Shane Life

Silent Bob Speaks: The Collected Writings of Kevin Smith
by Kevin Smith
Rating: 9 out of 10

A lot of people call Kevin Smith vulgar. Some call him a “hack”. Some call him really really lucky (even he himself believes this). And some just call him Silent Bob. I call him one of the greatest storytellers alive.

“Indie Filmmaker Kevin Smith”, who has directed 6 films (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Jersey Girl), tell stories. Silent Bob Speaks is a collection of writing that Smith did over the past several years for different magazines, newspapers and internet sites. He talks about everything from his homoerotic infatuation with Ben Affleck to his despise for Greasy Reese Witherspoon. He tackles his diagnosis as a morbidly obese man and his love for all things Jersey.

What first must be said about this book is that it is NOT A MEMIOR. It is a collection of articles and columns…some go together (the story of the making of Jersey Girl) and some don’t (his love letters…errr…interviews with two of the biggest movie stars on the planet, Affleck and Tom Cruise).

One thing remains constant: Smith can weave a story so well that you feel like you are a part of his life, hanging out on his shoulder and witnessing what it is like to be him. His ability to make his stories feel personal, despite their sometimes vulgar (the final “story” about ComiCon) and ridiculous (the aforementioned story about Ms. Witherspoon) content. I’ve read some of the articles before (particularly the ones that were published in the British magazine, Arena, as they were posted on Smith’s View Askew web site. That didn’t matter to me. His stories were just as funny the second time around.

My favorite of the stories is a long diatribe on why he loved the “train-wreck” that was Star Wars – Episode II, Attack of the Clones. In fact, his sentiments echoed my own thoughts on the movie a lot (I really did like it).

This book is a REALLY fast read. It took me a total of maybe 8 hours tops to get through it and I loved all of it. I even found myself laughing out loud to myself at the gym while I read it riding the bike. People would look at me and I’d just hold the book up and they’d look at me with this quizzical look.

I guess they don’t really get it.

But I did. And I loved it.