BOOK Reviews
BERNARD TRINK
Merde Happens by Stephen Clarke 381 pp, 2008 Black Swan paperback Available at Asia Books and leading book stores, 350 baht
Expletives are frowned on in polite society but everybody uses them, man, woman and child, in their own language. Most refer to bodily waste and sex. Natural functions yet considered dirty. Medical terms and euphemisms clean them up a bit.
Another way to play down the impact is to say them in a tongue different from your own. People still know what they mean, still they sound almost funny. Which is how a British author uses it in the title of all his books and throughout their content.
Stephen Clarke opened a tea room in Paris and though popular with the customers, the French authorities have been on his back ever since. Calling himself Paul West, he sends up his Gallic friends, acquaintances and enemies in novel after novel.
The writer kicked off the series with A Year in the Merde, followed it with Merde Actually and his most recent Merde Happens. He brings to mind Dave Barry but has a sharper edge. This time around he takes on the Yanks as well as the French.
Facing a punitive fine from the bureaucrats for not translating his menu into French, West desperately needs money to pay it. Made an offer in London he can't refuse he goes to America to generate interest in visiting the UK as tourists.
Furnished with a Mini, given an itinerary to visit Manhattan, Boston, Miami, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, his companions are his French girlfriend Alexa, and an American, Jake's goal to have a woman of every nationality.
Clarke is no De Tocqueville and his observations of the US and its people is more stereotyped than astute. Those he encounters range from hooters to robbers, alligator collectors to unsympathetic cops. Alex looks down her nose at the entire populace.
West tries single-handedly to wipe away the bad feelings some Americans still harbour against the British since the American Revolution. During the trip they make friends, not lasting as they move on. He keeps in mobile phone contact with Suraya, one of the organisers of his journey, who never leaves India.
Expected to dance the Highland fling in kilts at gatherings, West does so after Scotch loosens his inhibitions. What he won't do is join a patriotic gun club which is dedicated to making the world a better place through firearms.
A good quote. "I rapidly came to the conclusion that Las Vegas's planners (if they have any) must be permanently on cactus juice - anything is possible, the nuttier the better. Yes, we'll slot a life-size Egyptian temple inside a black glass pyramid.
"Yes, we'll build a practically full-size Eiffel Tower straddling the Gare de Lyon and the Hotel de Ville. Hey, why not a fake volcano exploding every half hour? And real live lions in a Perspex cage in the middle of a casino."
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