The Ingenious Sarcastic Doctor Strikes Again! But This Time As An Author

The Gun Seller :

Tout Est Sous Contrôle: 

By Hugh Laurie

God and the doctor we like adore' 

But only when in danger, not before"  - JOHN OWEN

First and foremost I would like to point out that I am a big fan of Hugh Laurie mostly because of his character of 'Gregory House' the deadly sarcastic ingenious Dean of the diagnostic medicines. So I had HUGE expectations when I came to know about his first novel - "The Gun Seller". And to say I have genuinely enjoyed every moment of reading it would not be over-board by any chance.

A Little about the Author:

   Well to be frank I don't know about you butpersonally I always want the celebrities who I admire for their roles to be most likely, if not exactly, to be like the character they portray on screen. But usually that ends up as a disappointed, but definitely not in this case and m not saying this because I have read any of the Biographical files on Hugh Laurie or watched his every interview. I can say this because I have indulged myself completely from page to page in the 368 pages of his first novella and now I am really sure of the fact that the man behind all the wits and sardonicism of House is really in fact Hugh Laurie. Not only the sarcasm part but all the other extra ordinary talents of House that we fancy are also a gift from Laurie himself, which includes his love for motorbikes and his talent for guitar and keyboard. He plays guitar and keyboard in a band called Poor White Trash and he rides a Triumph Bonneville, which is a fancy swanky motorcycle. Also he realized in his college years that he has a condition called mononucleosis, which is as close to 'Gregory House' as possible.

The Book:

Anything to say about the plot of the book would actually be a spoiler because no guesswork of any kind keeps up with the story of 'The Gun Seller'. Though it has been claimed to be a 'spoof in the spy genre' in a lot of reviews but it really appears more than that to me. The spoof part can actually be mistaken because of the humor and sarcasm that can be seen in every dialogue of the main character in fact in his thinking process too. In fact A spoof is a study in absurdity, a parody of an otherwise serious topic, whereas this book tells a very real and sometimes harrowing tale from the perspective of a man with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of humor, which is our main character Thomas Lang.

The protagonist 'Thomas Lang' is definitely a signification of what Laurie himself fancies himself to do. Some of the things are taken from his life itself, major being the love for motorbike riding and of course the witty sarcasm. Others just seem his fancy -like being in military, being a spy, the CIA operations etc. It undoubtedly seems like Hugh Laurie is writing an acting part that he would love-to-play. At every point you can see a bit of House which means a bit of Hugh Laurie in Thomas Lang, and which is what makes the story all the more interesting.

"We strolled on a bit. A pigeon flew towards us and then darted away at the last moment, as if he had suddenly realised we weren't who he thought we were."

Thomas Lang is one such character who never leaves his humor and sarcasm even in situations where people can hardly get themselves to think, let alone talk. And thats what makes him my favorite character.The sheer quantity of laughs in the book were astonishing and I honestly I lost count in the first few pages itself. From the very start of the book where he goes on about the finer points of arm-breaking, though a very serious situation it leaves you laughing out loud. And then the laughs continue with his sassy comments and his inner theories on whether 'It should be a day-break or night-fall'!! that too in the most grievous of situations is out and out hilarious.

He's rude. He's cynical. He's acid. But it's his spiciness which has made the ratings go through the roof.

       




 "Well, exactly. Of course. The right thing to do, the only thing to do, is to get it over with as quickly as possible.

 Break the arm, ply the brandy, be a good citizen. Their can be no other answer.

Unless.
Unless unless unless.
What if you were to hate the person on the other end of the arm? I mean really, really hate them?
This was a thing I had to consider.
I say now, meaning then, meaning the moment I am describing; the moment fractionally, oh so bloody fractionally, before my wrist reached the back of my neck and my left humerus broke into at least two, very possibly more, floppily joined-together pieces.
The arm we’ve been discussing, you see, is mine.

It's not an abstract, philosophers arm. The bone, the skin, the hairs, the small white scar on the point of the elbow, won from the corner of a storage heater at Gateshill Primary School - they all belong to me. And now is the moment when I must consider the possibility that the man standing behind me, gripping my wrist and driving it up my spine with an almost sexual degree of care, hates me. 

I mean, really, really hates me.

He is taking for ever."

"The only good thing I've ever noticed about money, the only positive aspect of an otherwise pretty vulgar commodity, is that you can use it to buy things."

The outlines of the plot are - Thomas Lang, a retired Scot guard who now freelances for classified to-hire jobs, gets an offer to assassinate an American industrialist which he indignantly refuses. Also being the all so good-natured chap that he is (not really!) he goes ahead to warn the victim of the danger that surrounds him, which lands him in a wild plot involving undercover work for the British government, notorious arms dealer, renegade CIA bigwigs, and a prototype for a military helicopter and is forced to infiltrate a small terrorist cell to protect the American's daughter. Though it sounds like your regular garden-variety Spy or James Bond sort of novel, it definitely outbids them due to the striking dark humor and surprising twists and turns.

"And as a colour-matching accessory to the shirt, she wore a Walther TPH .22 automatic in her right hand. It's utterly useless as a firearm, because unless you can guarantee hitting either the heart or the brain first time, you're only going to annoy the person you're shooting at."

I liked the plot, it was interesting but a bit of a drag at times due to all the CIA jargon. 

"It was the sheer variety of the pain that stopped me from crying out. It came from so many places, spoke so many languages, wore so many dazzling varieties of ethnic costume, that for a full fifteen seconds I could only hang my jaw in amazement. "

Also, there were sudden jumps in the narration from events which keeps a reader involved as to 'What-did-I-miss' kind of situations, because it's the petty details which Laurie doesn't bother to explain, another reason why it is interesting, because really getting into those details would have just served the purpose of making it a long and well explained novel, which now is a mysterious and to-the-point sassy one. Overall The book is laced with black humor and If you like Dr House you'll love The Gun Seller.

"Of course, I knew that Bob wasn't exactly a choirboy. He wasn't even the boy who bullies the choirboy. At the very best, he was the older brother of the boy who bullies the boy who bullies the choirboy."

        My personal reasons for liking it are - First and foremost Hugh Laurie of course, He is the writer who can deliver the funny not just type it out.  The British who can make us all think he's American and then upon learning we've been fooled we're that much more in love with him because 'we couldn't even tell.'  He says and does all those things which makes us feel a little guilty to even think about the person in front of us, which is what makes him all the more bold heroic version of sarcasm and sardonicism.

"You see, people who work in offices believe in files. Files are important to them. If you tell them you have a file, they want to believe it, because they set a lot of store by files. "

The other reason being very minor yet significant is the use of "Quotes" before each chapter which are funny verses or quotes by people which in general might not mean anything but when related to the story they are outright hilarious. It actually serves like the cherry at the top of a desert for me. 

"There is no sin except stupidity." - OSCAR WILDE

In summary I think this book is in the must-read category for anyone with a taste for classic British humor and suspenseful, thought-provoking tales. It is well written and explores the officially sanctioned yet darker side of the international arms trade as well as some of the less pleasant aspects of the human condition. 

"It wasn't caused by money, or bought with money. It simply was money. Money that he had eaten, worn, driven, breathed, in such quantities, and for so long, that it had started to secrete from the pores of his skin. You may not think this possible, but money had actually made him beautiful."