Dead End Follies

I don't have much emotional attachment to this song. I mean, I like it, but it's not a song I have important memories attached to. I first heard it last year when I played Guitar Hero: Metallica (they covered the song themselves) and I liked its droning feeling of long distance and never-ending artistic duty. Also, I like Bob Seger's simple, yet effective writing. I revere the skill to make the simple beautiful like this and therefore I'm jealous of him. Just read the first two lines, what a great way to give the reader a since of time and place, therefore a feeling to the song. Here it is:

Bob Seger - Turn The Page

On a long and lonesome highway
East of Omaha
You can listen to the engine
Moanin' out his one note song
You can think about the woman
Or the girl you knew the night before
But your thoughts will soon be wandering
The way they always do
When you're ridin' sixteen hours
And there's nothin' much to do
And you don't feel much like ridin',
You just wish the trip was through

Here I am
On the road again
There I am
Up on the stage
Here I go
Playin' star again
There I go
Turn the page

Well you walk into a restaurant,
Strung out from the road
And you feel the eyes upon you
As you're shakin' off the cold
You pretend it doesn't bother you
But you just want to explode

Most times you can't hear 'em talk,
Other times you can
All the same old cliches,
"Is that a woman or a man?"
And you always seem outnumbered,
You don't dare make a stand

Here I am
On the road again
There I am
Up on the stage
Here I go
Playin' star again
There I go
Turn the page

Out there in the spotlight
You're a million miles away
Every ounce of energy
You try to give away
As the sweat pours out your body
Like the music that you play

Later in the evening
As you lie awake in bed
With the echoes from the amplifiers
Ringin' in your head
You smoke the day's last cigarette,
Rememberin' what she said

Here I am
On the road again
There I am
Up on the stage
Here I go
Playin' star again
There I go
Turn the page
Here I am
On the road again
There I am
Up on the stage
Here I go
Playin' star again
There I go
Turn the page
There I go
There I go

Country: USA

Genre: Literary

Pages: 375


In 1955, The Deer Park struggled to find a publisher. In fact, editors were rebuking the manuscript questioning the decadent nature of its characters. They were right, Norman Mailer's novel has everything to frighten the McCarthy-era good family editor that has been raised reading Walt Whitman. It was the beginning of something new, finally a fiction writer stepped up to the task of exposing thoroughly the true nature of the American Dream.

Sergius O'Shaughnessy is a young Air Force pilot, decomissioned for health reason (we'll soon learn it was for psychological reasons), who lands in the Desert D'Or in search for a new beginning as a writer. Over there leisure famous and not so famous Hollywood actors, directors and executive, away from the fury of work, in search for a time off and a revelation. Sergius will meet and form a friendship with director Charles Eitel, once a glorious talent, looking for a new start to his career after being hurt by accusations of communism and staying deliberately ambiguous at his court hearing. The Deer Park is the story of Sergius and Charley and how the relationships they developed at the Desert D'Or reshaped their lives.

Norman Mailer takes an elegant swing at the glamorous lifestyle called "American Dream" with this novel. Having worked himself in Hollywood, the world he portrays has nothing to do with the image that moves American stardom even nowadays. The characters of The Deer Park are troubled at the hollowness created by their lifestyle of abundance. With nothing left to dream about, Charley, Lulu, Elena and even to a certain point Sergius are scrambling to give meaning to their lives through love, but the radically different perception each one of them have of this feeling will put the protagonists through even more pain and push them in a deeper state of crisis from which they will end up changed.

The main idea that drives The Deer Park is to put in question the values we've been told to live for, the main path to success and fulfillment if you will. None of the characters are happy or satisfied with their status despite the fact that there is no major crisis (hence no major drive to the plot) throughout the novel. The Deer Park portrait the dark side of wealth, fame and leisure. Through the demented Desert D'Or, the characters will change the landscapes they have within and try to break the boundaries of their upbringing, which Mailer explores with a close look.

A weird streak of minor technical issues plague The Deer Park and prevent him from being "almost perfect". For example, Mailer is adverb crazy. You will find many adverb by chapters, which will hit the reader in the face like a hammer. Also, Sergius is a first person point-of-view narrator, but he narrates chapters where he's present...and where he's not, giving no explanations of why he knows about the very details of his friends relationship. They are unsettling anomalies, but they don't keep The Deer Park from being the best novel I have read so far this year. Norman Mailer is the first writer that took a violent swing at the American Dream...and what a swing it was!


SCORE: 88%


Now Reading: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

Next On Shelf: Henry Rollins - Art To Choke Hearts & Pissing In The Gene Pool

This one is for my fellow Montrealers and any bookworm who would be tempted to visit. Used bookstores are a dime a dozen here. Even for the anglos, you have to know where to search, but used bookstores are there and are usually one big fat mess. Piles and piles of unstored (or badly stored) or uninteresting books are towering over the four corners of a small room that smell of rancid moist.

On the corner of St-Viateur & Jeanne-Mance though, lies one sweet little anomaly: S.W Welch Books. In the middle of the Mile-End (a rather international district, who is mostly French-Speaking) lies this little jewel of literary oddities. As you might not find there the latest Dan Brown (all they have are shriveled up Da Vinci Code copies), search enough and you will find great stuff.

Tipped in by my book bookmaker and good friend Mustafa (pronounced Must'fa or MUST'FAAAAAAAAA) I found there a copy of the rare Art To Choke Hearts & Pissing In The Gene Pool by Henry Rollins (as you can see, it's out of print on Amazon). So if you're in town and feel a bit Indiana Jones'ish, go check out S.W Welch Books. It's a lot of fun.

I woke up this morning, my Gmail account had been suspended for suspicious activities. I had to unlock it with a password Google sent on my cell phone. When I finally went into it, I found out that my Gmail had been spamming a good number of people with distribution lists. Without a second thought, I put those in the Spam bin so that I could block them from making potential damage.

But I hadn't seen the end of it. Upon my first post in blogger, BAM! I'm getting my account deactivated for suspicions on spamming. Google doesn't take lightly to this. If they lock me out for this, it's probably that my account did send some spam. So therefore...I am SORRY. I am sorry if I sent spam to any of my readers or blogger friends. This was purely unintentional and I am working hard to remedy to the situation. It's a minor setback and Dead End Follies will come out of this stronger.

Thank You!

The Nerd is back with a...weird...concept...of games he already reviewed?