Pink by Gus Van Sant Reviewed by Steve Rudd

Famed Hollywood-based director Gus, like actor Ethan Hawke, is now making his name as an author too. This is his debut novel, and a bizarrely tripped-out one at that, putting the reader in the mind of Douglas Coupland and his cult Generation X work of genius. Pink is packed with hugely quotable slabs of philosophy and follows a middle-aged gay guy called Spunky who's reeling from the death of a friend. Consequently, Spunky questions his own mortality and everybody else's, while still putting time aside to find genuine beauty in the world.

Even life that you thought was the strongest thing in the world, suddenly it seems very fragile. With people shooting things, flying around in planes, and bungee jumping all over the place. I want to learn about how fragile all the world is. I want to learn about it, so I can try to help it.

Despite being a somewhat intense and very serious novel, the overall mood remains optimistic. Gus is a hugely imaginative writer and allows his raving creativity truly run wild, as the novel is liberally splattered with footnotes of elaboration, impromptu-yet-appropriate sketches between a number of paragraphs, and ever-altering font types for different chapters. All this ensures that the reader's interest in the story is kept in check right to the end, at which point they should be begging for more from Gus' mad, mad - but honest and humble - mind.

We are all the same person, only in different time continuums. The same being, existing at the same time in many different places and on many different levels. His furious and captivating writing style does share much in common with Jack Kerouac's unbridled zest for life, and when you're reading Pink you do get the feeling that this is indeed a very important book on a cultural level. And why not? You've got to bear in mind how challenging, controversial and inspiring his movies - such as Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho and Good Will Hunting - have tended to be.

For sure, Pink will make you think. ISBN 0-571-19600-4 (FABER AND FABER; first published in the US in 1997)

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