Blue Movie by Terry / Hoffenberg, Mason Southern (1997-11-05) Paperback

Good story which works well

Terry Southern's novel "Blue Movie" is often reviled or dismissed by critics as a mean-spirited rehash of "Candy." The latter is regarded as "innocent"(a curious word to use in this context) while the former is regarded as the dyspeptic afterthoughts of a soured roue. I think this is fundamentally wrong. To be sure, some might find the subject matter of "Blue Movie" to be, as it were, a bit much. However, I think the novel is best regarded as a comic-porn rethinking of Nathaniel West(informed by both the satirical vision of West and the often ignored absurdist aesthetic underlying this vision)populated by grotesques from Edgar Allan Poe's comic fiction(particularly "The Man That Was Used Up" - anybody familiar with this story will automatically see the connection/somebody get busy writing an academic paper!). Hostile critics ignore the icy grace of the prose(by far superior to the writing of "Candy," which sometimes shows its haste). This book is relentless in its determination to "go too far"(if I might borrow the title of an uneven but insightful book by Tony Hendra). Readers inclined to propriety will definitely not find it to their tastes. But readers inclined to find laughs at the nihilism implicit in the Sexual Revolution of the hippie era will find this something of a treasure drove. Indeed, there is an almost apocalyptic air to the book, again reminiscent of Nathaniel West's "Day of the Locust." Unlike "Candy"(prosecuted as porn but obviously a joke from beginning to end), "Blue Movie" is indeed at times genuinely erotic. That is what is disconcerting about it. Should I really be enjoying something like this? Southern's knowledge of Hollywood grotesques and lunkheads is unerring. The brother-sister incest in this novel comes again, I think, from Poe. And long-term Terry Southern fans will no doubt be blackly amused by the gracious little tribute to his collaborator on "Candy," the sometimes cantankerous and egocentric Mason Hoffenberg(ironic given the often ugly legal history between the two)- a fictitious adaptation of Hoffenberg's "Until She Screams"(why isn't this in print, incidentally?). One might regard this novel as a comic attempt to drive the reader until he/she screams. This book certainly can't be described, by and large, as subtle. What good is subtlety in the face of chaos and nihilism? Those who take the post-Sexual Revolution sexual terrain for granted will be darkly amused by the content of this novel. Those with tender sensibilities would be well advised to brace themselves. Like "Dr. Strangelove," this book announces - "This is the Void - you might as well laugh!" The novel is funnier and better written than some stodgy critics would have you believe. (And it's a damn sight funnier and sharper than Martin Amis's leering, morally ambivalent excursions into the world of porn!) Terry Southern's literary grace resides in his exquisite ability to blend the hieratic and the demotic in one literary text. His stylistic touch here in that regard is peerless. And, if indeed you want to go too far, you have a truly great guide here to conduct you. Stay away - or go all the way. It's your choice. The book is a tombstone for an era - and a gateway opening out onto ours. Greg Cameron.

Blue Movie is intended to be a biting satire of Hollywood's thirst for excess and the exploitation of actors and actresses by world-weary, seen-it-all producers. Southern's vehicle for doing this is the biggest-budget porn film ever made: The Faces of Love, set in Liechtenstein as the principality plans to use it as a means to boost tourism, and featuring some of the highest-paid actresses of the day.It's a fun if bizarre concept, but anyone expecting a clever send-up of the entertainment industry is going to be fairly underwhelmed. It's one sex scene after the next, and Southern has to keep upping the ante to sustain the reader's interest - thus we move from lesbianism to gang-banging to incest to necrophilia. Frankly, it's all pretty tasteless and mindless. Fine if you like to get your kicks from zany erotic literature, but Southern's point (if he had one) just gets lost under the smut.Style: 3/10Structure: 2/10Originality: 3/10Depth: 2/10Unputdownability: 8/10

As above.