Monday, October 24, 2011

Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, by Susan Orlean

I don't think it was a question of me having unreasonably high expections based on the glowing reviews, I think this is a really poorly written book -- redundant, meandering, full of unconvincing stabs at social psychology, social history, and uninteresting introspection.  It might have been a good magazine article -- there is a tiny little core story here, Lee Duncan finding the puppy Rin Tin Tin on the battlefield and breaking him into the movies.  The stories about the television show decades later were some of the best.  Who knows, maybe if I'd been old enough to watch the original tv show, or young enough to see it when re-released, I'd feel greater connection to this story and be more forgiving of its flaws.

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