The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’m curious about your opinion concerning brilliant people. Can brilliant people see art in places that the rest of us reject? Let’s say some brilliant professor decided to “teach” Twilight, for example. (I have not read that book myself, but I am basing this discussion on the popular opinion that it is not a good book. If you disagree– if you’re brilliant, or if you think we’re all being snobs, then substitute a different book into this discussion). Do you think that he could read in to it, find some theme, some thread, something that shows, through careful explication, some real depth and artistry?
I don’t know. I do believe that most self-named “scholars” do exactly the above, and if they were told that Twilight was actually written by Saul Bellow, they’d find a way to show you how brilliant they were by showing you how brilliant Twilight is. So it’s not a question of whether that happens, its just a question of whether you think beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. Or, is beauty truth and thus truth beauty.
I ask because I read The Average American Male and I found nothing much redeeming about it. Halfway through the book I was so ready to enjoy the main character’s punishment by the hoisting via a petard he’d made himself. A bed he’d built and now must sleep in. But he didn’t, and it’s not that I was dissatisfied, it was just that I didn’t see the point of it all. To call the main character a misogynist is like calling Orson Wells fat. It might be true, but it hardly describes him.
And yet, what else is he, this average American male, except someone who thinks about, has, or prepares to have sex during almost every waking moment. When he’s not getting some or trying to get some he’s either taking matters into his own hands, or thinking about doing so. If this is average, I am ashamed to say I never achieved that average of several ejaculations per day for weeks on end.
The book is set in L.A. and has almost but not quite the same tone as a Bret Easton Ellis in the 90s. The book is mostly about sex and has almost but not quite the same feel as a Nicholson Baker in the 90s. And this is where I’m curious about the whole “brilliant people see art everywhere” thing. I mean, I’m not saying I’m brilliant, I’m just wondering if there’s someone out there who is who can tell me “what you’ve gleaned re: Ellis and Baker is, actually, woefully off the mark, son. Maple-syrup soaked pancakes may have the same name as maple-cured bacon, but they don’t taste anything alike.”
I’m not sure who I could recommend this book too. Maybe people who think they like to read but secretly don’t, who want to hold up a weathered tome and try to defend it and fail but feel like they should at least get credit for trying. You know, people who don’t like being stereotyped but actually probably deserve to be. In other words: average American males.