I had picked up the latest James Patterson thriller from the library, had a crappy day at work and prepared to sit down and escape into a book for a while where the goodies were good and the baddies were bad and it was a thrill a minute.
I'm not interested in how much hurt we can do to each other. I can read that in the newspapers. I want a book that has tension, and action and leaves you quivering for What Happens Next (tm), a happy ending, or at least a resolution, where most of the major characters make it out alive and are ready to face the baddies in the next book.
And yes - you guessed it. James Patterson in his latest Alex Cross novel takes our hero to Africa. To Nigeria. To Darfur. He introduces us to characters and then describes the atrocities they have witnessed. Atrocities they have been victims of and then he kills them in horrifying manners through the book. We witness our hero being tortured, we see the realities of bribery as a way of life, we hear 80% of all women in the country are raped, sometimes with pieces of wood.
James Patterson is a skilled writer. He brought those atrocities, that are happening now, into my reality.
And he described the hopelessness of the situation. There there's not a damn thing a normal person can do to help.
I've been thinking about this all day. I doubt its gong to change my life in a dramatic fashion, but it reminded me of humanities passion for power and hatred of other humans.
I'm not going anywhere with this; I just had to get my thoughts out.
I'm going back to Terry Pratchett - you know where you stand in Discworld :)
12 comments:
The capacity for evil to be inflicted by one human upon another never fails to amaze and sadden me.
I'd stick with Discworld.
James Patterson is depressing at the best of times.
He is a very skilled and gory writer but if I want to hear all about THAT situation, I can watch the news, sigh...I don't need a "fictionalised" account of it all.
Yeah, with that, I'll skip it - I have yet to read any of his work, since I'm not up to late 20th-early 21st Century yet. There's plenty of material from 18th and earlier :) Oh, and DH has been on a true crime show kick lately - Cops, The Next 48, similar cops-in-action shows - televised interrogations. No thanks. I like the CSI, Bones, & NCIS shows because of the characters - not because they all revolve around crimes.
If I had known before-hand I would not have read it. Well not read it now anyway - and would have been more prepared. As I said - I was completely blindsided and completely sickened.
I typically enjoy his writing but I did not care for this book
"I don't even know who most real life crime psycho killers are!"
Fear not Tig, I can help you out there...:)
Yeah, too much of that in real life to want to read about it when you're trying to 'get away' to begin with. Find your self some lightweight reading and get a giggle instead. I liked the early Xanth novels for that purpose. But you have to like puns.
I read the first 10-12 of those - and couldn't read anymore after that...
I haven't read any of his either. Thanks for the heads up. I'll steer clear of him. I get such little time to read right now, I don't want to waste my time with something that would bother me. Although, if he can evoke those kinds of emotions in his readers, he's probably a very gifted writer. I just choose to live in a nice little cozy cocoon.
That's why I specified the early ones. The series went on far too long. I don't think I read more than the first 6 or 7. I did enjoy the first few though. Mostly because they were different. After that, the themes started to repeat and they weren't different anymore. And they started getting too serious. Still, Nathan is getting into chapter books now and can enjoy a book with no pictures, so I may see if I can scrounge some up for him. My little brother owns the ones I read. That was a long time ago, LOL.
I think I got up to book 13 in that series - but yes they starting trying to be serious and it just didn't work for me :(
That's probably one of the reasons why I stick to humour and history...
I can't take gory stuff (or even thrillers) in books at all, I get enough of that when I happen to WATCH news. I usually only LISTEN to them on the radio. I have never done well with such things. I would say the strongest I can take is Agatha Christie, but those I read with delight.
Otherwise - give me fanfiction any time...
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