A Dirty Job
Christopher Moore
I finished this book last night and decided to sleep on it before reviewing it, but I'm still not sure how I feel about the book. I know that I really wanted to like it and think it was great and clever and stuff, but overall it just doesn't mesh with itself. I think the main problem is that Moore is funny and knows it, making his humor way too obvious and, in effect, dumbing down the book.
The premise of the book is definitely a winner: a mild-mannered Beta Male (subordinate to the Alpha Male, of course) becomes a minion of death and must fight the dark forces of the rising Underworld. I think, though, that a book meant for humor probably should have left the great cosmological consequences out of the picture. Fighting off a legion of demons is serious stuff, and simply inserting an army of squirrel people isn't going to automatically lighten the matter. Moore could have written a brilliant book satirizing our visions of death, and death itself, without straying into such tangential territory.
The book is well-written nonetheless, and I believe that Moore has the potential to be quite funny, if he would only keep himself to subtle humor. I have issues with outright humor, with humor that is self-conscious, and I see too much of it in this book. Sometimes it flies, sometimes it doesn't. An excellent example of Moore's sly comment on American values is his description of part of a car as having "G-cup Madonna death boobs." If that doesn't put a hilarious image in your head and make you laugh, you must be too young. The problem is that Moore takes his admittetly awesome sense of humor to the extreme, putting it ostentatiously on display where it really has no place, or where the same effect could have been achieved with much more skill.
As for Moore's characters, they are well developed and the reader can follow the change in Charlie as he goes from mild-mannered junk dealer to warrior. There aren't really any unnecessary characters, although the character of Audrey is a little jumbled, as she enters late and ends up confusing the plot.
All told, I think that Moore would be fine in another context, but that he got in a bit over his head here, a bit out of his genre. I'm definitely interested to see what he does in his other books, but I'm kind of disappointed by this first glimpse.
Grade: B
Christopher Moore
I finished this book last night and decided to sleep on it before reviewing it, but I'm still not sure how I feel about the book. I know that I really wanted to like it and think it was great and clever and stuff, but overall it just doesn't mesh with itself. I think the main problem is that Moore is funny and knows it, making his humor way too obvious and, in effect, dumbing down the book.
The premise of the book is definitely a winner: a mild-mannered Beta Male (subordinate to the Alpha Male, of course) becomes a minion of death and must fight the dark forces of the rising Underworld. I think, though, that a book meant for humor probably should have left the great cosmological consequences out of the picture. Fighting off a legion of demons is serious stuff, and simply inserting an army of squirrel people isn't going to automatically lighten the matter. Moore could have written a brilliant book satirizing our visions of death, and death itself, without straying into such tangential territory.
The book is well-written nonetheless, and I believe that Moore has the potential to be quite funny, if he would only keep himself to subtle humor. I have issues with outright humor, with humor that is self-conscious, and I see too much of it in this book. Sometimes it flies, sometimes it doesn't. An excellent example of Moore's sly comment on American values is his description of part of a car as having "G-cup Madonna death boobs." If that doesn't put a hilarious image in your head and make you laugh, you must be too young. The problem is that Moore takes his admittetly awesome sense of humor to the extreme, putting it ostentatiously on display where it really has no place, or where the same effect could have been achieved with much more skill.
As for Moore's characters, they are well developed and the reader can follow the change in Charlie as he goes from mild-mannered junk dealer to warrior. There aren't really any unnecessary characters, although the character of Audrey is a little jumbled, as she enters late and ends up confusing the plot.
All told, I think that Moore would be fine in another context, but that he got in a bit over his head here, a bit out of his genre. I'm definitely interested to see what he does in his other books, but I'm kind of disappointed by this first glimpse.
Grade: B
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