Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen - Charles Higson
A wacky corpse-disposal caper. That should tell you all you need to know about the book. The protagonist accidentally kills an implausibly annoying customer, then his car runs out of fuel with the body in the boot, then his wallet is stolen by some implausibly aggressive homeless people, so he goes to borrow money from his pregnant ex-fiancee, who implausibly goes into labour in front of him... and that's just by page 30. Which, not coincidentally, is as far as I got before putting the book down.
The tag-line on the back says "Some days you just can't get rid of a body" - an obvious reference to that wonderful scene in Batman - The Movie where Adam West rushes up and down a crowded pier trying to dispose of a big fizzing bomb without killing nuns, babies or ducks. However, what works as a 2-minute sketch in an already camp movie is unlikely to translate well into a novel. Could I face reading more of these zany antics for the rest of my journey home? Emphatically not. The book may well get better in later chapters, but I'm not going to bother finding out. Only one thing deserves some points - in defiance of all style guidelines, Higson actually managed to use the phrase "'Fuck off,' I explained" and make it work, which is pretty good going. Other than that however...
2/10
posted by Alice at 9:50 am
4 Comments:
I would also like to explain something to you: F*ck off.
Not even finishing the book and than writing such a lousy review... I greatly enjoyed this book, very dark humor, very cinical, very entertaining and very English. I loved it and so did about a dozen of my friends who I've recommended this to. They all had the decency to finish it it and then form a oppinion.
You liked it? Well hey, good for you, and thanks for sharing, though you seem to have taken it very personally. Dude, I didn't like the book; I couldn't stand to read more than thirty pages of it; that does not make my opinion less valid. Still, it's always good to hear the views of semi-literate trolls.
Hi Alice, I enjoyed reading your review. It is a Part-of-a-book-review though, not a book-review, heh! It's a fun book to enjoy, not for everyone though. You've made me think about the original Batman movie though... will need to track it down now! Cheers mate! Nick.
I read the entire thing. It's pretty much the same stuff beyond page 30: Higson simply stacks as many obstacles on top of one another as possible to get in the way of the protagonist (birthday meal, lost keys, fights, drunk old men etc.). It all gets a bit too frustrating and repetative, even if you do find it funny (which I did).
Same goes for the protagonist's tiresome rants and monologues which happen with irritating frequency.
This book is one note, and I found the ending fairly unsatisfying. It is like hearing your favourite joke repeated over and over again, until it loses all mirth.
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