Books - finishing the Parker trilogy; Antkind

I finished the Parker trilogy. The third book is okay. I give it 3/5 stars. I think Westlake realized how off-putting Parker's total disregard for human life can be, so in book 3 (or possibly 2, they run together a bit in my head) Parker's internal monologue articulates a sort of Criminal Code: the feds have his prints on file, so he has to be real careful about killing. Each murder investigation that can be traced back to him is one more roll of the dice. To make sure his number doesn't come up, he decides to only kill when it's absolutely necessary.

It doesn't make Parker a likable character, because he decides killing is bad for the wrong reason, but it does make his stories more palatable. The central felony in book 2 is an armored truck heist, but the actual crime takes place over only a few pages--most of the book is about the planning stages and complications. The bank loses a bunch of money, which isn't a big deal, but the guys driving and guarding the armored truck have a very bad day. We are asked to believe the classic crime story trope that if someone hits you in the head with the butt of a gun in just the right way, you fall asleep for however long the plot requires with no injury other than an unsightly lump and a nasty headache. That's not true, and in real life these men would very likely have life-ruining trauma, but maybe one can believe this is Parker's superpower, like the Vulcan neck pinch, and those guys are gonna be fine. If Solid Snake can choke a guy until he falls over with a bunch of Zs popping out of his head, I'm willing to let Parker have his magic bludgeon.

Book 3 is mostly about Parker and his loose network of indie desperadoes getting revenge against the mafia, so that's a good time for everyone involved.

I call it "The Parker Trilogy" because the first three books are loosely connected; there are 24 books in this series. From what I understand, there's little continuity between the remaining ones. I could've easily started book 4 right after 3--these novels are like Pringles--but I decided it was time to move on to something a bit more challenging.

I'm very fond of Charlie Kaufman's movies, so I tried reading his debut novel Antkind when it came out in 2020. I was greatly intrigued by the beginning, but I wasn't in the habit of reading at the time, so I lost steam and didn't go back to it. I had been thinking of Charlie Kaufman recently and decided to give it another shot. This time, I had a hard time not reading it. It's what I've been doing with most of my free time over the past week. I just finished it, and it's great. 5/5 stars.

I used to have anxiety about reviewing things glowingly, because what if I give a book 5/5, someone sees it, reads the book on my recommendation, and hates it? I don't want to be responsible for someone else's suffering. So I would try to couch my views with caveats and disclaimers, and would dock points for a book (or whatever) if it had too many flaws, even if those flaws didn't hurt my enjoyment of the book overall.

Well, life is too short to worry so much (without at least getting paid for it), so I just want to stress that my reviews are not recommendations. Any number of stars or hearts I give to a piece of media is purely an expression of "how much did I like this thing on a scale from 1-5??" Ratings should only be used as a recommendation (or anti-recommendation) if your tastes line up with mine. The more exactly your opinions match mine, the more confidence with which you can take a rating as a recommendation.

I enjoyed Antkind as much as the things I have generally enjoyed the most. I can't review the book or justify my opinion. It's very weird. It's what I imagine reading a James Joyce novel would be like, based on how people describe his work, except that Kaufman writes in normal language I can read. It's impossible to summarize, and in fact it's probably best to go in knowing as little as possible for the maximum surprise value. If you need a hook, the first paragraph of the Wikipedia summary is as good a place to start as any. I'll put it in a footnote in case you don't want to read it.¹

It's one of the funniest, weirdest, stupidest books I've ever read. If anyone still cared about literary fiction, there probably would've been a big kerfuffle over it. The types of folks prone to hailing a book as the next groundbreaking work of postmodern genius would've done so, and the types of folks prone to dismissing it as yet another bloviating, pompous work of self-fellating stream-of-consciousness bullshit would've done so, and they could have a very miserable time arguing with each other forever. Maybe that's still going on in corners of the internet that I am, mercifully, no longer exposed to. But I get to enjoy the book free from the burden of discourse, and I was glad to do so.

One element I was expecting from the author's movies that's absent here is a strong emotional core. Through all the absurdity and humor and strangeness of his films, there's usually a throughline of very real human emotion to connect to. Antkind has flashes of this, but because the whole book is written from the perspective of B., history's most unreliable narrator, it's hard to jump with both feet into the deep end of the book's emotional themes.

There was a point some hundreds of pages into the book where I realized there was no way the emotional core I expected could possibly be coming, and I felt a little disappointed. But then the book kept doing unexpectable things instead, so I enjoyed it for what it is.

I guess the takeaway of these reviews is that it's okay to just read a book for entertainment. I went a really long time mostly staying away from fiction because I felt like everything I read has to be important in some way. I need to learn something or have some big takeaway. I shouldn't waste my time reading trash. I should instead only read stuff that makes me a better person in some way, and if it doesn't, I should at least be able to offer insightful critique.

But fuck that! That's so much pressure! No wonder I go such long stretches without reading if that's the standard I have to live up to every time. It's totally fine to read a trashy crime novel. It's okay to really like a book just because I find it funny and interesting and it made me think about stuff. I don't need to be profoundly affected. It's good to read stories. End of sentence. Now to find another one.