A Bit of a Book Review

Just finished "Torture the Artist," by Joey Goebel. I purchased the book after hearing a Seattle librarian recommend it on NPR a few weeks ago. That concept about great art being only produced by persons/products of great suffering is one that's intrigued me for years (and I used to think I was being original when I voiced that question out loud at dinner parties. Turns out, not so much). I kind of buy the notion that to inject vivid, sincere emotion into ones writing, poetry or painting, one has to have experienced one of the greats highs (winning an Olympic championship say, or triumphing over death) or great lows (these are much easier to name: betrayal, humiliation, true fear) of the life experience.

Even though I buy this premise, I don't buy this book as being a great work of art. It's another of those great concepts that showed great promise that gets foiled by an author with delusions of greatness. I do not know much about Joey Goebel, other than the rumors about him being a minor player in a mediocre band. I bet these rumors are true, b/c the book comes across as being written by someone in just such a situation. Someone that is, who hasn't experienced artistic greatness, and chalks up the lack of success not to his shortcomings but to the shortcomings of his audience. Remember that old adage about blaming the victim?

The main character in this novel likes to define his lesser characters according to their pop culture preferences. Therefore, a woman who likes reality TV and banal everyday trash pop music is of course a shallow trollop. While this appears to be the common wisdom of our day, it's ridiculous (not to mention hypocritical) to define people in such a superficial manner. Some of the smartest people I know do indeed watch reality television. They will quickly admit that it's an indulgence, and they'll voice guilt about spending their time that way, but they're watching it, nonetheless.

In the end, the concept of schooling artists through torture and deprivation carries great potential for a fiction novel. Ranting about pop culture for 200+ pages in the guise of said concept quickly grows tiresome, stale and boring. Kind of like mediocre music and tepid television.