|
|
An amateurish first novel; maybe his next one will be better, 1 Jun 1999
By A Customer
In this short but action-packed novel, Eddie Beverage tries to counteract the popular media portrayal of the "rave culture" as mainly being about drugs, sex, violence, and a slacker ethic. What he succeeds in showing is that, in fact, the "rave culture" is about drugs, sex, violence, and a slacker ethic. And did I mention drugs? I can't imagine that anyone could find the protagonists in this book sympathetic, or even particularly interesting. Aside from the perfunctory declaration of peace, love, respect, etc., that is the pledge-of-allegiance-like mantra of the rave culture, these guys apparently stand for nothing except their own aimless self-indulgence and a voracious appetite for drugs, which they consume in endless quantities and varieties. Even the material about the music, which could have been the most interesting part of the narrative, is fragmented and perfunctory. The author drops a few names, provides some very basic descriptions of differing electronic music styles, and then quickly returns to his real focus, the drugs. The young people whose misadventures form the basis for the novel might easily have portrayed as confused and harmless, but Beverage actually shows them to be monsters of a sort. In one section, they invade a private home to use the telephone, but when the homeowner returns unexpectedly, one of the group, high on drugs (of course) beats the hapless gentleman into a coma with a golf club. The reader is "relieved" to learn, however, that the merry band of ravers escapes without arrest and then quickly forgets about the whole incident--hey, whatever! If Beverage thinks he is going to create sympathy for the rave culture through this kind of effort, he is mistaken. Actually, it would not surprise me at all if the book is a kind of put-on, a parody, or perhaps even something created by a member of the Christian Right in a "mole"-like attempt to make the rave culture appear far more dreary, corrupt, and hopeless than it actually is. The only reason I gave the book two stars instead of one is that I am guessing the book is the novelist's first book, and he should perhaps be cut a bit of slack in its debut :-).
|
(4 customer reviews)
See all 4 customer reviews...
(
