Rogue Male Book

This review consists of two parts:

Part I: A Study of Ratings
musings that may not interest (potential) readers of this book


Part II: In pursuit of the Rogue Male Rating
the book review
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Part I: A Study of Ratings

Goodreads Ratings, such a strange species, aren't they? We've all seen them, we all know them, we've all had some in our care, but still they retain a certain air of mystery. Their purpose: categorisation. Their paradox: their growing population becomes ever more complex and Ratings themselves become difficult to categorise.

This study is part of an effort to more closely examine these interesting creatures.

The first distinction to be made is the one between domesticated Ratings and wild Ratings. Emphasis in this study will be put on the latter because of the Researcher's preference, but a word should perhaps be written on the domesticated creatures for the sake of completeness.

A domesticated Rating is very much like livestock: bred and taken care of by the Reader. The Reader has a field of preconceptions and a constant stream of public opinion feeding into these crops, which in turn are the main form of nourishment of the domesticated Rating. They are much less distinct than their wild counterparts, mainly due to inbreeding and an unvaried diet. These Ratings serve perfectly well for the Reader who considers them as a means. They are used to accompany those books that either don't have any wild Ratings in them or for books which have Ratings living in them that are simply too hard to find for a particular Reader. Like putting cows in a forest.

The Researcher sees merit in these breeding programs, but has observed there is more to the wonderful world of Ratings. The Researcher considers these magnificent creatures not as a means, but as a treasure to be found. Most books don't need mass-produced Ratings to accompany them, for they hold the beautiful beasts within themselves. These are the wild Ratings, and hunting for them, luring them and catching them is what this Researcher claims the Goodreads grounds are really for.

So let us consider these wild Ratings for a moment.

First, you have the Ratings that, though wild, are easy to find. In some books, wild Ratings will just jump right at you. Consider the following examples:

Some Ratings will come at you through their excellence and their abundance of stars and colours, showing their worth with so much conviction they are inescapable throughout the entire reading of the book. You know that what you've got on your hands is a prize specimen, and the specimen itself is intent on flaunting its qualities every chance it gets. These are instances where the Reader doesn't catch the Rating. The Rating catches him.

Other Ratings draw attention to themselves through their extreme inferiority. Their stench pervades every word and it doesn't take a reader long to locate them crawling close to earth, to pick them up by the neck and expose them for all to see. Horrid creatures who give themselves away like a huge rotten egg in a delicate rose garden. It's a one-star-stinker. The Reader catches the smell and it never lets him go.

Other Ratings come at you through their perfectly likable character. The Reader extends a hand and the Rating comes to sniff at it, though sometimes with hesitation. These Ratings can be a bit more elusive, so the moment a Reader tries to hold on to them they might try to slip away. Others stay and are perfectly pleased to hang around long enough for the Reader to point out their finer details. These creatures don't grip the Reader and neither does the Reader hold on too firmly to them, but nevertheless a clear and definite moment can be shared with these soft natured Ratings.

But some Ratings are far more elusive than those mentioned above. There are several tricks these Ratings employ in order not to be found:

One way for them is to hide away in a huge book, preferably of a technical, experimental nature to make access for the Reader into their habitat more difficult. Huge sentences and uncommon words are the trees in which they hide. These creatures are mostly left alone. Sometimes a domesticated Rating is thrown into their dense Woods, but it never survives for long and is easily shot down by the experienced Readers stalking these lands, who are out to find the real deal. Whenever a Reader returns to Goodreads with one of those specimens, he is considered a Hero. Banquets and statues will be raised in his honour.

But some Ratings don't need big books to hide in. They don't need to hide themselves, because they are experts in hiding their Rating character. The Reader can stumble upon one early on in a book and put it in his bag and carry on, only to find later on, upon checking the bag, the creature has changed its appearance completely. What was once a smelly creature of boils and warts suddenly transformed into a delicate creature that is soft to the touch, emitting scents of fresh springs and green fields. Still later it changes into a grey stone, inanimate, with no specific traits. At that point the Reader can only count himself lucky to have it in the bag already, for in this rocky manifestation they can be particularly hard to find in the wild.

These are the dangerous Shapeshifting Ratings. They should be approached with extreme caution, for Readers have been found losing their senses or even worse, their Reviews, over these sly creatures.

The Researcher identified three methods to deal with the Shapeshifting Ratings:

* You let them go. You decide to leave the book be without a Rating, or to bring in a domesticated one to ease the mind.

* You kill them during a certain phase of their Shapeshifting, freezing them in their tracks and forever solidifying them into the shape they last chose, at the expense of their richness of character but with the award of having caught a clear Rating. This requires harsh decision taking on the part of the Reader. The dead Rating will in these cases tell more about the Reader rather than the book it lived in.

* You observe the Rating patiently and watch it transform, taking note of each transformation and what caused it. This is a very time intensive process and the resulting Review may not be helpful to fellow Readers, nor entertaining., since these observations tend to be all over the place. The Researcher thinks this the best option, out of love for the creatures, but recognises the practical problems of keeping a live Shapeshifting Rating in the less than flexible confines of the Review.

Of course, this is all theory. The Researcher therefore decided to attach an addendum to this study, in which he tries to describe his hunt for the Rogue Male Rating. A case study into the life, and death, of a Shapeshifting Rating that was particularly hard to pin down.

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Part II: In pursuit of the Rogue Male Rating

This book is marketed as "simply the best escape and pursuit story yet written", and if I hold it against that light, the outlines of a two-star Rating become clearly visible.

I started reading this book with the idea that this would be a quick, exciting read. A little snack in between bigger volumes. In the end it took more than a week to finish it. What happened?

The first thing that happened is that this book was published in 1939. That's close to a century ago. And sadly not all of its elements are as timeless as you would expect an escape and pursuit story to be. I simply could not identify myself with the protagonist, and the settings in which he found himself were not painted vividly for me. 1939 is when people knew their everyday stuff it seems. A bush was not simply a bush. A bush had a name. Gorse, sloe and any other name that would make me reach for the dictionary and break immersion, only to find out it's all a bush or a tree or some agricultural tool that really wasn't worth the effort. Is the book to be blamed for that, or is it my limited vocabulary? Who cares, this is my Rating-hunt, blame doesn't come into it.

In describing the settings and travels the author used many words that were completely foreign to me, all in order to refer to perfectly mundane and every day things, to such an extent that I felt lost. In 1939 England, a roof is no longer a roof, but this alien thing consisting of slates, gables and copings.

The main character is on the run, I get that, but that shouldn't stand in the way of the reader getting him. The intense descriptions made me feel like one of his pursuers, confused and at a loss, during most of the beginning of the book. When the first person narrator (who remains nameless) describes his movements in and out of the subway stations, I found it impossible to follow. This could lead one to wonder if that effect was intentional, but I decided it wasn't. Or that even if it was, it wasn't a nice reading experience.

The main problem I had was exactly this overall reading experience: this book doesn't really feel like a story. It's more of an essay. The author sat down and thought through the following hypothesis: "I am forced to go on the run." Questions: "Where would I run to? Where would I stay and hide? What would I do? Where would I go? How would I survive on my own?".

The ideas that he comes up with in answering these questions are very ingenious: covering tracks, digging holes, making weapons and showing the importance of patience and endurance and getting along with cats, but still the scientific hypothesis always shines through. The story, meant for giving this academic approach a bit of flesh, blood and warmth, can't quite cover up a narrative that is rather wooden or metallic at best.

But in the end, despite the finding of the two-star specimen earlier on, I found a three-star Rating in my bag. It looked nice and friendly, but knowing it to be a Shapeshifter Rating and not wanting to lose my mind, I killed it dead and its three stars are now hanging above this review like a deer's antlers above a fireplace.

Two stars are for the ingenious solutions Geoffrey Household proposed for those on the run, albeit in a rather dry fashion. One extra star is for the insights into what moves people, what motivates them. When pursuer confronts the pursued, a conversation takes place that, accompanied with a strong inner monologue, carries important philosophical messages and casts a whole new light on the story. A little twist in the narrative that endows a story that was wooden with a pulse. A pulse of which I would have hoped it had been more perceptible, but a pulse nonetheless.

On a re-read I wouldn't be surprised to find more traces of this philosophical aspect, on what it means to be alone, on what it means to lose who you love, what it means to have an identity, lose it and find a new one, and other such important questions. Just thinking about it makes the Rating shift through its five spectra all over again. But right now I can't be bothered with that. I'm just glad with another Rating in the bag and over the fireplace. Three stars and that's it.

The only advice I can give, in summary, is not to approach this as an escape and pursuit story. It's not exciting enough to deliver on that, but don't let that lead you to underestimate this book: it carries a rich message. But like its protagonist, it's a rogue. Catching it might prove bothersome.