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Review: Just A Geek
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© 9-10-04 Dr. Neale
Monks
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- Book: Just A Geek
- Author: Wil Wheaton
- Publisher: O'Reilly
- Publication Date: June 2004
- ISBN: 0-596-00768-X
- Info: xxvi + 269
- Price: $24.95
Let's get this out of the way right now: if you
come to this book looking for Star Trek gossip and
wry recollections of life among the Klingons, you're
going to be disappointed. Wil Wheaton's autobiographic
melange of weblog and memoir is something far, far
more important.
For a world where fame is instant and independent
of talent, and where reality television cranks out
disposable celebrities willingly sell their souls
for fifteen minutes of fame, Wheaton has written
an intelligent and honest warning. Like the slave
who whispered "Memento Homo" into the
ear of the Roman general enjoying a Triumph, Wheaton
reminds us that celebrities are as vulnerable to
the vicissitudes of fate as the rest of us. Starring
in a hit TV show or getting an Oscar nomination
in no way guarantees that the casting calls and
party invitations will continue to come.
The book consists of three distinct elements. Most
of the book is written in an informal and intimate
autobiographical mode that Wheaton handles well.
Although he doesn't go in for gratuitous name-dropping,
there are plenty of incidents that involve other
actors including members of the Star Trek cast.
These provide nice links between what the readers
know of Wheaton's life and Wheaton's own perspective
on his career and family. While there are a few
triumphs, most of the events that Wheaton recounts
are failures, but what makes his storytelling so
engaging is that he slots in passages taken from
the weblogs he wrote at the same time as the event
took place.
These weblogs are Wheaton's second writing mode
and the one for which he is now becoming increasingly
well known. At the time of writing them he is often
bullish, not to say disingenuous, and it is the
way he juxtaposes what he wanted to say back then,
with what he really knew to be the truth, that makes
the mixture of autobiography and weblog so engaging.
Many of the weblogs are entertaining, but at least
initially they were as much PR as revelation, talking
his activities up and diffusing any potential criticism.
Coming back to these weblogs, Wheaton now points
out the fundamental delusions behind many of them,
and makes it clear that the real critic he was trying
to deal with was his own ego, the part of him that
wanted to be a successful actor but had been repeatedly
knocked back after his departure from Star Trek:
The Next Generation.
Wheaton's third writing style is the one that doesn't
appear in the book until towards the end, but it
is the style that probably has the greatest potential
for development. Wheaton has an amazing knack for
writing wistful recollections of his youth full
of humour and pathos. He also has a real eye for
subtle detail, right down to the idiosyncrasies
of the toys of his childhood. Though there are only
a handful of these essays in the book, on the strength
of what's here, Wheaton could easily become the
Garrison Keillor of Generation X.
This struggle between what he was (a father and
husband), what he wanted to be (an actor), and what
he needed to become (someone who earned a living),
really sets up the tension that makes the book interesting
and poignant. On one level, Wheaton really is a
success as an actor, and has achieved more than
thousands of other aspiring young actors can never
hope for. One of his movies, Stand By Me, was critically
acclaimed when it was released, and its screenplay
was nominated for an Academy Award. The other highpoint
in his career is the role of Wesley Crusher in Star
Trek: The Next Generation, a role that has had a
much more ambiguous legacy in Wheaton's life. On
the one hand, there is no question the part gave
him wide recognition, not to mention a regular salary,
but the character of Wesley Crusher, like most synthetic
young people on American television, was singularly
unrealistic and consequently difficult to sympathise
with. Many fans of the show found Wesley Crusher
to be irritating, and few episodes really gave him
a chance to be anything more than the token young
person on the ship scanning the occasional spatial
anomaly. But even allowing for the fact that the
character he played wasn't that likable, most actors
would consider being a regular on a popular, big-budget
TV series to be very nice billet indeed.
The turning point in Wheaton's life was when he
left the Star Trek series to pursue a movie career,
and in a very real sense "Just A Geek" is
a product of that moment. Wheaton's movie career
never really happened, and at least some of his
creative energies were channelled into his web site,
WilWheaton.net,
and his weblog. Luckily, this seeming step backwards
in his career has allowed Wheaton to find another
way to express himself, and arguably one that is
more honest, entertaining, and closer to the zeitgeist
of the age. Geeks everywhere should rejoice: In
Wil Wheaton they have found their poet.
- Dr.
Neale Monks
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