Thursday, October 8, 1998
Twisted, hapless tales better left in campfire
BOOK: Crude attempt at depicting unlucky people leaves us with
‘Raw Deal’
By Trinh Bui
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
A simple business proposition made in fear of being eaten by his
own people led pygmy warrior Ota Benga to America.
On his trip he discovered anything but a sanctuary and in fact
became a freak show attraction. He spent the remainder of his life
performing in expositions and living in a New York zoo’s monkey
house until the curiosity of a savage aboriginal lost its bite.
The little African pygmy eventually took his life with a bullet
to the heart 6,000 miles away from home. Thus begins a sordid
collection of American tales bound by the notion that victims make
for perfect martyrs.
"Raw Deal," a compilation by Ken Smith, promises to shed light
on the most abhorrent stories concerning the dirty fateful twists
that ruin upstanding people. Unfortunately, most of the 22 stories
illustrate the misfortunes of the inept, naive and slightly
eccentric. This is hardly the cast of characters that conjures up
any feelings of remorse, much less any sense of uproar for their
plight.
What’s most disappointing about "Raw Deal" is the seemingly
superficial gloss-over Smith puts into each story. Instead of
flushing out legitimately interesting stories, Smith decides to
throw in everything that he found at the local library.
"Raw Deal" covers everything from forgettable retellings of the
slaughter of the prairie dog to the mundane and wildly inane story
of Thaddeus Calhill and his relentless pursuit to create a machine
that performs perfect music. That’s very tragic.
The one thing tying the anecdotes together is that everyone
somehow gets screwed over – most of the time by their own
inadequacies.
Smith tries to paint a sad picture of people forced into
situations where they are powerless. But most of his subjects put
themselves into their unwanted situations.
In some cases, the characters are worse than the people who do
them in.
John Sutter, famous for starting up Sutter’s Fort and later a
witness to gold fever, happened to be a "victim," in Smith’s
opinion. Sutter lost everything because his greed and inferiority
complex forced him from his home. Not exactly a victim to cry
for.
The writing is no more than Smith’s weak scripting, with no
depth or even dialogue between characters.
What remain are dry descriptions taking up no more than 10 pages
to tell the plot. If Smith put any thought into these stories, it
didn’t show. His style and prose repeats throughout, barely
stretching far enough to use a variety of sentence structures.
"Raw Deal" reads like a transcription taken directly from tape
recorder to page without much modification.
These quaint stories are better left as campfire fodder and as
warnings parents tell misbehaved children. Putting them in a book
just wastes trees destined for a much better fate.
Comments, feedback, problems?
© 1998 ASUCLA Communications Board[Home]