We’re nearly at the halfway point now, and, so far, I’m not seeing the transgressive beauty that J.T. LeRoy and the others were raving about on the back cover.  If you’re just joining us, we’ve been through ninety pages of Hubert Pubert and the first-person narrator, who may or may not be a) the same person or b) intended to be remotely sympathetic, trying to compensate for their many, many inadequacies by dating girls who are too young and naïve to realise they could do better.  Occasionally they wax lyrical about how they are men and therefore warriors and they seek power as their birthright.  If I wanted to read in depth about people like that, I’d spend an hour looking through the We Hunted The Mammoth archives.

The above is a cartoon I drew when I was fourteen.  Clearly, my Year Nine rough book deserved excited back-cover cover quotes from memoirists who fib a lot.

Back in the book, Hubert reminisces about his bisexual ex-girlfriend and how they once had a threesome with her ex.  Then there’s a bit from The Iliad about a guy whose mother made him seduce his father’s mistress in order to stir up trouble.  Now why can’t I be reading that story instead of about boring old Hubert?

Hubert compares his girlfriends’ political beliefs to small children getting excited about pointing out fire hydrants.  You might think that this is patronising, but when you know what’s coming up in a few sections, you’ll see that it’s actually horrifying.

Hubert has a daughter who is older than his girlfriend.  He makes her work his law firm, within reach of his slimy friends.  Ick.

There’s a bit about the lamia, who is known for drinking men’s blood.  And yet I know that this book isn’t going to end with Hubert and his mates being exsanguinated by one, so why are you taunting me, Nic Kelman?

The first-person narrator blames his divorce on the fact that he and his wife never went to museums anymore.  Nothing to do with the fourteen-year-olds, then.  Sooner or later I need to come up with an insulting nickname for this guy, too.  What can it be?  Herbert the Pervert’s already taken.

There’s a bit about how proud Hubert’s dad was that he was a total horndog as a kid, and another bit about strippers and porn stars and how they’re actually complex human beings, you know.  As long as they’re under thirty, I guess.

(Actually, I completely agree that it’s wrong to dismiss somebody’s intelligence and worth as a human being just because they’ve got a slightly raunchy job.  It’s just that when someone like Hubert tells you how intelligent and grounded most strippers are, it always comes with the implication that, if you were intelligent and grounded, you too would give him a lapdance whenever he asked.)

Hubert is in Amsterdam.  Guess what he’s doing.  Go on, guess.  You know, in How Not to Write a Novel, they warn against something called “The Second Fellatio in the Laundromat”; i.e.- when one sex scene is functionally identical to another one earlier in the book, and only really exists to provide padding.  That’s this scene in a nutshell.  This prostitute is also underage (or rather, would be underage in the US, where Hubert lives), and Hubert again congratulates himself on being so adventurous.  He reflects that she was probably abused as a child, and also that she’ll be surprised when she’s twenty and men find her less attractive.  He gives her a bit more money than he needs to, by way of charity.  I’m pretty sure Hubert’s still alive at the end of the book.  There’s no justice.

There’s a sentence that begins, “There is so much sociobiology I cold bore you with.”  For “could,” read “will,” and for “bore you,” read “make your synapses shut down in self-defence.”  But anyway, apparently men have more in common with gorillas than they do with women.  Well, gorillas have tiny penises, so that’s true for Hubert, at least.

Hubert’s friend is dating an eighteen-year-old model.  Hubert is also dating various eighteen-year-olds, but becomes jealous when he hears that his friend’s girlfriend collects cuddly toys and makes him “pinkie promise” to call her.  She’s so childlike and charming!  That’s totally not a creepy thing to find attractive in somebody already younger than your daughter!

(I’ve never once met an eighteen-year-old who used the phrase “pinkie promise.”  Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve met anyone over thirteen who used it.  And then only the really annoying thirteen-year-olds.)

Hubert’s friend feels a bit guilty for dating an eighteen-year-old, but Hubert thinks, “When he realises that this is something he not only needs but deserves, he’ll stop feeling bad.”  In Hubert’s worldview, his friend deserves to be with an eighteen-year-old girl who talks and acts like she’s twelve.  This is what the universe owes him.  I’ve read books about actual, real-life serial killers that have creeped me out less than this.

More from The Iliad.  Achilles wants to kill Helen for turning men against each other.  Bros before hoes, eh?  Meanwhile, Hubert is impressed by another friend’s beautiful, subservient girlfriend, and even more impressed that said friend is secure enough in his relationship to call her fat in front of his friends and refuse to acknowledge her otherwise.  Finally, we find out that the divorce rate for veterans in the US is no higher than the national average.  Good for them.

The first-person narrator says that it’s a parent’s job to teach children to be competitive.  In particular, it’s their job to teach their daughters to compete with other young, pretty girls for the attention of old, grimy men.  Seriously, My Friend Dahmer is a million times less creepy.

There’s then a bit about Elizabeth Bathory, who is also not going to kill Hubert.  Granted, I’m probably going to see every character who is introduced from now on as yet another person who isn’t going to kill Hubert, but I know for a fact that Elizabeth Bathory has both the means and the motive.  It’s a shame to see a genuine talent go to waste, that’s all I’m saying.

And with that, we reach the halfway point, and I think I’m going to take a break from this for a week.  This book is seriously getting me down, and this was the worst section yet.  There’s only so much time you can spend in the head of a misogynistic borderline-paedophile before you start to lose faith in humanity.  I’m going to spend some time with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, reminding myself that sometimes books have an actual plot, sometimes characters aren’t completely reprehensible in every way, and sometimes sentences contain actual humour instead of condescending pretension.

“The average Vogon will not think twice before doing something so pointlessly hideous to you that you will wish you had never been born- or (if you are a clearer-minded thinker) that the Vogon had never been born.”

Ahhh.  See you next week.