Does the Guinness Book of World Records have an entry for “The Most Self-Indulgent Novel Ever” ? If so, I would like to nominate this abomination.

I actually read this a long time ago and only recently found it buried beneath some old bank statements. (Which immediately lets you know what I thought about it. Most of my books are lovingly dusted and organized on shelves or - since I’ve begun running out of shelf space again - piled in neat towering stacks around my study.)

Anyhow, I got this because I enjoyed an earlier, non-fiction book of hers: Ruined by Reading. Some people should not be allowed to write fiction. I’m not going to dwell on this because it will only make me angry. I’ll explain as quickly as I can then place this piece of rubbish in the “off to the second hand bookshop” pile.

Let’s just say the problem begins with the main character of this “novel” being a writer whose friends and lovers never stop telling her how beautiful, witty, intelligent, sexy and talented she is.

“That’s quite good,” Mona remarked, as if I had constructed a minor work of art, as certain conversational gambits are. A scaled-down version of performance art. “Very good, Laura.”

“Thank you.”

Just in case we still don’t get it, the “novel” includes three grainy, arty photos vaguely related to the text, one of which is a photo of the author in big sunglasses in a Tai Chi pose. Wait a minute! The protagonist spends half the novel doing Tai Chi… What a coincidence!!!

Ugh.

P.S. Okay, I’m back. I just can’t resist adding this one little excerpt:

…holding the thin manuscript on my lap like a mother in a famine-struck land with nothing to offer her baby, hoping it will grow from love alone.

What a martyr to her Art! Is she really comparing her rich, spoiled, egocentric self to a starving mother and baby? Is it just me, or is that not disgusting?

A light, enjoyable and interesting read. Steve Martin is not only an intelligent man, but perceptive. He notices the small details of people and places. I think anyone truly funny has to be paying close attention to life.

One thing I found interesting in all the newspaper reviews that I read, is that no one is touching the mental illness - and Steve Martin’s treatment of it - that this book centers around. I thought he did a really great job, in a lot of ways, of capturing the way a person with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is. Either he’s done his research really well or knows someone with it.

There were two major problems with his portrayal of the disorder, though. The first is that the character came off as a little too quirky. This disorder is agonizing to live with. My oldest friend has it, and we were roommates for 5 years, so I know what I’m talking about. It’s not just about taking an extra shower now and then, or being “squeaky clean” as Mr. Martin portrays it in the book. It’s about being terrified of “contamination.” Of not being able to try on clothes anymore because you’re petrified of catching syphilis — which you know is totally ridiculous but logic is irrelevant. Of having to wear gloves all the time, touching things only with a great wad of paper towels wrapped around your hand, not being able to let anyone touch you. Of running your clothes through the washer 4 times, then the dryer for two hours, then having to start all over again because someone in the room coughed while you were loading the clothes back into a brand new plastic bag while wearing latex gloves. And counting things isn’t just soothing - it can go on for hours unstoppably until the person is sobbing in exhaustion but has to start again because they got mixed up between 4873 and 4874.

Steve Martin shows the compulsion, the need to do these things and the story a person tells themselves to make it all fit an inner logic, but he doesn’t show what happens when they are thwarted. He shows the panic to a point, but not the agony - and it really is agony. The person feels utter despair, anger and a life or death terror when one little thing goes wrong or they are kept from fulfilling a compulsion.

The second major problem with his portrayal of the disorder, [spoiler warning - skip to next paragraph to avoid!] is that the character has a couple of revelations, his circumstances change and he decides that he wants to change and so, miraculously, he is able to convert his most serious obsessions into abstractions. In other words, he just chooses not to do them anymore. Too bad that doesn’t work for my friend. I’m sure Steve Martin means no harm, but this is a real disorder and this kind of flippant treatment of it is a real insult to people whose lives are ruined and made desolate because of it.

The reason I’m dwelling on this, is that I think it embodies the reason why Steve Martin (and lots of others) never rises above being a “good” writer. He’s afraid of the dark side. He’s afraid of deep/intense pain, anger, ugliness, despair and all the rest. You can’t be great without acknowledging the that everything exists in contrast. If you only have a little pain, you only have a little joy and you only examine a little of what being alive is like.