Ok : The Corral The Earps And Doc Holliday A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Paul West -- Not OK
Review: According to the fly-leaf, the Chicago Tribune considers Mr. West "possibly our finest living stylist in English." Well, that may be but buddy he was way out of his genre with this book. The only reason I struggled through the entire book is that I finish what I start. Verbose, convuluted, complex and dry are some of the words I can muster up to describe this book. Reading one of the Greek tragedies that West continually refered to would be easier than getting through this horrid work of historical fiction.

West is a second-rate Faukner. At least Faukner lived in Mississippi. I got money that says West has never even BEEN to Arizona. I will say that this book had a LOT in common with Doc Holliday. Reading it was about as much fun as going to a dentist -- and did you about as much good as a dentist with a consumptive cough and a shaky hand.

Bottom Line: Don't waste your time.

Rating:
Summary: O.K., So What?
Review: I saw a very positive review of this novel and being an avid reader of books about the West, and Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp in particular, I had to pick it up. I was sorely disappointed. So what if the author is considered a great writer and novelist -- the book is neither insightful nor realistic. Worse it is simply really, really boring.

The "novel" takes us through the adult life of Doc Holliday, mostly from his point of view, and attempts to dig very deeply into his psyche. For the life of me I cannot figure out why West wrote the novel in the third person. Given the deepness and detail he tries to convey about the introspective thinking of Holliday, it would have worked better written in the first person. Writing it in the third person made the style and substance seem distant.

Second, the novel just does not feel realistic. It's hard to believe anyone thinks so constantly upon their life in such an abstract fashion. And the conjectures about Holiday's personality don't feel right either -- based on what I've read of his life. Sure, West can conjecture whatever he wants about someone's inner self, but this just didn't "fit" Doc in my opinion.

After begrudgingly finishing the novel, the question I had of the whole exercise was so what?

I knew what I was getting into when I bought the book because I had read a prior review. I feel sorry for those who bought the book on impulse looking for a Western and the story of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Those who did so I'm sure were even more disappointed than I.

I just cannot recommend this novel.

Rating:
Summary: Doc is no holiday
Review: Paul West is an accomplished writer whose best work--The Tent of Orange Mist, Ratman of Paris--may, judging by this abortive, muddled misfire of a novel,regrettably be behind him. Aside from any nits re: historical accuracy, "O.K." simply fails to cohere as a fully-realized work of mature fiction. Intended to evoke the psychic life of the the tubercular frontier dentist Doc Holliday, "O.K." is a badly fumbled, badly jumbled and, for West, disappointingly shallow exercise in logorrhea. Lifeless, pointless, clumsily executed, it is a novel bereft of West's customary grace, wit, insight or energy. The author so clearly failed to connect with or inhabit his subject that "O.K." can only be judged his least successful work to date. Too bad. Holliday is an infinitely fascinating figure deserving of better.