Bob Odenkirk

DNF at around 70%


I don't like giving one star, especially to someone whose work I greatly appreciate (seriously, Mr. Show is ridiculously funny and weird, his performances as Saul Goodman are sublime, and Nobody is one of the best John Wick movies), and I feel very self conscious whenever a book actually talks about reviews -- with appropriate mocking of ridiculous ones and the hilarious reviews of classics.

I realised early on that this wasn't my cup of tea and nothing like the humour I was used to and expecting of Odenkirk, but persisted hoping for the hidden treasure that are so often found in so so anthologies. The quality does vary with some being better than others, awkward and problematic (I'm not being puritanical and I'll discuss this shortly) to genuinely rather wry and amusing. The audiobook definitely helped in the delivery of some of the stories, particularly the piece to be read at the character's funeral with wild emphasis read by (I think) Paul F Thompkins doing a voice was actually great.

While this was cruising to be a competent, but not for me, three, then the sheer number of vaguely and less so transphobic elements in multiple stories and the not necessarily homophobic, but certainly seemingly exotifying and fetishising someone being gay and into kink. This book was published in 2014. There's never a excuse for bigotry, even when it's being used for comedy by somone not of that intersection. I'm not trying to be a buzzkill or wokescold and absolutely not trying to make more of it than what it is and saying Odenkirk is necessarily a bigot. It just sucks to be the butt of an unfunny joke. We have a sense of humour, but 'ha ha, man-woman' just doesn't cut it.

The audiobook performances were brilliant and any time I hear the dulcet tones of Paul F. Thompkins is a joy.

Disappointing… (meer)

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that one of the best comedy writers of a generation can write about nothing, when he's not writing comedy, except the business of comedy. The trouble is that he writes about it as a business. He doesn't describe his own sketches, or even talk much about the work of others that impressed him, except in the most general terms. This is Bob Odenkirk's life as a series of employments and projects, described as such.

It would be easy to dismiss Odenkirk, on the basis of his memoir, to be a kind of idiot savant of humor: almost unbelievably gifted at innovative hilarity, but with little underneath. But that wouldn't explain how he became the really fine, nuanced dramatic actor he's shown himself to be. That's an unusual transition in which there's got to be a story. But maybe he's not the one to tell it, because there's no insight here.

As a fan of Odenkirk's since The Ben Stiller Show (1990-1992), I'm disappointed, but remind myself that no one expects a Rembrandt or a Beethoven to write a memoir. The art stands on its own.… (meer)