The Complete Book of Kong

I’m afraid I don’t know exactly how to interpret Trowbridge’s The Complete Book of Kong. I’ve never come across a poetry book like this, so I have nothing to compare it to. Basing a series of poems on a movie and twentieth century culture is everything the Modernists abhorred. In this way, I am able to classify the work as contemporary, but it is still difficult for me to get beneath the humor and poetic wit to explore the shared human experience and observations about twentieth century culture represented within the poems.

Fay, a repeating character in the poems and Kong’s co-star, plays the role of Kong’s unrequited love interest. She is not always portrayed in positive way: “And if it weren’t for love, I’d drop / the shrieking little bimbo sixty stories (18); “Fay’s kapok’s going bad, settling / in low spots from cheek to thigh, / wrinkling her hide, sinking her eyes, / changing her prance to a vague step taking” and “She won’t scream anymore” (56). Her reappearance throughout the poems and his observations of Fay going off with Bruce Cabot, however, gives the audience some indication of how important Fay is to Kong and his suffering at her screaming reactions and dismissal of him as a creature of importance or notice. Fay’s dismissal is another rejection of Kong by society.

The length to which Kong goes to explore the culture surrounding him represents a fundamental need for humans to fit in, to find a niche within their world. Kong tries out for the Bears (18), tries baseball (22), goes on Let’s Make a Deal (26), attends experimental art films (34), joins a carnival (35), tries a dating service (38-39), meets the pope (42), and has a crush on Madonna (48). Kong displays a complex personality and encounters many interests, dislikes, and failures during the telling of his Hollywood story. Despite his longing to be included in society, Kong is a perpetual outsider, restricted by his appearance and his lack of understanding of the culture surrounding him. In “Kong Answers the Call for a Few Good Men,” Kong misunderstands the idioms of the language and then regurgitates a similarly mangled sentiment: “He said if we girls thought we were men, / we had another think coming. I wished / to save my think for later, when everyone was free to smoke them if he had them” (27). Kong bears his wish to belong most openly in “Kong Picks Door Number Two”: “Am I human now?” I asked, feeling bare and somewhat smaller” (26).

Trowbridge uses Kong, the perpetual outsider, as a figure to entertain and inform. Beneath the blinding humor and wit are Trowbridge’s observations on twentieth century culture and the human condition. This deepens the automatic assessment that the book is merely for entertainment, that it is actually an intended work of literature.