Hollywood Babylon II

A follow on to Hollywood Babylon and written again by Kenneth Anger, Hollywood Babylon II has more scandals, more drama, more drugs, and more deaths. 

The basic structure of the book is pretty much identical to that of the first one, with photos and movie posters accompanying the juicy, scandalous stories. However, I found that I did not enjoy Hollywood Babylon II as much as I did the first one. 

For quite a few of the scandals, particularly for those of suicides and drug addiction, the tone of the book is a somewhat monotonous and dry one that makes you feel like your reading a history book for school or something. 

Having said that though, it was refreshing when Anger got heated up about certain scandals, in which case the writing took on a more rant-like and personal tone. I guess, what I’m trying to say (very inarticulately) is that the tone of the book jumped around a fair bit and I found that a little disconcerting. One moment, you’re enjoying a hot-headed, personal rant from the author in which he actually uses the world “I”, and then the next minute, the reading has become so factual and dry that you’re seriously considering putting the book down. I found that I really needed to push myself to read the entire thing. 

It’s much bigger than the first book and there is a lot more to read, both in terms of text and individual stories. Sometimes, it felt that Anger was really battling with what he wanted to focus more and what deserved less attention. Like the first one, there are a fair few chapters that are totally devoted to the sad life or career of one celebrity or scandal, but what was most different about this book was that Anger added an entire chapter that was made up of little individual articles covering numerous celebrities’ self-inflicted deaths. Don’t get me wrong, death sells, and a fair few of the stories were both really sad and really interesting, but it really did feel as though Anger wrote that chapter, purely to get all the names he wanted to drop in the book. Some stories only receive one or two lines of adulation. 

Aside from the apparent change in the general tone of the book, Hollywood Babylon II was a good read that you can power through in no time.