Not sure if i love or hate this book...
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Very hard going in places and defo at least 100 pages too long. Quite hard to follow in places - takes a bit of getting used to when deciphering when the main character is recalling a conversation if he is thinking, speaking, listening. Could have been a lot better but for some reason i still enjoyed it. Some great moments but sadly to few and far to far between. I'm still no sure if its genius or pash to be honest...
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U S of Nay
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This was a massive let down. Kelman has persistently turned out brilliant novels and short-story collections, most of which have been based in or around the milieus of the Scottish working classes. Thus you can see what he was trying to do with this book (and his previous effort, Translated Accounts): to show that he is not just a one trick pony.
The Scottish working class guy is still here, but Kelman has dumped him in America's nowhere land. Here he spends most of his time in bars making himself an object of suspicion and making others the object of his suspicion. When he has a bit of time left over he muses upon his girlfriends and ex-girlfriends and rails against bureaucracy.
It's fairly plotless, as is Kelman's wont, and this is not where my problem lies. The book just doesn't feel as authentic as his previous efforts. There are some fine set pieces, but the novel ultimately feels a bit tacked on, which is the antithesis of what Kelman has come to stand for.
It's hard to describe why this is, because, as I said, Kelman has never been one for plot, or characters you can empathise/sympathise with, so such absences are not why this book doesn't pull 'it' off.
The book started strongly, but dissipated into fritterings. I don't know if Kelman felt the need to produce something bigger than his standard 300-page novels (doubtful, considering the man's general disregard for most 'accepted' things), but 'Land of the Free' would've greatly benefited from losing 100 pages or so. Kelman's previous works use patois to develop a real narrative flow, creating a lyrical bounce not dissimilar to poetry. This was definitely lacking here, and is probably the key factor behind my dislike of the novel: it feels more like an Irvine Welsh than a James Kelman, which is no good thing. This lack of bounce also made it a slower and less enjoyable read than 'A Dissafection' or 'How Late it Was...'; and the protagonist, Jeremiah, had less Kelmanesque impudent charm as a result.
I still give it three stars though, because it is far superior to many other contemporary novels and because Kelman is to an extent a victim of his own high standards.
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You have to be persistent in the land of Kelman
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It's not easy being a James Kelman fan. You often find yourself defending him from the eternal optimists who think he's just a sour-faced old Weegie with an axe to grind. Then there's the London circle of the so-called 'quality' papers, lambasting his vulgarity and 'unnecessary' swearing . And to top it all, with his last effort, 'Translated Accounts', Kelman gave us a novel without chapters, characters or setting, a 300 page exercise in unreadability. The devil! Yet we endure all this happily for the following reason. Kelman is one of very the few writers out there who combines genuine literary talent with a true appreciation of what real life is really like for the average Joe, a million miles away from that which the dons of News, TV and advertising would have us believe. In 'You Have to Be Careful...', Kelman has evidently decided to treat us, the faithful few, to a slighly less-demanding but no-less serious a novel as 'Translated Accounts'. We get a protagonist, ex-patriate Scot Jeremiah Brown. We get a setting, an anonymous town in the backwater of the American Mid-West. We even get a love interest, ex-girlfriend Yasmin, albeit through Jeremiah's memories alone. Lucky us! The plot, so much as there is one (Kelman's not big on once-upon-a-time), is that Jeremiah, a Glaswegian, self-proclaimed 'unassimilatit alien' living in America, is holed up in a bar for a night (when he really should be catching a plane home as he promised his mother he would), letting his thoughts slide freely between past and present, hopes, fears and regrets. In this sense, the novel is really just an extended character study, but one which takes us deep into the psyche of a character caught between two worlds, not completely at ease in either. This is a definite return to form for Kelman, a writer who takes his art very seriously indeed. Although it may lack the punch of 'How Late it Was, How Late', or the complexity of 'A Disaffection', 'You Have to Be Careful...' stakes its worth in its creation of a character both flawed and dignified, pessimistic and witty. And by elucidating his personal history, full of the simple tragedies and triumphs that all ordinary people go through, Kelman performs that rare Frankensteinean feat of bringing his character to life. 'You Have to Be Careful...' is a wonderfully liberated account of one man's experiences on the other side of the pond, and with its subtle yet sardonic attack on the US Immigration Service, Kelman is as politically charged as ever.
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Did I miss something?!
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I had great hopes for this novel, emblazoned as it was with praise for the writer. However this should have been the first hint that something was amiss - said praise focussed purely on the writer and not the actual novel. So while his previous work may have changed the world, You Have to be Careful in the Land of the Free could easily break that pattern... and it does. So I kept hoping I was missing something... I think of myself as an intelligent being and do not require a novel to have a traditional structure to impress me. But this never quite took off. I have given it two stars because at times Kelman's prose is captivating - but these moments were too few and far between. I was left feeling that the only lesson I learnt was this - you have to be careful which books you choose in the library...
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great book - bad night
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a fantastic read,
a perfect summary of what goes on in one's head when is on a batter by oneself, sums up perfecly the conversations one has with oneself and others
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