All of my GI Joes died. Even supremely bad ass Snake Eyes fell off a cliff or took a fatal bullet after beating the last bad guy. Actually, the bad guys were pretty often the winners. I am not impressed when someone dies in Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin is copying me and my Cousin Ralph when we were Five.
I needed a break from what I felt like was some pretty heavy reading so I picked up Gone Girl. A trusted friend had read it, the movie was coming out soon and I had seen it in the hands of fellow commuters for a year or so. I am in no way above reading a best seller. As for finding a part of me in the book and sticking to the code I had established for the Bro from the start, well, we already had a problem. I was completely hooked for about half of the story and a little disinterested in the rest. What I was left with in the end was a question and one I have had for a long time. What is the appeal of dark and even sinister stories in our culture and if this is a real thing, and I think it is, does my taste for the grim reflect everyone else’s on the subway?
I love dark things. Always have. Cousin Ralph and I watched the Terminator non-stop when we were likely too young to be doing so. The movie was scary and the good guys only sort of won. Nothing could be better. I try not to give away much of the story in any book I have on here, let alone a thriller that depends on its twists, so I’ll leave Gone Girl alone from a plot perspective as much as possible and instead say that it did its job starting out giving that good old fashioned feeling of doom. For most of my time waiting in the Newark airport, where despair truly lies, I found my old familiar home in the literary shadows.
There is plenty at the onset of Gone that does what I have called, to myself of course, the Stephen King cheap shot. A kid is getting picked on and then a monster shows up? You also have a few bad childhood memories and are therefore knocked around a little emotionally before the really bad stuff happens? Of course, makes sense. I don’t have a problem with an author softening up the reader a little, getting them off balance to begin with. Gone did an especially unique job of this by setting its stage in young, metropolitan romance and the contrast in east coast and Midwest life. The main character Nick is a Missouri boy writing for a living in New York who marries a sophisticated Manhattan girl and after a few tough turns brings her home to live in the Midwest. I should be completely floored by this, right? Of course I’ve thought about bringing home some fancy lady that my Dad could take to the drag races in a sun dress, knocking the socks off his muscle car buddies. Sure Old Man, Natasha loves race cars, just let her pick the right heels for the track. And don’t get me wrong, I did like this part, and some of it was pretty unnerving in its accuracy but this is not what kept me reading. Not through to the end, anyway. I have to ask though, is that why all those girls were reading Gone on the F train? Let’s mark that down as theory A. The Dark side wins in this case because the setting happens to be a familiar one.
The story flips between Nick’s point of view and the diary voice of his missing wife. She disappears and he is left looking more than a little responsible. Nick’s case gets weaker, hers gets stronger. When the story is moving in these two directions it is at its most magnetic. This was when I was hooked. So, this may be the attraction. Point B, the fast moving plot, the essence of a mystery. I love when a story moves fast and pulls me along probably just as much as one that is dense and poetic. Probably more than I admit. Neither stands alone as the perfect story, it’s the combination of the two that I’m searching for, its why I’m here, its what I need, okay, every day I wake up thinking…woah, slow down. Back to the analysis. I still don’t think plot answers my question. If action and twists were all people wanted, and all I was into in this book, then why wouldn’t we read about Pirates and treasure hunts, hidden maps and puzzles? The DaVinci code was big, sure. But why the popularity of the abysmal scenes, the murder and betrayal, the exposure of our worst tendencies?
Things get worse for Nick. They get worse for everyone. Things reach a level of near absurdity, maybe even complete insanity, so that we can’t look away. This is where I dragged myself to the end. I had to know what happened. Maybe this is it, point C, though Im truthfully only throwing in three points to round it off and satisfy some need to write complete papers for English class. We like to watch. We see messed up things happen to other folks and we either enjoy it in some way or we exhale and think, not me. We might consider what we would do if the world fell apart and went insane but in the end we can close the book and go to bed. After I broke down and read the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and thought, my lord, this is just sex crime, how are people so into this, in public, on the train, I started to think this way. This is a pretty easy answer and kind of safe. No one is guilty of anything too terrible. We are all kind of gross together.
The author Gillian Flynn also wrote the screenplay for the movie which comes out this weekend. David Fincher directed, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross wrote the score. Everything should be as devoid of sunshine as possible. I guarantee Affleck nails the character of Nick. How could I not be excited? Truth is I only liked about half of the book and my black heart just isn’t that into it.
The second part of my question remains unanswered. I'm not sure what the appeal of these type of stories is for me. There is a point D and I’m having a hard time explaining it. Don’t we all have a suspicion that quite often things are, well, bullshit? The world is not right and most of what we say and do and even read and listen to is a bit of blind acceptance? Does anyone agree? Fifteen year old Me would take off his headphones and raise his hand. Maybe I’m still that kid. In my head the dark things, the unflinching ones, stand in contrast to the light where everything’s safe and accepted and because of this I like them. No, I love them. And I love them because I can trust them. There is no bullshit in the dark. Gone Girl came close to what I enjoy and I’m thankful for that, but I’m going to have to keep looking for the next thing to terrify me.
