Benjamin Cavell

Rumble Young Man, Rumble shows a lot of promise, but doesn't yet deliver. Most of Cavell's stories show an eye for interesting characters in interesting circumstances. More often than not, though, he seems unable to convert the interesting scenarios into interesting stories. Too many characters don't quite make sense. Too much of the sex and violence is perfunctory. Too many endings are faux-shockers that fail to earn their shock. Too many of the writing flourishes are transparent imitations of the techniques of those manliest of 80s writers, Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney.

"The Art of the Possible" is the best-conceived story in the collection. It's about a politician infected by the superficiality he projects. For some reason, Cavell writes the story in the second person-- a technique that, post-McInerney, almost inevitably comes across as an undergrad creative writing assignment.

"Balls, Balls, Balls," which opens the collection, has the strongest finish of any of the stories, achieving a comic universalization of the cartoonish narrator. The narrator, though, is such a caricature of the dysfunctional angry-man that the story is, at points, uncomfortable to read.

Cavell, apparently a boxer himself, brings a lot of interesting detail to the boxing stories. The boxing passages are a pleasure to read, clear as it is that we are in the hands of an expert. These stories, even though they don't pay off, are much more fun to read than the gun stories. In the gun stories, I worry that we are in the hands of a posturing twenty-something.

The fundamental problem is that, after finishing the book, I'm not sure Cavell has anything to say. There's a pervasive stink of cliche masculinity throughout. All the stories touch on competition, or sex, or violence, or the mysterious expectations of manhood. But I don't see much in the way of insight. These stories grapple with masculinity in the same way daytime TV grapples with marital fidelity.

Though I found this collection frustrating, I'd read another, hoping that as he gets older the substance will grow to match the interest of his scenarios.… (plus d'informations)