Books that are supposed to be funny often strike me as not
that funny, or, at the other extreme, just plain silly. This book falls into the latter category and came
across to me as almost a more sober version of
On
the Road. At his dying
father’s behest, Raleigh Hayes, life insurance salesman, embarks on an odyssey
that involves stealing a bust from the library, reuniting with his wild and
crazy brother, and finding a stranger named Jubal Rogers. Much to his frustration, he picks up a mixed
bag of fellow travelers, including his obese neighbor Mingo, a pregnant woman,
an escaped convict, and a saxophone player.
Raleigh’s quest takes him to Charleston, Atlanta, and eventually New
Orleans, where his father has promised to meet him and endow him with a passel
of money. I can’t begin to name all of
the ridiculous circumstances that this motley crew encounters along the way,
but each one seems more preposterous than the last. Despite the fact that this book was really
not my thing at all and there were 650+ pages of this nonsense, it has a decent
message. On this road trip Raleigh has
no choice but to leave his ordered life behind and embrace a more freewheeling
existence, at least for the two-week duration of the trip. I am sure I would have gone berserk in that
length of time, but this is more of a buddy story anyway, since all of the
characters of any consequence are men.
Raleigh’s delightful wife Aura is mostly on the sidelines, back home in
North Carolina, but magnanimously encourages Raleigh, knowing more than he does
about how desperately he needs to break out of his routine.
No comments:
Post a Comment