King Dork by Frank Portman
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Book Reviews of King Dork
Book Review: Recommended, with qualifications
Summary: 3 Stars
(Full disclosure: I'm slightly acquainted with the author, and went to high school in the same area, at roughly the same time. My experience was pretty different, although I did recognize some of King Dork's observations, exaggerated though they were.)
In general, I liked this book, mainly because the voice of the narrator was so amusing. It's hard to say how the teen audience it's aimed at will take it--I see a few positive reviews from teenagers online, but the book also seems a bit dense and wordy for a lot of younger high schoolers. I also agree with some of the other commenters that the book is not believably set in the 21st century--the references were way off, and I doubt any high-school kid from the late 90's on doesn't have a pretty large relationship with computers. Anyone reading "King Dork" would think that computers hadn't been invented yet. King Dork himself even listens to records on vinyl, which you have to go out of your way to do. So one star off for that. I also thought that the editor should have caught a few things where the book disagreed with itself, such as the narrator's comment that his encounter with a girl at a party was the most important thing that ever happened to him. More important than his dad's death?
Amazon's customer reviewers have a lot of complaints about the plot and the lack of resolution to the story. I had mixed feelings about that myself; I did think the narrator's own ideas about what "the mystery" means were interesting, and will cause kids to think about their own reactions to stories. But on the other hand, most readers will be at least a little disappointed that the story fizzles out in that respect, and I wasn't sure I believed that King Dork himself would really decide just to quit trying to find the truth.
I also found it incredibly strange that KD would develop relationships with girls that consist pretty much solely of receiving BJ's. I wouldn't exactly say those sections were misogynist, since KD was nothing but appreciative, and would have liked to have a regular girlfriend who wasn't seeing him only on the nights her "real" boyfriend worked. More like fantasist and irritating. (Odd that none of the characters seemed to think there was anything wrong with the cheating aspect of these connections.) Worse, for me, were the parts were KD outlines his view of girls' social hierarchy; that wasn't my perception at all, when I was that age, and I thought it came off as pretty obnoxious. Another star lopped.
Despite these complaints, I did get involved in the book, I did get to like KD and his pal Sam, and I laughed out loud quite often at both of their comments, and especially the scene with the "Battle of the Bands." The constant asides about music could be very boring to some, but I think people who are particularly interested in rock will find they add a lot to the story. I will be interested to read Portman's next book, which I understand has a female protagonist--let's hope she does more than play "semi-hot girl" to the boys.
Book Review: More like Duke of Dork
Summary: 3 Stars
King Dork follows in the postmodern tradition of the anti-novel, which in turn derives from the Dada and Surrealist movements from early last century. Typically, the narrator denies that what he is narrating has any coherent structure, or even that he has anything truthful or worthwhile to say. Contradictions abound, and the reader is left to pick from the ruins of the narrative any meaning to be derived. Often, that meaning is to be found exclusively in the narrator's voice or in the tone of the language. At its best, such a novel explores absurdity that is profoundly funny and unsettling; at its worst, it sinks into a pathetic puddle of puffery. Sometimes it becomes a boring exercise in conceptual word slinging; other times it brings the reader frighteningly close to dangerous emotional realities. Sometimes it does both. And it's very tough to pull off.
So, where does King Dork fit into this spectrum? This coming-of-age novel about a 14-year-old rocker wannabe has a couple of things working for it: the narrator is funny, with a wild imagination, and using Catcher in the Rye as both a model and an anti-model provides the reader with a cleverly employed literary touchstone. Portman's sarcastic ripostes and diatribes, particularly when employed against adults like his stepfather Little Big Tom, seem to spring from an authentic adolescent mindset. Unfortunately, as the story continues, it becomes more and more apparent that this adolescent's mind actually resides inside a disgruntled Gen-Xer with a serious grudge against Baby Boomers. This is old, tiresome territory, about as meaningful as the "Don't trust anyone over 30" slogan from the 60s, and contemporary teenagers simply don't go there. What starts out as a YA comic novel devolves into a middle-aged rant.
Ultimately, the novel acts as one huge, albeit funny, bait-and-switch. We think we're getting a story with an actual plot. There's a whole basement full of mysteries to be solved concerning narrator Chi-Mo and his dead father, his dead father's friend, secret codes embedded in Catcher and other novels his father read, etc. Amusing at first, these mysteries later prove to be tediously complicated, and ultimately fizzle to nothing. The entire message of the novel? Rock on, and make out with as many semi-hot chicks as you can. I can get that from a single Wayne's World skit with a whole lot less time and effort on my part.
That said, Portman does have writing talent, and while King Dork is a failure, it has its moments. I hope he's learned a thing or two about structure, and that those lessons show up in his next novel, which isn't halfway between a novel and an anti-novel. Oh, and that he finally figures out that, no, the Doors are not the worst thing that ever happened to the Universe.
Book Review: more Catcher than not
Summary: 3 Stars
This is the story of what Holden Caulfield would have been like if he hadn't been kicked out out of school, and had gone to public school in California. Despite his protestations about how much he doesn't get the whole Catcher in the Rye thing, Tom is made very much in Holden's image. Tom has a few things going for him over Holden, though. He is willing to interact with some parts of society, and gives more people than just his younger sister the benefit of the doubt, all of which make him a much more tolerable narrator. The other big difference between this book and Catcher is that in this book there's an actual plot. Said plot ranges all over the place, and includes excessive foreshadowing, but at least it's there.Book Review: King DORK, more like! oh, wait.
Summary: 3 Stars
Perfectly enjoyable, but when Times calls it "impossibly brilliant" on your cover you may be raising expectations a bit high. Not sure it really went anywhere. Left it at the Stony Brook T stop because I didn't care enough to make room on my bookshelf.Book Review: King Dork's unsettlingly blatant and pervasive misogyny washes-out any basis of recommendation
Summary: 1 Stars
This book, like many specimens of "teen fiction," seems to be written in the hopes of boosting the confidence of its young readers. Amazingly, Mr Portman seems to think that the best way to give boys the confidence to interact with the opposite sex is to teach them to think of their female classmates as concubines instead of peers. Not a single female character is given either depth nor admirable traits. The protagonist's mother is an addled alcoholic; his sister is a stepfather-hating shrew; his psychiatrist is an ineffectual egotist; his sexual partners are utterly hollow, lacking any resemblance of self-respect. The disrespectful portrayal of women is layered on so thickly that it seems for much of the book that some irony must be intended, that a lesson will be learned in the end, but any hopes for that are stripped by the protagonists apparently earnest advice to the reader:
"If you're in a band, even an extremely sucky band, girls, even semihot ones..., will totally mess around with you and give you b***j**s, provided you can assure them that no one will ever find out about it. Start a band. Or go around saying that you're in a band, which is, let's face it, pretty much the same thing. The quality of your life can only improve."
A number of anachronisms in the book indicate that the author, despite attempting to set the book in 2000 (give or take a year), has actually set the book in 1990 (give or take a year): No one listens to Nine Inch Nails or Rage Against the Machine, fifteen-year-olds make allusions to Ronald Reagan, and no one uses computers while researching at the library. Normally I find such inconsistencies to be a source of frustration, but here I cherish them. I sincerely hope that these anachronisms will work their way into the subconscious minds of young readers. I hope it will make the book seem as dated. I hope that it will also make Mr Portman's deplorable attitude toward women seem dated--a relic of the past, something wholly unacceptable in our decade.