I like movies made from John Grisham’s books. I just don’t always like the protagonists in his books.
I’m reading The Pelican Brief. I so want to like this book so much more than I do. Dang!
I read The Firm and The Client and a couple others and I liked them well enough although I enjoyed the movies waaaaaaay more. I even enjoyed Tom Cruise in The Firm and I’m not a huge Cruise fan.
But The Pelican Brief is bugging me. For one thing, Darby Shaw, our intrepid heroine, a second year law student, has no compelling reason to investigate the assassination of two Supreme Court justices. None whatsoever. And if you say it’s cuz she was sleeping with her Con Law professor I say bullshite. He may have idolized one of the justices but he had no particular passion for conspiracy theories. His passion was for booze. (I also remain skeptical that anyone with such a significant drinking problem would be good in the sack, but then what do I know?) Of course he was offed by mistake. Can’t say I much missed him.
But the supposedly brilliant Darby Shaw just ain’t that smart. A smart girl doesn’t sleep with her obnoxious elitist alcoholic law professor who gets even more obnoxious when he’s been drinking. I’m told she’s smart. I’m told she’s the smartest student in law school. But how come the smartest student in law school puts her name, address and phone number on this here Pelican Brief? And then, when this reputed genius realizes she’s in danger, checks into hotel after hotel using a credit card? Every idiot knows when you’re running from bad guys you never ever ever use a credit card. Only in the movies. In the movies the heroine always uses a credit card and the bad guys always track her down. Bad plot device. Bad bad plot device.
Grisham keeps telling me how scared Darby Shaw is. How terrified. I want to shout - Stop telling me! Show me! Just like you should actually show me how smart she is instead of telling me how smart she is all the dang time!
One more thing - Darby needs to lose the attitude. She sounds like a rude teenage boy. A snarky protagonist is not especially attractive. I’d prefer a little freaked out sincerity. Julia Roberts’ take on the character in the film is a big improvement over the fictional character herself.
Complain though I might I shall finish the book because I gotta finish it. It is still campy fun, just not as much campy fun as I’d hoped.
The Pelican Brief, by John Grisham, 1993, 436 pages.
I’ve read The Firm and The Client, but not The Pelican Brief and now I don’t think I will. Thanks for a great review.
Yes, Steph, I’d skip it but since I’d already started it… I thought The Firm was pretty fun!
My favorite Grisham book is still A TIME TO KILL.
His early books-especially PELICAN BRIEF-were loaded with all kinds of errors including telling instead of showing. And he had a horrible habit of mis-matching nouns w/ pronouns, so one character “seemed” to be doing or thinking something, but it was actually another character.
A used book store owner whose daughter I had in my junior English class donated 5 used paperback copies of PELICAN BRIEF. Every day for a week, for the last 10 min. of class I tore out pages of the book, giving one page to each student. When they found 3 grammar or usage errors, circled them and wrote corrections, they could leave early. EVERY front/back page had errors; the book was that predictable. But it was a good story, so at the end of the week, the students who’d found and corrected or rewritten the most errors were each given an in-tact copy of the book.
In an early interview, Grisham smiled when the interviewer asked why there were so many errors in his early books. “That’s why I avoided court-room law. I was writing plots and scenes on yellow legal pads during court when I was also trying to represent my client.”
Yes, Marylin! So much head-hopping the reader gets dizzy! But I did figure that out early on- didn’t much bother me. I think it was Darby Shaw who bothered me the most. She just wasn’t believable. Grantham, on the other hand, was.
You know I never really thought about it from that perspective, but you’ve got some good points.
Both book and the movie - which was better than the book - it is all about suspension of belief.
Was hard to suspend disbelief, Roberta and Sandra!