Zijn zoon is een geweldig observator, maakt daardoor prachtige documentaires. Het talent heeft hij van zijn vader, zonder twijfel. De schrijver is meer einzelgänger dan de zoon, maar gebruikt zijn talent voor reisboeken en romans waarin blijkt dat hij de mensheid intensief volgt. Zo ook in dit dunne boekje, gelezen in het Duits. Moet een jaar of 20 op de plank hebben gestaan, ik zou nu geen Engels boek vertaald naar het Duits kopen, toen ik in Oostenrijk werkte had ik niet zo veel keuze.

De hoofdpersoon in dit boek is een Amerikaanse wetenschapper, wonend in Londen. Zij heeft een saai leven, in haar eigen ogen, ziet een advertentie van een escort-bureau en besluit daar werk van te maken. Zo ontstaat dus een dubbelleven waarin ze overdag wetenschappelijk bezig is, maar ’s avonds en ’s nachts als gezelschapsdame een paar extra centen verdient. Haar motief is niet het geld overigens, zij verveelt zich in de grote stad, vindt een vreemde manier om die verveling tegen te gaan.

Zoals zo vaak in het leven is niets wat het lijkt, ook haar bijbaan is toch iets anders dan wat ze de zelf denkt. Het bureau waarvoor ze werkt heeft andere belangen.

Dit is zeker geen hoogtepunt in het genre van Theroux, maar ondanks dat is het zeker de moeite van het lezen waard. Er is zelfs een verfilming, Half Moon Street, al zag ik dat pas toen ik dit blogje schreef. Theroux heeft een novelle gemaakt van een fantasie, een gedachtespinsel. Niets mis mee.

Citaat: “Alles, was sie der Ehe verdankte, war ein neuer Name. Davor hatte sie Mopsy Fairlight geheißen. Sie hatte den Vornamen Lauren angenommen, als sie den Namen Slaughter erhielt. Sie wunderte sich darüber, dass die Leute ihren Namen nicht häufiger wechselten.” (p.21)

I don’t propose to spend much time reviewing this utterly lamentable novel as I have already wasted too much valuable time reading it.

I first came across Paul Theroux’s writing when Wilf Massiah, my English teacher at school in what we would now call either Year 8 or Year 9, read us a chapter from his then recently published account of his train journeys traversing both North and South America, The Old Patagonian Express. Theroux has since then carved out his own niche of querulous travelogues, in which he travels throughout an extensive region, often by train, and indulges in a sustained emission of bile. To be fair, I have read and enjoyed several of his accounts of his train odysseys, as much for the unfolding catalogue of his own reading as anything else. The extract from The Old Patagonian Express that my teacher read detailed his frightening experiences attending a football match (indeed, a World Cup qualifying tie) between El Salvador and Nicaragua. The previous such match between the two countries had resulted in them going to war, and Theroux paints the atmosphere in the stadium as similar to one of Dante’s circles of Hell

Theroux has, however, also produced a substantial body of fiction, although it has never proved as popular as his travel writing. It is, however, liberally infected with the same querulousness and general nastiness. In this mercifully short (although still not short enough) book, the principal protagonist is Lauren Slaughter, the doctor of the title, an American academic living in straitened circumstances. She is a particularly unpleasant character, without a single evident redeeming trait, although she is probably the least loathsome figure in the whole book.

At the risk of being castigated for a spoiler (although to my mind Theroux himself spoiled the book by simple dint of writing it), finding herself perpetually hard up and struggling to survive on her pittance of a salary, Doctor Slaughter is persuaded to work as an escort in a Mayfair establishment catering to upper echelons of society (in fact, an Establishment Establishment,) where she becomes embroiled in blackmail-oriented work for an intelligence agency.

All very sleazy, and sadly not redeemed by any linguistic fireworks or deathless prose. ( )

A quick re-read (picked it up as I was adding books to my library). A short novel of power and overconfidence - Dr Slaughter is young and American and clever and poor and brimming with self assurance. When she receives an anonymous package containing a videotape of a documentary about escort agencies in London she sees an opportunity to escape her (well concealed) poverty as a fellow at a research institute and gain money and exercise power as a high class escort. But she doesn't know enough about the new world she lives in to see how much she is being used and how much danger she has put herself in. An elegant and sexy but ultimately deeply sad book. ( )

You might think from the title that this is a story about medical malpractice, but it isn't. It's more like [book:Killer Crabs|970065], without the crabs.

Rough Beginning
Dr. Slaughter is Lauren Slaughter, PhD - an expert on the Chinese economy, who has decided to pass herself off as an expert on development in the Arab world instead, because China reminds her too much of her ex-husband (another economist specializing in China). Mmm...

Slaughter works at the prestigious (fictional) "Hemisphere Institute" in London. I would assume a PhD on the payroll of a well-regarded think tank would earn a decent salary, but that is apparently not so. Slaughter lives in a crappy studio apartment in a run-down suburb of London, and has to give the plumber a blowjob to fix her plumbing... and by "fix her plumbing", I mean repair the pipes in her house which carry water to the toilet. Uh...

Okay, well... anyhow, Slaughter's character is not well developed. That is to say, the reader isn't told much about who she is, or where she came from. We do however learn in an offhand way that her name used to be Mopsy Fairlight, but she changed her first name when she got married. The significance of this is lost on me, I guess.

The reader is told that Lauren/Mopsy doesn't wear underwear, which I gather I'm supposed to think is super sexy, but actually I don't; and she likes to lounge around her apartment wearing nothing but a mink coat she fucked some guy to get.

WTH?
So moving right along, Slaughter gets a mysterious video tape (this book was written in 1984) in the mail, unsolicited, which extolls the virtues of prostitution. Convinced (that was easy!), she becomes a prostitute- or really I guess a callgirl. This book really does have a very low opinion of the value of a PhD in Chinese economy.

Many pages are spent describing the preferences of Dr. Slaughter's many clients, and the activities which follow.

Eventually, a client kidnaps her and maybe wants to kill her, depending on what you make of the evidence, but she gets away. In the final scene, we learn that some bigwig from the Hemisphere Institute had sent her the tape and bugged her apartment, and all the clients were people the Hemisphere crowd wanted to... er, either spy on or maybe blackmail, I can't tell.

So that's the book in a nutshell. It's kind of like a rough draft of a more detailed book which would still be pretty bad, but at least wouldn't have so many unresolved questions.

Annoying
Lauren hates everybody. I'm pretty sure that isn't hyperbole. Unless I'm missing some minor figure, there really isn't a single character in this book whom Lauren doesn't find loathsome in one way or another. She hates tough guys because they're bullies. She hates nice guys because they're weak. Those are the only things a guy can be, by the way: tough or nice. She doesn't respect men who are attracted to her, because they are so malleable. She resents (and questions the masculinity of) men who aren't attracted to her. She assumes other women hate her out of jealousy, because she is so beautiful. So who's left? Nobody. She pretty much didn't like anybody, and after about twenty pages of her bitching about how much she hates everybody, and how much she hates London, that is about enough for me.

Unresolved Questions

1)What does the Hemisphere Institute want? What is its purpose?

2)Why did the Hemispheres suddenly decide the little prostitution game with Slaughter was finished? If it was working so great, why try to kill her?

3) Who was this General running the Hemisphere Institute?

4) Did that Lord Bulbeck know about the Hemispheres?

5) If the Hemispheres are so smart, why didn't they know Slaughter didn't know what the hell she was talking about, when she gave her talk on the Arab world?

The following people will probably be offended by this book
✔ women
✔ men
✔ anybody holding a PhD degree in Chinese economy
✔ Londoners
✔ Arabs
✔ Indians
✔ plumbers
✔ photographers
✔ skiers
✔ the Swiss
✔ bankers
✔ prostitutes
✔ the Mayfair Chamber of Commerce

On a more positive note, many assorted members of the British nobility will also likely be offended, so at least the book has that going for it.

Disappointment
There was one thing which could have saved this book. It is probably why somebody recommended it to me. On a few rare occasions, the story hints at more intriguing subjects. In one scene, at a fancy dinner party, the Chairman of a prominent bank tells Mopsy "There are really only 5000 people in the world" (i.e. only 5000 who really matter). Author Theroux expresess this sentiment in 1984, almost perfectly anticipating David Rothkopf's 2008 book [book:Superclass|2045737], about the leaders of the New World Order.

Oh! How I was hoping the book would go somewhere with that! Later on, the same banker says that money isn't real, which I take to be an oblique admission of the fantasy of fiat currency. Again! I ached to hear more ...but was disappointed. It went nowhere.

Damn! If only Theroux would have followed those leads, this could have been a completely different (and awesome) story. Imagine a pornographic novella bold enough to discuss the New World Order! I keep hoping somebody will write one. ( )