Every now and then, instead of making something original for you I'll just dump an under-edited article I've written for the school newspaper on you. Right now is one of those now and thens, because I am now dumping this under-edited review of Gideo DeFoe's books, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab on you.
When I read the work of hot young wonder-writers that are tearing up the contemporary literature scene like Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer I get really jealous. I’m jealous of their talent and that they’ve written incredibly popular, relatively respected works . . . but it’s not like I could have written “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”, so my jealousy is sort of pointless. However, over winter break I discovered the “The Pirates! In an Adventure with . . .” books by Gideon DeFoe and I’m now also really jealous of Mr. DeFoe, not because he possesses a talent that towers over me and all those around him, but because, dang it, I could have written ridiculous pirate books as stupid as these but he beat me to it.
According to the jacket of DeFoe’s first pirate book, “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists,” Gideon DeFoe is twenty-eight (just like me!), lives in London, and wrote “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists” to “convince a woman to leave her boyfriend for him. She didn’t.” (And, as you need to know this, the jacket of DeFoe’s second Pirates! Book [he’s only written two so far] “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab”, DeFoe, like all the English, lives with his butler in a castle and spends most of his time having jousts). The Pirates! stories are simple tales detailing the adventures of the Pirate Captain and the simple-minded crew of his ship . . . so far, the Pirate Captain and his crew have adventured with a scientists (a young Charles Darwin) and helped Ahab track down Moby Dick.
Oh, wait, before I go on, I need to tell you that these The Pirates! books aren’t childrens’ books, it’s not like I’m reviewing the Series of Unfortunate Events series here, seriously. I have standards.
Anyway, as I was saying, DeFoe’s The Pirates! adventures are simple, stupid tales of simple, stupid pirates adventuring along in a very British, Monty Pythony way, and if you have patience for the bored crew of a pirate ship gathering jellyfish to try to build a “bouncy castle”, you might just enjoy The Pirates! adventures . . . perhaps a little too much, even. Consider this scene from the first book in which the Pirate Captain is engaged in a game of poker with a bunch of pigs at stake (according to DeFoe, pirates love ham, I’ll allow him that embellishment) against his pirate nemesis, Black Bellamy (as we join these two gamblers, the Pirate Captain is doing quite poorly):
. . . The Pirate Captain’s crew was starting to get worried, but then the Pirate Captain had a fantastic idea. He found himself with another useless hand but this time, instead of thumping the table and looking miserable, he gave a big grin, and whispered loudly to the pirate who wore a scarf, ‘We’ll be feasting on that forty head of hog, with this brilliant hand!’
Black Bellamy heard this, and decided to fold. The Pirate Captain shuffled the pile of doubloons into his pockets. Black Bellamy saw his cards and gasped.
‘But . . . you had a terrible hand! Garbage!”
‘Yes. But I knew that if I looked pleased with it, you would think it was a flush or something like that!’
‘You’re confounded clever!’ roared Black Bellamy.
Dumb, right? But also pretty funny, right? DeFoe’s two “novels” are filled with scene after scene of this sort of nonsense, and its enough to make me wonder that if this guy could publish two books of hilarious yet stupid pirate adventures, what am I doing in law school? But, at the same time, there’d be no point to my dropping out of school right now to write ridiculous pirate novels because DeFoe has already done it. So I really haven’t any choice to keep at this lawyer stuff while hoping that DeFoe publishes another book by spring break so that I can read it then and strongly recommend that, if you’re inclined to like dumb and funny things, you get your hands on “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists” and “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab!” and read them the next time you’ve got casual-reading time on your hands.
Trust me, they're good books and would make great subway reading. If you come over to my apartment, I'll probably try to read them to you, but you can just say "No, no, Brigham. You already posted that part about the poker game on your blog, don't you remember? Why don't you tell me about how the pirates sail to Las Vegas instead?"
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12 comments:
Can I tell you how you're one of my most favorite people on the entire face of the planet? Why do you show me these things that make me want to spend my money?
Because these things deserve your money and time so hard you wouldn't even believe it.
Maybe you should stop thinking/dreaming about writing a novel and actually write one. :o)
Have you ever actually read the Lemony Snicket books? I ask because they aren't exactly children's books.
For instance, when Sunny says "Acroid!" by which she meant "Roger!"? I somehow doubt that a child would get the Agatha Christie reference...
1) But I CAN'T write a novel if this guy already wrote silly pirate stories. What can I write about now? To further explore this problem, read the post entitled "Best Books of Winter Break."
2) I read the first one. I didn't think it was unfortunate enough. Had the girl married the Count, that would have been unfortunate. Anyway . . . if a book is in the children's section of the book store, can be ordered through Troll, or whatever the gradeschool book clubs are called these days, and a children's movie is made out of it, then I consider it to be a children's book. I found The Pirates! books in the "Literature" section at Borders, therefore, they are sophisticated.
So that copy of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" I found in the Young Adult section counts as a Young Adult book?
Awesome.
Your reasoning rocks!
"Dang it, Gerald! How did our big, sophisticated cardboard display for A Series of Unfortunate Events wind up in the children's section again! We can't keep letting mistakes like this happen!"
I am going to try and be nice. Please, if the only reason you read briggie is to try and one-up him with your pretensious comments. . . please stop. at least with the comments.
I don't know about the rest of the people who read this site, but I read it because he often has interesting posts and references to interesting sites or events. He's also very good at humouring his readers' comments, and when he disagrees his responses are pretty awesome. Like his 5PM comment; I laughed out loud at that one. Was that not awesome?
And I liked his reasoning, seriously.
Do they still do that Troll thing? I loved that. If I got a little flyer once a month at work that was similar to the Troll flyer I got when I was a kid, I would be so stoked. I loved getting my books. I guess it's called Amazon now, but maybe I should consult with them on this Troll thing.
well, perhaps my insensitivity and pride, as well as my closemindedness and my own agenda of making myself feel better by tackling what I miscontrue as evil clouded my reading of your comments, Ian. I am very sorry. after reading your comments a second time, I feel as though,not only are your thoughts humorous, they are also quite inspiring, attracting. you must be one sexy beast.
WOOOOOO! get a room you two!!!
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