We live in an inverted
world. What Yeats said in his
apocalyptic poem ‘The
Second Coming’ is truer today than ever: “The best lack all conviction,
while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”
That’s why I picked up D
B C Pierre’s 2003 Booker winning novel Vernon
God Little for a second reading. It’s
the story of fifteen year-old Vernon Gregory Little who has been accused of
murdering his friend Jesus. Eventually
he becomes a serial killer who has murdered sixteen of his schoolmates as well
as many others in the town. One of his teachers, his psychiatric counsellor,
his girlfriend and the media, all play cynical roles in making him a serial
killer though he is innocent.
All of them have purely
selfish motives in making Vernon the killer.
Taylor Figueroa, the girlfriend, sees her opportunity to become a media
star by doing a sting operation on Vernon. She seduces him into admitting that
he killed all those people for her sake, for her love.
The novel has satirised
almost everything from the ordinary people who convert tragedy into entertainment
to the media that monetises the issue by live-telecasting the culprit’s life in
the prison and organising reality shows as well as voting by viewers to choose
the convict on the death row including Vernon to be executed first.
The only person with some
kind of morality in that inverted world is an axe murderer turned
preacher. He tells Vernon that the world is run by “intermingling
needs” and those who learn to “serve that intermingling” get on
successfully. Vernon missed the boat,
says the preacher, because he didn’t understand the ways of the world. “Papa God growed us up till we could wear
long pants;” the preacher counsels Vernon, “then he licensed his name to dollar
bills, left some car keys on the table, and got the fuck outta town…. Don’t be
looking up at no sky for help. Look down
here, at us twisted dreamers.”
That axe killer with all
his foul language turns out to be far better a human being than all the
moralists, teachers, counsellors, law keepers and the common folk who are all
twisted dreamers in the novel. Of
course, the climax of the plot consoles us with the straight verdicts of
conventional morality in which truth prevails in the end. But truth’s victory extracts much pain from
those who don’t care to learn the ways of the twisted dreamers.
The axe killer seems to be an interesting character. Would love to give it a read.
ReplyDeleteOf age, I am starting to realize the impact of re reading books rather than grabbing a new one all the time.
It's worth reading. Quite similar to Salinger's 'Catcher in the Rye.' It's a coming-of-age novel which shows how growing up is essentially about losing innocence and learning corruption of the soul.
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