Enthralling but slightly disturbing (Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre)

Member Name: pinklady123

Product:	Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
Date:	26/03/04 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: interesting comic slant on a serious subject

Disadvantages: written in dialect, sometimes farcical

I picked up this book a couple of weeks ago when at my boyfriend's. It was lying in a cupboard unread as it was an unwanted Christmas present and he said it didn't seem like his sort of thing. However, since I will read almost anything (with the exception of John Grisham books but that's another story!), I decided to give it a go, and I came away fairly impressed with it.

Plot
The book has had much hype in bookshops, especially as it seems to have been displayed in my local Otakers window for ages, and was the winner of the 'Man Booker Prize' in 2003. it claims to be 'A twenty-first century comedy in the presence of death', and I think this is a pretty apt way of describing it.
Classed as what could be called a black comedy, it centres around the tale of a teenage boy called Vernon God Little, living in a small town in Texas. The story picks up immediately in the middle of the aftermath of a high-school masacre, and even though the perpetrator of the tradgedy is found dead, Vernon still finds himself under suspicion due to a series of unlucky consequences. There follows many attempts by Vernon to clear his name whilst all around him see him as guilty and are unable to see get past their small-town mindsets.

Characters
Vernon is the main character who narrates the novel, and we get to see the world through the eyes of a naive teenage boy. We see him wise up towards the end of the book however, and become more cynical and less trusting of people.
There are many supporting characters, far too many to go into in detail here, and they all share one common factor - they have a small-town mindset and are unable to think about the world as a whole. Indeed, they see the town of Martirio as the be all and end all of life. They are all also unable to see that Vernon is only a child and they think that he is guilty unless he can be proven inocent.

Themes
Life in a small town is portrayed in
the book as one which is very close-minded and where everyone knows everyone elses business. They have no ambitions to get out of the town and see no reason to.
The narrative is told in a fairly cheerful but humerous way and it is this narrative which gives the book its comedic tone. Even in seemingly hopeless situations, Vernon gives a teenage slant on the matter and it is this tone and southern dialect that the book is written in which stops it from becoming too bogged down in serious matters.
The book could perhaps be mostly seen to be a comment on teenage thoughts and how, as many typical teenagers think (I know I did a few years ago) that the whole world is against them. However, it shows that the views of young people should not just be dismissed and ignored and that they have relevant views.

My opinion
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even though I did not expect to. The way that the writer, DBC Pierre, has managed to turn what is a very serious and solomn situation into a brighter, more hopeful one through a clever use of language and comedy is a good way of dramatising the event and one which many writers could not pull off. I did find though that initially, the dialect did iritate me and it took me a while to get used to. Some events also become farcical at times and although this was necessary to keep the tone light, I found it did make what was a serious, real event like a high-school masacre, seem rather unreal and trivial. All in all, a good, light-hearted read, but with a serious subject at the centre of it.

Summary: