To start off I will talk about the style that this book is written in. Vernon God Little uses dark humour as well as using satirical language and irony. Some of the language used in this book is quite crude. It is a narrative: this narrative uses slang and some words have purposefully been changed to highlight how the characters speak. Other reasons are because the book is set in Texas (and a made up town called martirio), so the pronunciations of some words will be changed with the accent, or could even be the fact that some words may not be pronounced how they are usually spelled. The satire in this book highlights issues found in the real world, which have progressively got worse since the book was written in 2003. Some of the issues that DBC Pierre has used on these books, are things like the power of the media (and how it is increasing), it also shows us our the fascination (as well as alarm) with America and events that happen there. It is even satirical on the law enforcement system in America but this does not mean it is the main point of the book. However the fact that this book criticises America (or the USA) so much, means that it wasn’t very successful over there, this can be supported by how many books were sold in america. Vernon God Little is a funny book and you will find people saying that in quite a lot of reviews.
The main character, Vernon Gregory Little is based on the author DBC Pierre, although it is an altered version of him. This is because DBC was brought up in Mexico (Mexico city) from early childhood into his twenties, and the main character, Vernon aims to go to Mexico to escape what is going on in his hometown. DBC Pierre also spent time living in Texas, which happens to be where the book is set and where the main character lives. These are similarities between them, this however is probably not enough information to make a conclusion from. The town that Vernon lives in, Maritirio means martyrdom in Spanish, which is ironic. This town is so much like a jail, he literally ends up being in jail during the book. Vernon complains about Eminem being banned in the stores. The reason for him complaining is the fact that he doesn’t even have the comfort of hearing something similar to his own situation reflected in a different form. In this book, nobody seems to help him or teach him about things, when he tries to use “scape goat” he instead says “skate goat” even-though he understands the meaning of the phrase. Vernon trusts the people he knows way too much, this ends up putting him in a lot of trouble throughout the whole book. At the start of the book he trusts that Lally will film a story in order to help him, which is something that he did not do. After this he trusts his mother to not reveal that there is a second gun, which she does do. He then trusts Taylor, who makes him admit to being a murderer and makes him to confess that he committed crimes that happened across Texas.
The book Vernon God Little has been reported to be similar to “The catcher in the Rye” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. I cannot confirm this because I have not read either if these books.
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