Rating: 5/5
Review:
Brief, bleak and brilliant
This is brilliant – but very, very bleak. First published in 1935, it is the story of two failed Hollywood hopefuls who meet and enter a dance marathon for a prize of $1000 – and also because they will be fed for the duration. Robert, who narrates the book, is quite an upbeat, hopeful man, while his partner Gloria is embittered, depressed and angry, often expressing suicidal thoughts. The narrative opens after the marathon with Robert being sentenced for murder, and each chapter closes with another fragment of the Judge’s pronouncement, with chilling effect.
The main narrative is a description of the marathon; it is a frightful, humiliating, exhausting struggle, in which the couples have to dance continuously with just ten minutes rest every two hours, the winners being the last couple left standing – after what is likely to be several weeks. The organisers are rapacious and exploitative while trumpeting their wonderful treatment of “these marvellous kids” and also organising extra humiliating spectacles to draw in the paying public...and so on. It’s a scorching look at some horrible, exploitative media practices – which still seem to pertain in some of today’s reality TV shows – and at our attitudes to them.
The impact is all the greater because Robert’s voice is unsensational and usually quite optimistic, but a sense of the nihilism of utter physical and mental exhaustion does grow, especially as Gloria becomes even more bitter and disillusioned. The climax is desperate, but told in a quiet, matter-of-fact way which I found gave it a visceral punch.
I found the whole thing utterly compelling and exceptionally well done. This belongs in the same class as noir classics like The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Maltese Falcon, and I can recommend it very warmly.
The main narrative is a description of the marathon; it is a frightful, humiliating, exhausting struggle, in which the couples have to dance continuously with just ten minutes rest every two hours, the winners being the last couple left standing – after what is likely to be several weeks. The organisers are rapacious and exploitative while trumpeting their wonderful treatment of “these marvellous kids” and also organising extra humiliating spectacles to draw in the paying public...and so on. It’s a scorching look at some horrible, exploitative media practices – which still seem to pertain in some of today’s reality TV shows – and at our attitudes to them.
The impact is all the greater because Robert’s voice is unsensational and usually quite optimistic, but a sense of the nihilism of utter physical and mental exhaustion does grow, especially as Gloria becomes even more bitter and disillusioned. The climax is desperate, but told in a quiet, matter-of-fact way which I found gave it a visceral punch.
I found the whole thing utterly compelling and exceptionally well done. This belongs in the same class as noir classics like The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Maltese Falcon, and I can recommend it very warmly.
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