Tanmayee Yenumula: Outside Readings (Set 5): Book Review 3.20.11

Although Mark Mordue says Nick Cave’s book The Death Of Bunny Munro should come with an “EXPLICIT warning”, I would suggest that Mordue’s book review come with the same warning. This book review, despite being very amusing and acting as a goldmine for a young literary critic such as myself, was highly risqué in nature and language. The Death of Bunny Munro is the “story of a sex-obsessed travelling salesman whose life is apparently spiraling towards its end.”

As Mordue tackles the review of such a risqué book, he makes use of a mixture of criticisms. He uses some feminist criticism and psychoanalytic criticism with the main formalist critical approach. In regards to making use of feminist criticism, Mordue highlights the point that the feminization of modern literature is increasing quite rapidly, and makes sure to talk about how the book seems to counterattack that trend. Also, in order to address the book from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, Mordue asks questions such as what “happens when a talented rock star produces an excellent novel that is an orgy of male sexual fantasies and exultant misogyny.”

There were a variety of literary techniques in use but the ones that I will choose to focus on are: the low comedy, an aspect of the language that was used, elevated diction choices appealing to people of higher education, and the usage of syntax.

Although there was plenty of low comedy, it does not go unnoticed that this technique is probably one of the only ways of tackling the review of a book playing on the topic of sex. One example of the low comedy employed by Mark Mordue was when he described a scene in the book that involved a potentially hot Arab woman, which he commented on with crude humor saying, “oh man, labia from Arabia”. This comment, despite its blatant disregard for sensitivity, shows that the book that it is referring to is much the same.

Mordue’s use of an elevated diction choice to appeal to an educated audience is shown right from the very beginning of his book review when he describes Nick Cave’s book as “an incendiary piece of semi-pornographic, high-brow trash on the borderlines between disposability and art”. This quick description of the book is not something that an average citizen would be able to grasp. Mordue’s attempt to create this review for an educate audience also tells more about the book he is reviewing because he makes it clear that there is more to the book than just sex.

Another literary technique used to create more appeal to people of a higher education is the syntax choice of the usage of long, flowing sentences. For example, Mordue states that “some of Cave’s best writing emerges as we begin to see the adult Bunny Munro from his son’s perspective, as well as detect a vulnerability in the son’s situation that’s truly nerve wracking and borderline abusive.” This sentence would be difficult for the common man to understand because it meaning is buried behind a long line of words.

I can connect this piece to Death of a Salesman because the general story that is being reviewed is very similar to the plot of Death of a Salesman, a fact that Mordue himself can point out when he states that comparisons between the two books “relate to the unsettling use of memory and self-delusion that both Miller and Cave embroider into their dramatic depictions, taking their seemingly naturalistic works into far more other-worldly and troubling places”.

            Despite the extremely risqué topic covered, the book interesting was quite interesting and made good use of a wide variety of literary techniques.