Ransom (1985)Ransom (he doesn't like his first name, Christopher) is an American expatriate in Japan. Fleeing an interfering father and a drug deal gone very bad in the Middle East, he now teaches English classes and studies martial arts. He hopes that through his studies he will be able to escape his past: The Monk embodied something that Ransom did not understand:
a larger set of possibilities than the
But even as he has devoted himself to this new discipline, he has begun to realize that he is unlikely to find what he seeks in Japan, no matter how hard he tries: Gaijin could not fail to understand that everything
and everyone Japanese had its correct place,
But Ransom was no longer sure he believed in satori,
the final lightning stroke in which all is
Still, when a young woman that he knows through mutual acquaintances gets in trouble with the Yakuza, Ransom realizes that what he has really been preparing for is some kind of quest, a chance to fight against evil, and he eagerly embraces the opportunity. Eventually he realizes that even this seemingly pure confrontation is more complex than he initially believed. Instead of a showdown with the Yakuza, he ends up fighting another expatriate American, a borderline psychopath whom he has offended. This idealistic young man's quest eludes him completely. The reviewers all point out the parallels to Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises and universally feel that McInerney's work loses the comparison. I feel just the opposite to be true. Hemingway's expats run around France and Spain boozing and carousing, spitting venom at each other and at the American values that they left behind. It is unclear whether they are actually seeking anything in Europe, other than the comforts that a strong dollar could buy. Indeed, as soon as the Depression took hold and the cost of living started going up, that whole flock of American writers returned home. Cheap wine may have its attractions but it does not embody a set of principles. Ransom on the other hand, adopts a nearly medieval value system; he seems like an Arthurian knight in search of the Grail. He is morally centered and consumed by guilt over the one major ethical lapse in his life. He is in Japan not because the living is easy but because he is in search of something that is difficult to find. That his crusade ultimately fails is less a reflection on him than on the Japanese culture that he encounters and on the manifestations of American culture which follow him there. I discussed in my review of his terrific first novel, Bright Lights, Big City (see Orrin's review), the fact that the critics' hostile reaction to McInerney's books seems to be a function of pure jealousy at his early success. To that I think we have to add another factor; McInerney is one of the most conservative novelists currently writing. In preparing this, I found a book review in the New York Times where Jeffery Paine is reviewing the book Talents and Technicians: Literary Chic and the New Assembly-Line Fiction by John W. Aldridge. It seems Aldridge bears a particular animus towards a group of authors called the minimalists, which includes McInerney: His chief villains are those authors often labeled
"minimalists," writers like Raymond Carver and Ann
But Mr. Aldridge has failed to keep up with the times
and fashions. Nobody has had a good word to
I hated Less Than Zero so I won't defend Ellis; and I've never
read the Barthelmes or Carver's short stories, only his poems. But
I have read Ann Beattie's very fine novel Love Always (see Orrin's
review), in fact I unwittingly grouped it with Bright Lights, Big
City and Bonfire of the Vanities
If you are someone who actually enjoys the bathetic mewling of authors like Henry James, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster and the whole panoply of modern authors whose works consist of little more than picking at emotional scabs, then you may not like Ransom. If on the other hand you enjoy the work of Tom Wolfe (see Orrin's review of A Man in Full), Frederick Buechner (see Orrin's review of The Storm), Andre Dubus (see Orrin's review of Collected Stories) and others, who actually assume that there are things beyond the personal and that they matter to our lives, by all means give Jay McInerney a shot (but start with Bright Lights, it's just a better book than this one). (Reviewed:) Grade: (B-) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Jay McInerney -REVIEW: of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon (Jay McInerney, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY: ‘Bright Lights, Big City’ at Forty: Jay McInerney’s debut novel was the first work of fiction to explore yuppie culture, and its success changed American publishing. (Kevin Mims, 6 Nov 2024, Quillette) Book-related and General Links: -Featured Author: News and Reviews From the Archives of The New York Times -Encyclopaedia Britannica: Your search: "Jay McInerney" -ESSAY: RAYMOND CARVER: A STILL, SMALL VOICE (Jay McInerney, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY: Did Andy Warhol Overlook Me? (Jay McInerney, NY Times) -ESSAY: How We Fell, Then and Now (Jay McInerney, NY Times) -ESSAY: Roll Over Basho: Who Japan Is Reading, and Why: A Dialogue Between Jay McInerney and Haruki Murakami (The New York Times Book Review, September 27, 1992) -REVIEW: of TURNING JAPANESE Memoirs of a Sansei. By David Mura (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of HOCUS POCUS By Kurt Vonnegut (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of TOKYO RISING The City Since the Great Earthquake. By Edward Seidensticker (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of LIFE ON EARTH By Sheila Ballantyne (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of FAST LANES By Jayne Anne Phillips (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of SLAVES OF NEW YORK By Tama Janowitz (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of SELF-HELP Stories. By Lorrie Moore (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of Infinite Jest By David Foster Wallace (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of CIVILWARLAND IN BAD DECLINE Stories and a Novella. By George Saunders (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of MICROSERFS By Douglas Coupland (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of LOVE JUNKIE By Robert Plunket (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review) -INTERVIEW: Jay McInerney on the aftermath of literary stardom (DWIGHT GARNER, Salon) -ESSAY : Bright lights, big bouquet Brat Pack novelist Jay McInerney has become a jet-setting wine writer -- and the best one in the country (Matthew DeBord, Salon) -ARTICLE: More Than Bright Lights, Big City (NICHOLAS A. BASBANES, Salt Lake Tribune) -INTERVIEW: Jay McInerney on Model Behaviour (ON THE ARTS WITH LAURIE BROWN, CBC) -REVIEW: of RANSOM By Jay McInerney (Ron Loewinsohn, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of Bright Lights, Big City You're Fired, So You Buy a Ferret (WILLIAM KOTZWINKLE, The New York Times) -REVIEW: of The Story of My Life By Jay McInerney (MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY times) -REVIEW: of STORY OF MY LIFE By Jay McInerney (Carolyn Gaiser, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of Bright Lights, Big City The Fast Lane (Darryl Pinckney, NY Review of Books) -REVIEW: of Brightness Falls By Jay McInerney (CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT, NY Times) -REVIEW: of BRIGHTNESS FALLS By Jay McInerney (Cathleen Schine, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of THE LAST OF THE SAVAGES By Jay McInerney (MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times) -REVIEW: of THE LAST OF THE SAVAGES By Jay McInerney (Geoff Dyer, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: Robert Penn McInerney The Last of the Savages by Jay McInerney (Charles Thompson, The Atlantic) -REVIEW: of Last of the Savages 'Savage' satire: Jay McInerney makes his point short and sweet (David Walton, Detroit News) -REVIEW: of The Last of the Savages (YVONNE CRITTENDEN -- Toronto Sun) -REVIEW: of Last of the Savages (Stephanie Zacharek, Salon) -REVIEW: of Model Behavior A Novel and 7 Stories. By Jay McInerney (A. O. Scott, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW & CHAPTER ONE: of Model Behavior (Alan Gottlieb, The Denver Post) -REVIEW: of Model Behavior: A Novel and 7 Stories by Jay McInerney (Austin Chronicle) -REVIEW : of How It Ended by Jay McInerney (Robert Hanks, booksonline UK) GENERAL :
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