Let's Read The Overton Window pt. 2: Let Me Show You My Eagle Tattoo
(Note: big thanks to twitter follower @waitworry for recommending this book when I put out a call for suggestions. I think it might be the juiciest Let's Read candidate since the Kvothe books)
PART ONE begins with a Woodrow Wilson quote, as noted earlier.
““It is the power which dictates, dominates; the materials yield. Men are clay in the hands of the consummate leader.” —WOODROW WILSON IN Leaders of Men”
Apparently, the evil plot at the core of this book's story originated with Woodrow Wilson. Yes, Woodrow Wilson, the "great humanitarian" himself. He was Not Good Actually, according to Beck. I have a feeling I know why that is, but I'll save it until a more relevant time.
Chapter one introduces us to our protagonist, Noah Gardner, with this little bit of philosophical fluff:
“Most people think about age and experience in terms of years, but it’s really only moments that define us. We stay mostly the same and then grow up suddenly, at the turning points.”
Is it considered bad writing to have these little asides, as though the narrator is suddenly turning into a concrete entity and speaking to you as a distinct character? It feels like bad writing. I'd never do this in one of my books.
“His life being pretty sweet just as it was, Noah Gardner had devoted a great deal of effort in his first twenty-something years to avoiding such defining moments at all costs.”
Why are we not being told Noah's exact age? "Twenty-something" is a pretty big time span to collapse into such a vague term. Most people are very different at twenty-nine than they were at twenty (hell, in some parts of the world you're not even technically out of childhood until you hit twenty-one).
It's also odd because most thrillers of this type feature older heroes with military or ex-special forces backgrounds. I suspect that Beck wanted this book to become a dorm-room staple like Atlas Shrugged, so he wrote a young, relatively inexperienced protagonist to appeal to a college-aged audience; at the same time, making him too young would turn off older readers. "Twenty-something" splits the difference neatly.
...Actually never mind, because the very next page states that he's just turned twenty-eight. Then why the hell didn't the paragraph I quoted above just say that? It makes it seem as though he's not sure what age he is.
“Good-looking, great job, fine education, puckishly amusing and even clever when he put his mind to it, reasonably fit and trim for an office jockey, Noah had all the bona fide credentials for a killer eHarmony profile. Since freshman year at NYU he’d rarely spent a weekend night alone; all he’d had to do was keep the bar for an evening’s companionship set at only medium-high.”
Noah is a lady's man, of course. Gag.
I can't believe there are guys who see this and find it appealing in a protagonist. I don't give a shit how many women he's slept with, tell me something interesting about him.
Sitting in the office on his birthday, Noah decides that it's time to stop sleeping around and get serious. Just as this thought occurs to him, he spots the woman of his dreams (she's literally described that way by the text).
“There was nothing remotely romantic about the surroundings or the situation. She was standing on tiptoe, reaching up high to pin a red, white, and blue flier onto a patch of open cork on the company bulletin board.”
This is the first time it's made clear that Noah is at work. Up until that point, his location is never described; given that the proceeding six paragraphs were all about picking up women for one-night stands, I had assumed he was at a bar or a night club.
Writing tip: establish your location. Do it early and quickly when a chapter starts. Movies and TV shows use establishing shots for a reason.
“Top psychologists tell us in Maxim magazine that the all-important first impression is set in stone within about ten seconds. That might not sound like much, but when you count it off it’s a long damn time for a guy to stare uninvited at a female coworker.”
What the hell is going on here? Is this Noah's internal train of thought? It doesn't seem like it is. Once again, it's like the narration suddenly turned into a separate character. This is really bad writing.
(And ten seconds is a long time to stare at someone without them engaging with you? Give me a break).
“First, she was hot, but it was an aloof and effortless hotness that almost double-dared you to bring it up.”
Glenn Beck('s ghost writers) seem to have mastered the art of the non-description. The entire rest of this (admittedly short) chapter is taken up with rapturous descriptions of how beautiful this woman is and how Noah falls in love with her literally at a glance, but it never describes what she actually looks like. Instead we get a lot of guff about lines and artwork and the essence of a woman, but not a single physical descriptor, not even what color her hair is.
At one point, when commenting that she's not dressing for success in the world of PR, she's described as looking "like a greeter at a Grateful Dead concert." Maybe this is a generational thing, but I have no idea what the fuck that means. Is she wearing ripped jeans and a band shirt? Is she in goth clothes? Is she dressed like a juggalo? I googled The Grateful Dead and they're mostly photographed in plain t-shirts and jeans, so is that what she's wearing?
The writer collective that created this book is self-owning here by trying too hard to be literary. You can be as flowery and poetic as you want, but your prose still has to convey basic information, like what characters look like, why other characters find them attractive, and why their clothes indicate certain things about them.
Anyway, Noah sashays over this international woman of mystery and lays out his best playboy charm: offering to help her pin a flyer to a cork board.
Yowzah! Careful there Noah, you're going to start seducing the readers next!
“Something about this woman defied a traditional chick-at-a-glance inventory. Without a doubt all the goodies were in all the right places, but no mere scale of one to ten was going to do the job this time. It was an entirely new experience for him. Though he’d been in her presence for less than a minute, her soul had locked itself onto his senses, far more than her substance had.”
NONE OF THIS MEANS ANYTHING
JUST TELL ME WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE
There are literally entire chapters in writing guides telling you not to do this. "She was just so totally different, in a way he couldn't describe!" is empty fluff and terrible writing.
Finally, the book gets around to some physical descriptors, although they're cliched in the extreme (would you believe that Ms. Grateful Dead hardly wears any makeup? Gosh, I've never seen a female love interest like that before!).
“Simple silver jewelry, tight weathered jeans on the threadbare outer limits of the company’s casual-Friday dress code, everything obviously chosen and worn for no one’s approval but her own. A lush abundance of dark auburn hair pulled back in a loose French twist and held in place by two crisscrossed number-two pencils. The style was probably the work of only a few seconds but it couldn’t have been more becoming if she’d spent hours at a salon.”
Buddy. Noah. I guarantee that if you go into any coffee shop or large bookstore in any city in America, you'll find half a dozen women who look exactly like this. And guys, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but being attracted to dressed-down women in casual clothes (not like those shallow dudes who are only into bimbos, am I right?) does not make you unique or interesting.
And how can he tell she's not dressing for other people's approval? For all he knows, this is a look that she's carefully cultivated in order to specifically attract the kind of guy who'd be into that (which, as we've previously established, are quite abundant).
“A number of unruly strands had escaped confinement in the course of the workday. These liberated chestnut curls framed a handsome face made twice as radiant by the mysteries surely waiting just behind those light green eyes.”
I want you all to know that I pinched the bridge of my nose and groaned in actual, physical pain when I read these sentences. I literally did that.
Noah takes a look at the cork-board and discovers that Mystery Woman is pinning up the twitter profile of that one 2nd amendment blow-hard who pops up every time you tweet about Obama (I couldn't preserve the formatting when pasting this into my blog, it's laid out better in the book):
“The heading was a pasted-on strip of tattered, scorched parchment that looked like it had been ripped from the original draft of the U.S. Constitution.
We the People
If you love your country but fear for its future, join us for an evening of truth that will open your eyes!
Guest speakers include: Earl Matthew Thomas-1976 U.S. Presidential candidate (L) and bestselling author of Divided We Fall
Joyce McDevitt-New York regional community liaison, Liberty Belles
Maj. Gen. Francis N. Klein-former INSCOM commanding general (ret. 1984), cofounder of GuardiansOfLiberty.com
Kurt Bilger-Tri-state coordinator, Sons of the American Revolution
Beverly Emerson-Director emeritus, Founders’ Keepers
Danny Bailey-The man behind the YouTube phenomenon Overthrow, with 35,000,000 views and counting!
Bring a friend, come lift a glass, and raise your voice for liberty!
www.FoundersKeepers.com”
I checked the two URLs mentioned here to see if Beck made tie-in websites to go with the book; if he did, they're no longer up. There is a real group called the Guardians of Liberty, but they're a UK-based human rights organization.
So looking at that guest list, we've got a woman from something called "Liberty Belles" which sounds like an ersatz version of the Daughters of The Confederacy (or maybe I'm being unkind and they're just fans of big poofy dresses), the former commander of INSCOM, which is apparently the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command, something called "Sons of the American Revolution" which is definitely a thinly-veiled neo-Nazi group, and some guy who made a viral Youtube video.
Yeah, these are the people I want defending my freedom.
Noah asks casually about the meeting, and Mystery Woman is like "All you PR people do is lie, man. You're, like, tools of the system. Wake up, sheeple!"
Okay, she isn't quite that obnoxious, but she's not far off.
““All you PR people do is lie for a living,” she said. “The truth is just another story to you.”
He felt an automatic impulse to mount a defense, but then swallowed it before he could speak. In a way she was absolutely right. In fact, what she’d just said was an almost perfect layman’s translation of the company’s mission statement, all weasel words aside.”
Come the fuck on. This idea has never occurred to him before? Next she's going to blow his mind by telling him how advertising is manipulative and reality TV is fake.
She also reveals that Noah is vice-president of the company. He seems remarkably young to have that position, although apparently his dad owns it, so that might explain it.
Noah takes a peek at Mystery Woman's ID badge, and spots an auspicious tattoo poking out of her effortlessly-sexy sweater.
“All that was visible was an edge of the outstretched wing of a bird, or maybe it was an angel.”
I bet I can guess what the tattoo is.
Wait, no. Wrong one. It's this:
Huh. Okay, third time's a charm.
Oh god where did that come from
THIS DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A BIRD ON IT
Finally!
Yes, I'm guessing she loves the good ol' US of A so gosh-danged much that she got the spread-eagled eagle itself tattooed on her chest. I assume this will be revealed during a sexy, patriotic love-making scene.
We finally learn that the woman is none other than Molly Ross, Noah's one true love if the synopsis is to be believed. Noah decides on the spot that he's going to attend the save-America meeting, in order to hit on Molly some more. Then we end with this utterly baffling exchange:
““That reminds me of a joke,” Molly said. “Noah comes home—Noah from the Bible, you know?”
He nodded.
“So Noah comes home after he finally got all the animals into the ark, and his wife asks him what he’s been doing all week. Do you know what he said to her?”
“No, tell me.”
Molly patted him on the cheek, pulled his face a little closer. “He said, ‘Honey, now I herd everything.’””
Ha...ha?
This joke makes no sense, and I have no idea why Molly says this. It's in response to Noah claiming he's patriotic, then she replies with the start of the section quoted above. It's a total non-sequitur. I don't get it.
Maybe in the next installment, it will all make more sense.