City of Thieves and Paris Trout: Two Masculine Books of Tragedy
James DuganWhen I was given the book City of Thievesby David Benioff by a friend, she remarked that she was amazed at how masculine the book was. I didn’t comment on her words knowing that she knows and reads plenty of books, but I was taken back by the idea that a book could be either male or female. Now with just a rudimentary understanding of literature, we can break down the topic into male’s war books and female’s romance tomes. She is right and books do take a gender perspective not only in the topic or subject, but also in words and depiction of character. The last two books I read, the one above and Pete Dexter’s Paris Trout, are centered around male characters with a focus on how well they deal with the tragedy and complexity inherited in modern world. Their values are in their male character studies; their entertainment is in the caustic, over the top plots; and their pleasure is in their bare bone writing style that is geared for the pleasure of one who reads history and newspapers.
Paris Trout is a hard hitting, blunt story that creates a character as likeable as Ebenezer Scrooge but with no salvation at the end. Paris Trout does not deserve salvation, nor does the reader want him to have it. Pete Dexter is adept at creating these villainous characters like he did in his more famous work Deadwood. The plot deals with Paris killing two black women in their home because their brother refused to pay back a car loan. His unrepentant attitude is matched by his racist obstinacy in his refusing to believe he was not justified in killing these innocent two because of business and his being white. He tortures his wife and yet none of the town refuses to stand up to him out of fear and retribution. This man of the 1950’s Georgia was much better suited for the old South and his ideals are crushed by the sentiment and actions of two lawyers who are disgusted by the presence of this man. The beauty of this book is not in its writing, which is straightforward with easy to read chapters filled with sex, violence and drinking. Or is it in its predictable ending, which the author never tries to hide the tragedy coming for the main characters. The beauty is for the reader who has despised this main character for two hundred pages when we feel his humanity as Dexter creates a haunting and tragic ending for the town. Dexter offers us humanity even when we don’t want it, don’t understand it, and don’t deserve it. Racism, sexism and judicial corruption do not end with Paris’ death, for it is part of our history as America. But the end reveals a chance to start again if we never forget Paris Trout.
City of Thieves is an enjoyable book that mixes intense tragedy with humor in the most forlorn setting of Russia during the Nazi German invasion of Petersburg. Almost incomprehensible poverty mixed with the heinous violence fills the pages in this quick but powerful read that takes the reader and its two young protagonists to the point of death multiple times. The writer David Benioff’s gift is to never forget that the reader needs romance and humor to help us survive in the most gruesome environments. As the protagonists, Lev and Kolya, scramble to save their lives from both the Russian command and the German death squads, Benioff gives us the hope in the human’s ability to survive and come to age when you believe in your friends and keep moving. The book reminds you of the Tarantino’s film Inglorious Bastards in its balance of humor and violence, but surpasses the movie by its depth of humanity and suffering that this historic period placed on the people of Russia. Unlike Paris Trout, the ending will restore your hope for the future by allowing one of the protagonists to live, but there is no doubt your consciousness will be opened by the experience.
These two books are hard hitting novels that will reveal the pain and suffering humans are capable of placing on one another. In the news each day we are confronted with violence and tragedy and it makes us immune unless it comes uncomfortably close. Paris Trout and City of Thieves offer us a literary approach that will make you question your actions as well as our collective history. They will put you face to face with tragedy as well as the greater trait of humanity, its ability to survive. They are powerful masculine books that will leave you shaking with emotion, but a better human for the experience.
Reader Comments (3)
When I said that City of Thieves had a masculine quality to it, I did not mean it negatively(contrary to my reputation.) I honestly enjoyed the book. I probably liked it more because of its masculine voice. For several weeks I have been struggling to finish A Fine Balance. I feel absolutely nothing when I read it, maybe because its point of view is so neutral. For better or for worse, I love a book told in the first person. I want to be invited into another person's story. Masculine or feminine, I want to know the narrator. Without a unique voice, I feel disconnected. In City of Thieves, I was so taken by the boyish quality of the narrator. He was starving, and yet his virginity still haunted him. The horrific experience that he endured was somehow just a setting for his coming of age story. Without that distinct masculine voice, the story would overshadow the experience.
Thanks for reading it! Maybe I will get to Paris Trout if I ever finish this nearly 600 page story of loss without a voice.
You were right on with the boy's narrator voice. It had a quality of personal insecurity that seemed larger than the social insecurities that could not have been worst.
Few writers can write in the third person and make it capturing in regards to plot. I think of the Russian authors that seemed to do it so well. I also think of 18th century English writers like Dickens, Hardy and Bronte. It requires a more patient reader who is reading for leisure. But I like the first person because the story speeds and the character seems built immediately, as if they were fully formed.
I think the most intriguing character was the female sharp shooter even in this masculine novel. She exuded confidence and stoic existence and yet the narrator never relinguishes her female attributes that attracts the protaginists. Without her, the book would not work. I think the male and female quality of the book exists in the setting.
I just never thought of a book being defined as male or female. I would like to go back to the books I have read and try to put them into the two categories. Thanks for your response and thanks for the read. I would like to see if there are studies that define a book based on gender instead of time periods or nationalities.
What would be your most distinctly gender specific book? Many of the books in school curriculums are female in their perspective especially Farewell to Arms and Of Mice and Men because of the depth of emotion and relative insecurity of the characters.
Thanks for the reply.
I think that it is so interesting that you would characterize Farewell to Arms and Of Mice and Men as feminine. I tend to think that most of what we teach in school is masculine. I guess you can never take the reader completely away from the text.
I do not enjoy Dickens or Bronte. The style of the book that I am reading has been compared to Dickens. I have to admit that I am not a patient reader. I wish that I could be - it is definitely something I need work on. I just find third-person too removed to enjoy, and at this point in my life, I need reading to be an escape, not work. Hopefully there will come a time again when the challenge of a book is something that I can fit into my life.
A gender specific book? That is really hard to say (especially since I probably would have thought of Hemingway and Steinbeck as masculine writers.) I think of Toni Morrison's work as feminine. I have never enjoyed reading her books, but they seem to reflect a female's consciousness. I am not sure if that is the right choice of words, but when I read her last book, I felt like the characters and story were a distinctly feminine creation.