European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 09, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse On Book Theroux takes a look at men women violence by Carolyn see special to new Day w aul Theroux writes about hatred of i b women As though he had invented the a feeling. It is quite amazing really. B in Chicago Loop the author creates Parker Jagoda a Dis likable Looney Toon. Of a Man who crunches Down health food arranges Kinky dates with his own wife Barbara at. The run Down Blackstone hotel a just across from Chicago a famous Grant Park a and places personal ads in dubious publications so that he ensures continuous set of extracurricular activities. Jagoda keeps telling these women about an sex Prience he had in College something that ind. Restly involved beatings and pain Jagoda has h bad personality and an unpleasant life. Perhaps that a the reason he ends up in a furnished room with a helpless tied up woman. But 1 lets pause to think about this attitude toward women. Even As i write. Jodie Foster on a wide screens everywhere has befriended that renowned Chewer or. Hannibal a the Cannibal a Lector who gives her clues on How to find another serial killer who keeps his lady victims in a Well for three Days so that their skin can loosen. And although none of us would Ever buy in who of us has not by now read pages of Bret fast of Ellis serious Little Effort american pay Cho brie and Battery acid anything to change the female geography to inflict . That sex that has been so inconvenient and so irritatingly necessary to men Down through the. Years a a a a. A a. What sins has the female sex committed in american fiction in Rabbit run,.john Updike has a woman absently drown her baby in a Bath tub and in another a Rabbit a volume a Young girl allows a porsche engine to seize up a through pure female negligence. Bummer Nobel prize Winner Saul Bellow has such Trou file with his females that a in or. A Minler a planet a simply to find yourself downwind from a woman is a Little like living next to you la have to Pardon me love canal. View away boys except for , women wont Slop you. They re Loo polite. So when Theroux creates Parker Jagoda and spends inordinate amounts of time on Jagoda a diet and Jagoda a Blind dates who Are plagued with Lone Linss Low expectations and faulty grammar you reel yourself on familiar territory. At some level these women deserve to be killed they smell funny their Small talk is dumb they re poor they done to help the world in any Way they done to Wear underwear in restaurants. But about Halfway , Theroux killer Down a different path. No matter what his wife Barbara a an astonishingly stupid woman a does in the Mailer of w hips and chains and leather and so on Jagoda is unable to re. Spond. Can it be that Jagoda is troubled. ?. Can Jagoda have. Homosexual tendencies what a Lovely message that would be Lor men. Who read this novel. Rahnen done to rape Mur. Dor strangle plunder and pillage Only homosexual men Kinky people Al males would. File 1976 Paul Theroux do such a thing. Parker Jagoda begins to feel remorse. As a method of expiation he leaves Batbara and their baby goes off his health food diet and dresses up like a woman. Then he hangs around in Chicago pics pols waiting for something bad to happen. A men Heap insults on him. Well Why . They he a u a woman Quot alone in a Fly shot. He lives in a terrible furnished room in downtown. A Chicago. He broods Over a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit ? earlier in the novel. Human beings Are strange at the Core of their being. A a perversion is the order of the Day. To be a a Man a if i read this narrative correctly is to kill unreasonably and done to spare the mandibles. To be a woman is to be a barbecued rib. This is a Short novel and it comes quite quickly to its conclusion. Jagoda As a woman has a car Tain amount of trouble getting himself killed. He a humiliated made fun of Jabb ered at and on at least one occasion when he lures a Nian to his room to kill him the Man flees in terror when he finds out that his a a victims is a Man. Again have some trouble with the meaning behind the text. Is Theroux saying that if a a woman is going to get herself killed at some level she brings it on herself thai she has to hang. Around in flesh pots with her wig All Askew until she finally finds a Man who will do her s a mystery to think that Many women have trouble with this a Long wide Streak of american woman hatred that moves from our great literary giants right Down to poor Ellis and his slice of brie. It not that women object exactly they re just clueless about what they be done to deserve the detestation. But there a always room for change for a car a Tain amount of tinkering with the Way men think about women in this country. Maybe Theroux Ellis Utah will finally figure out a new Way to think. Is it too much to. Ask a Carolyn see is a novelist. Like so much else in America sex seems to Bea in some essential Way tied to violence especially violence against women. And in this Laist decade of the a Chury in ways that Elaine Showalter has explored in her study. Sexual anarchy there seems to be a compulsive fixation among male novelists and filmmakers with the connection with the cutting open the doing harm to women As a form of social control. This pathology is at the heart or Paul Theroux a new novel Chicago Loop. Usually a top notch storyteller who can create compelling characters of the psychological marginalized people he finds so attractive Theroux falters in this Outing. His main character Parker Jagoda never really comes to life either of them. For Chicago Loop is really the Story of Jagoda a double life As successful Yuppie Developer husband and father and As Kinky Quot sexual deviant who places ads in the. Personal columns and haunts the seedier sections a of Chicago. A 1 a sometimes ii seems Jagoda is unaware of his a a. Double identity at other times he seems to revel in it taking perverse pleasure in the casual lies he. Tells strangers. Ultimately the perversity wins outland he murders one of the women he has met. A. The murder a or perhaps it is his guilt its a never quite Clear a brings about his slow Disint. Gratiot and increasing desperation to either be caught or perhaps to murder again. It is this disintegration Theroux minutely chronicles. Even on an off Day Theroux is a better More interesting writer than Brett Easton Ellis who. Covers some of the same ground in his sensationalist american psycho. And Theroux is much More tasteful even though Chicago Loop is not a pleasant Book to read. It is unsettling. A but the failure to get beyond the surface of Jagoda to Cven hint at what might be the reason for the eras compulsion to do violence to women and in which Jagoda participates makes the. Book finally disappointing David e. Anderson United press International reviews something to die for by James Webb. Morrow 33ft pages $19.95 a this novel by a former Secretary of the Navy written before the 100-hour ground War to Liber. Ate Kuwait describes skirmish in the same re. Gion and raises issues that apply to the recent real life Battle. In Webb a Story a conflict Between Ethiopia and rebels in its eritrean province on the red sea draws in cuban and French forces first then soviet and american forces. It ends As fast As it starts hut not before taking american lives. Webb has enough on the Bells and whistles of War to qualify this As a techno thriller the genre taken to new Heights of popularity by Tom clan by but where Clancy an outsider dependent on the Goodwill of Friendly sources for his inside in. Formation mostly glorifies the people involved. Webb has been on the inside himself and knows the Seamer Side of politics and policy. And states it. In a Robert Ludlum thriller every connected and it s All a plot. Webb a characters plot too. But often they Are driven by the random Tim ing of events beyond their control. Anyone who. Has covered Washington can Tell you a great Deal of what happens in. The capital does indeed happen by Accident or Caprice. Its notable though that much of what Webb makes Clear should be done. Desert storm com Manders did. A a Howard Dick us. United press International All books reviewed on this Page Are available As Siars and stripes v. A. Pages a sunday june 9, 1991
