Sock

Penn is a multi-talented individual. Here is yet another example. It's a compelling read.

What an exhilirating piece of fiction this book turned out to be! I went in with certain expectations - as it seems a person must when reading a book by the larger, louder, bravado-filled half of the Penn and Teller comedy-magic team - and had those expectations fulfilled and thensome. On to the story. A New York City police diver - you know, the guys who go swimming in polluted rivers to find dead bodies and such - retrieves a female body from the Hudson River one day, and - wouldn't you know it - it's a former girlfriend of his. In fact, this girl could have been The One. So, the diver, along with - I'm not making this up - his (...) stylist, sets out on a vigilante mission to find the killer, which gets even more complex when five other bodies are found that seem to be related to this murder. Pedestrian plot, to be sure. Oh, but wait, this entire story is narrated by the diver's sock monkey, Dickie, and now we begin to see the brilliance of the book. It's got style out the wazoo, but what's not immediately apparent is that Penn - yes the comedy magician - has got ideas. And ideas that actually mean something in the grander scheme of things. Where do we come from? What is our purpose? Why does it matter whether we kill people? Is someone really going to punish us for our trespasses? Sock is filled with pop culture references; in fact, nearly every paragraph in the book ends with a song lyric or slogan of some kind. Having what I feel is a pretty large wealth of pop culture knowledge, there were still a bunch that I didn't get, but that didn't detract from the story at all, because each was designed to go along with the preceding paragraph. I must obviously recommend this book with my highest approval rating, even though I don't actually have an approval rating system. I think you too will be surprised at the depth of Penn's insight. He's certainly got a great future in writing if he so chooses.

I had a hard time getting into Sock at first because it is so darn weird (a stream-of-consciousness narration by a sock monkey peppered with more pop culture references than you can shake a stick at), but it picked up pretty quickly, and I soon got pulled into the story and finished the book in one afternoon. It's a murder mystery, but not like anything Agatha Christie ever wrote (did she even have a sock monkey, I wonder?). It's a well-crafted mystery, though, with well-crafted suspense, and not at all predictable. I found myself mildly disappointed in the end, because while the solution is a satisfying one, mystery-wise, it also reveals that the whole book was nothing but a fable designed to push the author's moral agenda. It happened to be an extremely entertaining fable, and I happen to generally agree with most of the author's agenda (I mean, hey, it's everyone's favorite Libertarian magician Penn Jillette!), but I was disappointed that the author broke character after the big reveal and explicity made his point (and I'm paraphrasing here): "Hey, I wrote this book because I think [spoiler redacted], so don't do it, mmkay?" But I enjoyed the rest of it immensely, and years of reading Neal Stephenson has made me able to enjoy good books with crappy endings by pretending the endings don't exist. (Advocates of positive portrayal of queers in the media will appreciate the book's normal, everyday treatment of a principal gay character, and the fact that his burly masculine heterosexual police officer friend doesn't get defensive or even care when people mistake them for being partners.)

An unblinkered sort of book, "Sock" entertains while it instructs. There's a little bit of Martin Amis here, angry and funny and dark. There's a decent refutation of Pascal as well -- if you like that sort of thing there's another good one by Stanislaw Lem you might look up. The pop culture references are sometimes a bit forced, but more often than not it's fun to think about how the individual references relate to the story itself: a nice, concise way to dimensionalize the narrative. The references have a great reach, along the lines of early Mystery Science Theatre 3000. It starts with the Rolling Stones (great re-purposing of existing material) and manages to reach as far back (out?) to Safe as Milk / Trout Mask Replica vintage Captain Beefheart. Click Clack. As a novel, "Sock" is really somewhat basic, it transposes traditional stock elements of "mysteries" into a more abstract set of events. The technique could be interpreted as a gimmick, if it weren't for the fact that the whodunit aspects aren't the real driving force of the narrative. That said, the prose is the thing and it remains fully charged throughout (honestly: no let down in the second act). In fact, in many ways the story itself could easily be considered secondary. The real driving force is some pointed stabs at capital "F" faith, god and all that comes with it. You'll find an undressing of the notion of being agnostic and a strong call for atheism. Rats, rats lay down flat. This orientation does manage to depart, again, from the typical novel form and end our little story with a sort of essay in unmitigated and convincing favor of sanity over faith. Sock lets you know in no uncertain terms that it's time to put god on the shelf with the rest of your toys and start living like a thinking adult. Given the current tone of life in the good old U.S., this is a brave act and I think we owe Mr. Jillette our of thanks for adding to the ever more urgent literature and ideas capable of getting us out of the dark ages and into touch with a more real world. Time to replace superstition with a more genuine sense of ourselves and the world we live in. Hey! If you still need something to believe, believe in Sock. La Rossa extends her hand.

I think the other reviewers here have covered the bases (or, basis) pretty thoroughly and they all gave great reviews, so I won't reiterate what has been already said. Though if I may take but just a moment of your time. I recently bought Sock as to have something new to read while I traveled on a 2,600-mile road trip. I had already known that Penn Jillette was opinionated and intelligent, though I felt I might be taking a risk by reading him. I mean it was going to be a long ride and I needed something that would keep me entertained. Well, I was more than entertained by Sock; it really offered powerful insight for me to contemplate between pages. I read constantly, modern and classic, many genres. I love books that push the proverbial envelope, whether with prose or with insight, preferably both. Moreover, while Jillette may not possess grammatical perfection, he does possess a style all his own. It's what he writes, the boldly stated truth, which makes this novel so powerful. Sock is filled with truth and emotion, and it points out the similarity and the difference between the two. One thing I would like to mention is the Atheist air that surrounds this novel. Though I'm sure those who hold strict moralistic and religious beliefs might be appalled or even offended by some of the material, they shouldn't be. The way I see it, those very individuals could view this novel as a way to reaffirm their strength in their beliefs, not simply turn up their noses and make excuses without even reading it, or they might just learn something about themselves and learn to think for themselves. I would really love those people to read this book, whether they agree or not, just read it. However, my understanding tells me that they won't. It's their loss, really. I feel so much attention is brought about by the atheist air that surrounds this book. And, as the saying goes: "There's no such thing as bad press". But, Sock is not completely atheist in context, even if Jillette is a self-proclaimed atheist. It's being used as a label because atheism is the most common term. Overall, Sock is existential more than atheistic. When someone says that he or she is an existentialist, no one gives a damn. But, when someone says that they are an atheist, people go crazy, whether they agree or disagree doesn't matter, you now have their attention. What's the difference between atheism and existentialism you may ask? Well, atheism focuses its argument upon the non-existence of god, while existentialism focuses its argument upon OUR existence. Existentialism brings us closer to the reality of solipsism. And, the argument of the solipsist focuses on the fact that the individual self is all that is known or can be known. And that my friend is really the point being made with this novel. Sock just also happens to be an entertaining, heartfelt, intellectual story with a point. Please buy this book. Do it not because I asked please. Do it because you owe it to yourself. One