annoyedSoho Press, hardcover (US edition)
Macmillan, hardcover (UK edition)
288 pages/240 pages, memoir/comedy/let's slag on D&D for several hundred pages 'cause it's fun
US edition coming November 1st, UK edition available now
***
I said recently that I try to only write reviews of books I like, because it gives me a sort of guideline to work from: if I don't like a book enough to feel inspired to review it, I don't. Given the number of books I read in a given week, this is really for the best, for everyone. Well, I've discovered an exception to this ruling: when a book bothers me enough, I may feel the need to review it anyway.
I came by an ARC of The Elfish Gene in the natural way: my mother found it at a thrift store and brought it home for me, as the description on the back made it sound like it about 'your kind of people, honey, you know, the weird ones.' (This is the same woman who once instructed me, when I said I was going to play D&D at Mike's house, 'not to let his dragon play in your dungeon.' Because I needed D&D imagery permanently tied to my teenage sexuality, thanks so much, Mom.) It looked interesting, and I'll read just about anything once, so I gave it a go.
The Elfish Gene is funny. It's well-written. It's solid. It makes linear sense. It is, in a lot of ways, a fascinating look at male friendships and the thought processes of the teenage boy. It's a fascinating memoir of a time and place that I was never part of. And it's the most depressing, upsetting book I've read in quite some time, because the author proceeds to systematically blame everything that's wrong with his life on the fact that he played D&D. He actually compares it to heroin. Quite a lot. All gamers are junkies, just cruising for another fix.
The real problem here is that I can't entirely say that he's wrong. When I was a teenager, I went from game to game very much the way an alcoholic might go from bar to bar. Finals week in high school was a fabulous excuse to get out of class at noon and game until eleven o'clock at night, followed by frantic early-morning cram sessions as we struggled not to flunk out of school...but I think obsession is a natural part of that stage of life. We spent as much time gaming as the cheerleaders spent bouncing up and down. When the drama department staged plays, I stopped gaming for weeks or months at a time in order to build sets, rehearse, and have nervous breakdowns. All of us went from obsession to obsession, constantly, and while the individual obsessions might be weird, the process wasn't.
I learned a lot from gaming. Disturbingly, much of it was related to math. I met my first boyfriends through gaming. Several of the most important relationships in my life -- Matt, Michelle, Chris, Rey -- either started due to a game or were greatly enhanced and strengthened by the process of gaming together. It probably makes a difference that I did a lot of my gaming with adults, rather than snarly teenage boys, but y'know what? I did my share of snarly teenage boy gaming, too.
This book made me deeply uncomfortable. Not because I didn't believe the author had the gaming experiences he claims to have had -- I'm certain that he did -- but because of the conclusions he uses those experiences to draw. It's a much funnier, much more well-disguised version of the 'D&D will ruin your life' rant that I used to hear from my stepfather, and I can't say it was pleasant to realize that, especially since it was so charmingly and humorously written.
Anybody who wants this book, I will cheerfully mail it to you for the cost of postage plus a donation of your choice to my Australia fund. (Seriously. If you want to give me a quarter, I'll take it.) Perhaps your mileage will differ.
August 5 2008, 15:18:03 UTC 8 years ago
August 5 2008, 15:28:59 UTC 8 years ago
Secondly, he's complaining about the thing that allows him to write the book at all. I don't just mean that it provided him grist for the rant mill. My experiences as a gamer made me far more creative and I believe empathetic to the viewpoints of others. Role-playing can train the mind to more easily understand the perspectives of others. Would he have had the skill and desire to write a book without his gaming experiences? No one can say, including him.
I'll pass, thanks all the same. I heard and dealt with enough anti-D&D nonsense from family members, the family of friends who were gamers, and from know-nothing-at-all clergy to last me a lifetime.
August 5 2008, 15:47:54 UTC 8 years ago
August 5 2008, 16:02:46 UTC 8 years ago
The problem is that he's mistaking the tool for the problem. It's like those people suing MacDonald's because they're fat. The problem isn't D&D, it's people making bad choices, and their friends not having the nerve or maybe just being observant enough to mention it. Or being complicit, as I know my friends and I were a few times in school.
August 5 2008, 17:11:09 UTC 8 years ago
August 5 2008, 16:45:14 UTC 8 years ago
August 5 2008, 17:00:18 UTC 8 years ago
August 5 2008, 19:36:04 UTC 8 years ago
I game with my husband and our friends. We have fun, and we deepen our friendships. I met a lot of very neat people gaming, and formed some friendships that have long outlasted the games they started on (or any involvement with gaming).
Pfeh.
Sorry you didn't like the book
September 12 2008, 21:59:31 UTC 8 years ago
Mark Barrowcliffe here.
Sorry you didn't like the book. I thought your review was very well written and balanced.
I'm not sure I blame everything on D&D, in fact, in the book, I conclude that the only way that D&D was to blame for making me mess up my adolesence was that it gave me a reason to sit in a room with eight other fermenting youths when I might have gone out in the sun, maybe once.
I do say that towards the end of the book.
I also show how I met some amazing people through the game and that I had a terrific time playing.
In the end, the book's about obsession and why people become obsessed, rather than D&D.
I also scotch the stupid myths about D&D leading people to the occult.
It's true that I do ridicule my own behaviour, but because I was (and continue to be) a maladapted geek, it doesn't mean all D&Ders are. It's also true that I knew some strange people. All I do is write about them. If they'd all been latter day Oscar Wildes and Mae Wests, I would have said so. As it was, they were wannabe Nazis with martial arts fixations.
I did meet normal people, lots of them, but they passed through the game. Anyone who shared my obsession for as long as I did was a bit strange and exactly as I describe them in the book.
In the positive camp, I think D&D did me a lot of good. It helped me become a writer, I'm sure, and it gave me friends (of a sort) at a time when I didn't seem capable of making any. I hope the positive side does come over.
Also, after writing The Elfish Gene, I've actually come up with a fantasy novel that's going out for sale to publishers now. So D&D might even earn me a few bucks. (I hope and I pray).
Anyway, thanks for the review. I thought it very well argued and thoroughly considered. I've had a few more positive ones in the run up to publication, so if you'd like to see some, do check out my site www.elfishgene.com.
Good luck with your own writing.
Re: Sorry you didn't like the book
September 15 2008, 05:05:52 UTC 8 years ago
Good luck with your fantasy novel. I really hope everything goes well for you there, and thanks for not pitching any bricks at my skull.