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Man with the Golden Arm
For some reason I decided I waned to rent The Man with the Golden Arm film before I read the book. Sacrilege, I know. I wanted to read it in only a vague kind of way. I feel super-saturated by drug literature and movies, and I thought maybe if I saw the movie first, it would help get me through the book. All I could find was a beat up VHS, but I decided to give it a try. In the movie, Frankie Machine is Frank Sinatra. Handsome devil low on his luck. I was getting into it despite the terrible quality of the tape. Then Zosh came on with her shrill voice and her wheelchair and her hysterics. I hated her already. As soon as Frankie left the room, Zosh stood up from her wheelchair. "Bitch!" I yelled. I turned off the tape. So what surprised me most about the book was that I didn't hate Zosh. She was still shrill and whiny; she could probably even walk, although her refusal to was less conscious. Nelson Algren managed to gradually turn her from a character we hated to a character we sympathized with and, yes, even identified with. Even the most token characters were three dimensional. The action revolved around characters living in and around one apartment building in the Polish section of Chicago. Frankie avoided Zosh as much as possible, staying out late dealing poker games and shooting up heroin. Sparrow, Frankie's shadow, moved in with Violet while she was still living with her husband. Mary and John had fights lasting for days, until John left and Frankie fell in love with her. Although Frankie is the focus of the book, each character has a full story behind them. Algren's style is tight and gorgeous. His writing is so precise, it makes James Frey's drug addiction writing look like a childish, uncontrolled rant. Algren writes passages that can make you weep. It's not easy reading; Man with the Golden Arm and Walk on the Wild Side, the most famous of his other books, are both books you must completely immerse yourself in and concentrate on fully. It's a shame that Algren has become more of a cult writer. His name should be mentioned in the same breath as Steinbeck and Hemingway.  |
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