rifle, no.)It gives away nothing of the plot to tell you that, of course, Vern is innocent. He was nowhere near the scene of the crime the morning of the shooting. He didn’t supply Jesus with the murder weapon, as the wife of the local sheriff, for selfish reasons, would like to establish (her belief in Vern’s innocence or guilt, in this case, doesn’t really matter). No, Vern’s only “crime” is being inanely stupid in refusing to disclose his whereabouts when Jesus Navarro decided it was time, to put it mildly, to run amok.Maybe you’d be more convinced of Vern’s innocence if you heard about it in his own words: Looks like I’m the first one they rounded up so far, he says. I didn’t have anything to do with Tuesday. Still, you wouldn’t want to be here today.Now, I don’t know if you’ve read this book or not, but if you have, and if you’re a person of even average intelligence, you’ll know Vern is right. About one thing, at least. You wouldn’t want to be in Martirio “today.” You wouldn’t want to be in Martirio any day.Stepping into Martirio is like stepping into a cartoonish nightmare world, painted only in violently vivid primary colors. All of its very stereotypical denizens seem hell bent on self-destruction, but not self-destruction by any conventional means. No, the people of Martirio plan on eating themselves to death, and I really can’t say I blame them, although I don’t agree with their method. Eating oneself to death, while perhaps giving one a certain degree of pleasure during the early stages, seems to me to be a slow, and ultimately, painful way to die, but I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. A doublewide, to these fine folk, is considered a “luxury home” while beer and barbecue is considered a gourmet meal. Martirio’s residents are quite the “gourmets” as well, since all of them are prime candidates for (emergency) bariatric surgery, but alas, none of them possesses the desire or the requisite funds, and insurance, well, you can just forget about insurance in Martirio. Vern, totally lacking any hometown pride, describes his neighborhood thusly: This is a neighborhood where underwear sags low.Okay. I’ll take Vern’s word for it, although I’m not quite sure what that phrase means, and I really don’t think I want to know. Still, I have a feeling that it sums up the town quite nicely.Vernon—sorry—Vern, has a definite penchant for self-destruction as well, for even when he finds himself facing possible execution, he still chooses to keep silent. I can’t really say I blame him, either, given his options in Martirio, as long as that execution is painless and swift, but honestly, if DBC Pierre really expects his readers are going to buy into the fact that anyone facing execution would chose to keep silent rather than provide an ironclad, though possibly embarrassing, alibi, he’s operating under a serious delusion regarding our intelligence and the strength of the human instinct for self-preservation.While Martirio may be hell to most, it is, of course, considering Vern’s plight, nothing short of paradise for those in the media, and they descend on Martirio with all the speed and ferocity of a “Category Four” Texas twister. One, in particular, Eulalio Ledesma, or “Lally,” a representative of an electronics repair firm known as CMN, doesn’t bother to correct Martirio’s natives when they mistakenly assume he’s from CNN. Lally, you see, is determined to make his fame and fortune by creating a whirlwind around Vern, then milking his story for all it’s worth, and he uses whatever means he needs to use, ethics be hanged. Vern’s family, who, given their lack of basic hygiene and problems with morbid obesity, factors that cause them to seem to have been born sans any sense of shame, nevertheless get so caught up parading and preening before the cameras like peacocks that Vern is all but forgotten in the shuffle. These people may be hell bent on self-destruction, but da**it, not before they have their personal fifteen minutes of fame.To say that Vernon God Little is a fast-paced book is only half true. It’s more of a wildly erratic roller coaster ride. Parts of it drag and almost stall, then, almost as an apology for the slow pace, the book lurches forward with a speed I found amazing, though not, by any means, admirable. On the plus side, however, the faster paced sections did make the book a quicker, and thus, slightly less painful read than it would have been had all of it been slow.Vern, for all his cynicism, stupidity, and excitability, is nothing if not exuberant. His tirades against, well, everything, were written in a language I’ve never encountered before…anywhere. I know many Texans have a “twang,” but Vern has that and a great deal more. His language is truly his own. I know it’s good to give a character a distinctive voice, but it’s not good if that voice can’t be understood by anyone other than that character and the writer who created him. After Vern escapes Martirio and goes on the lam (this is not a plot spoiler, in fact, I would be remiss not to include it), both he and his language become so overwrought and frenetic, I finally decided that if Vern wasn’t going to take his meds, then I, at least, would take mine.Then there’s the profanity. Yes, I was convent educated, and I don’t swear, but I’ve been out in the “real world” for quite some time now. I can recognize profanity in several different languages, but until Vern, I had never known profanity the way he uses it. This book isn’t bawdy, bawdiness is something I sometimes like; this book is just plain crude. To show you just how crude, take a look at the example below, and please, keep in mind that this is just one paragraph, not even one page:So much for Mom. She’ll be pumping the town for sympathy, like she does. ‘Well Vern’s just devastated,’ she’ll say. She only calls me Vern around her coffee-morning buddies, to show how ***** tight we are, instead of all laughably ****** up. If my ole lady came with a user’s guide it’d tell you to **** her off in the end, I guarantee it. Everyone knows Jesus is ultimately to blame for Tuesday; but see Mom? Just the fact that I’m helping the investigation is enough to give her ****** Tourette’s Syndrome, or whatever they call the thing where your arms fly around at random.Even more annoying than Vern’s near-constant, and horrors, ever-increasing profanity, however, were his many references to, well, to put it politely, his, and his mother’s, obsession with Vern’s processes of elimination. Vern does have a real problem but it’s not a problem I wanted to know about and especially not in such excruciating and exacting detail.I realize satire demands more license than many other literary styles. I realize that satire is going to present us with characters that are, to some degree, stereotypical. And I don’t mind books in which all of the characters are unlikable. But Pierre has simply gone too far over-the-top with Vernon God Little for my taste. The characters are too stereotypical (and there are too many of them), the pacing is too uneven, stalling one minute and lurching forward the next, and the constant profanity “waters it down” and robs it of its power, not to mention the “problems of elimination.” Worse yet, are the extreme plot contrivances and the very disappointing, but totally predictable, ending, an ending we can see coming from (almost) page one. Pierre has left satire behind in Vernon God Little and fallen into caricature and burlesque, instead, and no, I won’t forgive him this simply because this book is his debut novel. He’s too talented a writer for that.Given the above, did I find anything at all redeeming in Vernon God Little? Yes, I did. DBC Pierre does show he has much talent and potential, but only if he learns control. He’s good at putting a fresh and original spin on the “same old same old,” and some of the metaphors in the book, despite being written in Vern’s unique brand of English, show flashes of genuine brilliance. And at times, the skewering of the American media, who really are in dire need of skewering and more, was dead on. Still, the few redeeming qualities I found in Vernon God Little weren’t enough for me to give it more than a two-star rating and the recommendation of a pass. In conclusion, I think this novel should come with a large, glow-in-the-dark, non-removable “READ AT YOUR OWN RISK” sticker, sort of like the “Oprah” stickers that won’t peel off. If it did, it would certainly be the most redeeming quality of the book and the one for which many of us would feel the most appreciation.2/5Recommended: No. Touted as a satirical tragicomedy, this book, while displaying genuine flashes of brilliance is excruciatingly superficial and grating and ultimately crosses the line from satire into caricature and burlesque.Please read my book reviews and tips for aspiring writers at literarycornercafe.blogspot.com.
I will attempt to make this review quite long, so that you will read a realistic account of the quality of this book before you read the boorish and thoughtless dismissals that abound below.The common thread of said dismissals is a denunciation of 'Vernon God Little' as a unrealistic portrayal of the tragedy of a school shooting, similar to the incident at Columbine High in Colorado some years ago. The uncommon yet supremely smart and tasteful thread of *my* argument to that is that 'Vernon God Little' is only barely about a school shooting. Someone cites Gus Van Sant's 'Elephant' as a vastly superior study of a tragedy. Well, yes, that is correct. Because 'Vernon' isn't a study of a tragedy at all. It is, however, a better overall piece of art than 'Elephant' because that movie was completely boring and had zero count 'em zero actual elephants in it. Or shootings, if I remember correctly.As I seem to have begun this review with a digression, let me interrupt to share with you the quote, on page 6, which hooked me:"Deputy Gurie tears a strip of meat from a bone; it flaps through her lips like a shit taken backwards."That's what you call a gem. And there is one on every page of 'Vernon.'People seem to think that 'Vernon' was meant to be to the Columbine Massacre as 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' was to 9/11, or as the documentary 'Terminator 2' was to the coming robot rebellion. But it's not.The school shooting is just an example of the larger malaise and absurdity DBC Pierre is pointing at with 'Vernon.' To even read the first sentence of the synopsis on the inside flap will show that Pierre is aiming a little higher than a recreation of the tragedy. The name of Vernon's Mexican friend that shot 16 kids and them himself is Jesus. Jesus killed a bunch of kids. Jesus is killing YOUR kids. And then killing himself. And Vernon 'God' Little is on the run from the cops.This book has the very rare quality of being wildly funny and startlingly meaningful simultaneously. For this reason,a blurb on the back compares it to 'A Confederacy of Dunces,' and I agree. Although there is much more cursing and sex in 'Vernon,' which makes it automatically better.Pierre also creates the most likable character I've read since, say, the protagonist in John Barth's 'The Floating Opera,' or what his face from 'The Sun Also Rises.' The sort of main character you can't help but want to see succeed. Or even William Stoner from 'Stoner' or Bjartur of Summerhouses from 'Independent People.' Characters who just can't catch a break, even though they probably deserve one.Furthermore, all the narration is in Vernon's "fucken" dialect, which might get fucken old if it weren't so goddamn funny and Pierre was less tasteful and skillful with it. But he is, so it only serves to support the reader's warm feelings toward 'Vernon.'The metaphor in 'Vernon' is trashily powerful. Cant' find the page, but something like "The sky was like a bunch of lint balls on a soggy graham cracker." Mmm. Lint.Suffice it to say, you should read this book, and you should should ignore the idea that it is meant to be a paean for the lives lost at Columbine High, because it's not. If you can divest yourself of that thought, you will at *least* have fun reading it, whether you agree with Pierre's assessment of American pop culture or not, because it is a masterful farce."You don't know how bad I want to be Jean-Claude Van Damme. Ram her fucken gun up her ass, and run away with a panty model. But just look at me: clump of lawless brown hair, the eyelashes of a camel. Big ole puppy-dog features like God made me through a fucken magnifying glass. You know right away my movie's the one where I puke on my legs, and they send a nurse to interview me instead."
What do You think about Vernon God Little (2015)?
If I ever start my own barbecue restaurant, I’m definitely stealing the name Bar-B-Chew Barn from this book.Vernon Little has problems. His best friend just killed 16 of their fellow students in a school shooting, and the police suspect he may have been involved. His mother is more concerned with faking the purchase of a new refrigerator to impress her so-called friends than Vernon’s issues, and a sleazy producer/reporter is trying to turn Vernon into his ticket to stardom by implicating him in the killings. And Vernon is too lost in his own adolescent fantasies and bewildered by the adults around him to convince anyone he’s innocent.Well written and darkly funny with a lot of good satire about small-town Americans and the media, I didn’t enjoy this book much. It wasn’t because of the dark subject matter, it was just because everyone in it is just so goddamn mind-numbingly stupid that it was hard for me to take. And not just stupid, there’s a casual level of indifference and cruelty here that’s also tough to stomach. At times, I found it hard to root for Vernon just because he’s so damn dumb. The last act of the book finally has Vernon growing up and getting a little smarter, but I almost quit on this one halfway through. I can deal with stupid. (I even like Will Farrell movies.) But when there isn’t a single character with 50 IQ points to point out the stupidity, it wears me down.
—Kemper
Huckleberry Finn meets South Park at the Mexican-American border. I saw a review from the SF Chronicle that described this book that way, and it's hard to improve on. But I will try anyway. Or at least I'll give a bit more detail.It's wickedly funny ride as the author leads you through increasingly crazy situations that are just plausible enough that you buy in. If you are deeply offended by the 7 words you can't say on television, stay away from this one. The foul mouthed narration is part of what makes you believe that this is being told by a teenage boy. And part of what clues you in to the satirical nature of this adventure. There is a lovely (slightly twisted) redemption through giving people what they want theme that I have often thought of when dealing with my more difficult clients and co-workers.Fast moving, dangerous issues, completely irreverent, laugh out loud funny.Why not 5 stars? probably just because I'm stingy.
—Beth
This one got thrown at the wall in a short space of time. My mind was prepared to love it but then I was confronted with the ugliest writing about the the ugliest antihero who was the modern hip hop version of the snivelling little creep in Catcher in the Rye who I've always wanted to go back in time and murder but can't because he's imaginary. Some other review of this says - quote - as the novel unfolds, Pierre's parodic version of American culture never crosses the line into caricature - unquote and I say - uh, WHAT??? It starts off with painful cliche caricatures and escalates from there. The subtitle of this book is "Caricatures R Us". The author is DBC Pierre and the DBC stands for Dreadfully Boring Caricatures. So after I that I watched "Elephant" which may not be such a masterpiece itself but it's better'n this bad book.****Short list of things about school shootings:Bowling for ColumbineElephantWe Really Must Talk About Kevin, I Insist, No Really, Shut Up, Listen to MeVernon God Little If You Really MustColumbine, a great book about the real thing, see my long review elsewhere
—Paul Bryant
