Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
For the first time, me and Frank are going to be tackling the same book on the same day. It's the new John Irving, and as far as I'm concerned, the more we discuss it, the better. He's got a couple of other glimpses at upcoming tomes here for you, too, another bang-up job by AICN's resident sportswriter...
IT'S NOT A SECRET IF I DON'T TELL ANYONE
By Frank Bascombe
THE SUBJECT STEVE by Sam Lipsyte
After a trip through your local bookstore, you’ve got to be wondering what the hell has happened to good literary fiction? Where is it going? Are the big names swallowing up all the shelf space, purchased by big league publishers? You’ve got to look pretty hard just to find some gems from time to time. Overall the stuff that is interesting is not happening on the frontal lobe of the literary scene today. The writers that are changing the face of the novel are cranking out one good book after another in virtual obscurity; their sales are so low it’s scary.
So few writers who are trying to change the way books are written, and it seems astounding for them even to try. Guys like Rick Moody, David Foster Wallace, Paul Auster, James Ellroy, Richard Russo, John Irving, Tim O’Brien, Craig Nova, Tibor Fischer, Martin Amis, Lorrie Moore, Aimee Bender, Jonathan Lethem. What about Dave Eggers writing this brutally honest memoir, a huge bestseller all over the joint, and then having the nuts to “self publish” his next book? Meanwhile, he’s got his website cranked all the way out, giving voice to writers with truly original ideas. So what if it’s a little out of whack and strangely perverse? As a culture of readers, we’ve been sedated into thinking John Grisham is "it." These guys from across the pond who’ve written this new literary manifesto - All Hail the New Puritans - they’ve even laid down the law, giving out a set of rules that they live and write by.
It’s about time things got shaken up a little, kicked around. How many more times are you going to walk into your local superstore, stumble over stack upon stack of the latest Danielle Steel tome, and not wonder “Is that written by a computer program?” Most of the exciting fiction not selling today, even if it’s a total failure, an inaccessible dark mysterious lump of words, is better than the mashed potato sandwich we’re served up every time we click onto Amazon.com.
Sam Lipsyte has written a novel that embraces the new wave of underground fiction. THE SUBJECT STEVE is so far out on a limb, it’s a miracle it doesn't plummet to Earth. Our narrator Steve barely has time to introduce himself before he is diagnosed with a terminal disease, Goldfarb-Blackstone Preparatory Extinction Syndrome, or PREXIS for short. His doctors are first-timers, appropriately named The Philosopher and The Mechanic. Their diagnosis: Steve is actually dying of boredom. We stumble from scene to scene and it would be easy to gloss over most of this book, which can’t be a good thing, but there's things to hold onto along the way. His doctors are frauds who decided to make this disease up, and Steve is patient number one. Unfortunately, he doesn't learn this before he is sent off to a clinic in the woods near New York, a place called “The Center”. A man named Heinrick of Newark runs “The Center,” and has developed this place as sort of a haven for lost souls to get spiritually re-programmed and dry out mentally. Most of the answers to life’s questions can be found in Henirick's Book of Tenets.
On his first day, Steve witnesses Bobby Trubate, another camper, getting his anal comeuppance for trying to escape with a device similar to that used by John Doe in Se7en. His mother, also at “The Center,” is the only one who can save him, but she’s got to perform a sexual favor on her own son to get him off the hook. Finally, there is a woman with no legs who gets around on a cart like the one Eddie Murphy used in TRADING PLACES who has fallen madly in love with Steve, and they consummate their "friendship" every chance they get.
Confused? Wait, there's more! Bobby Trubate rumbles off to start his own community in the desert outside L.A. in an abandoned warehouse that was once the home of a busted DotCom. This book seems like a lost TWILIGHT ZONE episode, and you're never really in one place long enough to know what’s going on. Steve has conversations with himself, his friends, and his former roommate. If you had a dollar for every time you were completely left in the lurch by the narrative, you could retire to Arizona tomorrow. To discern any kind of flow in this story or to follow what’s going on is impossible. There is no structure that isn’t covered in semi-lucid mumbo-jumbo. Perhaps Lipsyte is predicting the future. Is he telling us that when the world dries up creatively, this is what awaits? Is he giving us a glimpse at what is on the other side of the second industrial revolution known as “The Web”? The only real scene or memory one can take from this book is relayed in the last twenty pages. Steve and his best friend spy their fathers out in the yard arguing over who broke the lawn mower one lent the other. The conversation comes to blows and is eventually settled by one man asking the other how long his manhood is in comparison to his. The joke should go: “I heard you’re a big man?” “Is that right? Who told you that?” “Your wife”. But even here, in the simplest of moments, Lipsyte confuses and disappoints, and the struggle that Lipsyte has you endure is not worth the time and effort it takes to read this confusing lumpy storm of ideas.
JEREMY THRANE by Kate Christensen
JEREMY THRANE, the second novel from Kate Christensen, is a worthy follow-up to her first independent favorite, IN THE DRINK. At times accomplished, occasionally over-descriptive, Ms. Christensen is trying to show the world she is a first-class writer, and it would seem she’s not that confident in her style or her craft yet. Jeremy Thrane, the desperate, lonely, would-be novelist at the center of this New York story, is teetering on the edge of desperation. There are times in this novel when you think he is about to wander in front of a moving bus as Jeremy trips from one bad encounter to the next, stopping only to fill up on sorrow-dulling vats of booze.
Jeremy is so lonely that the only way to happiness is through self-medication. Our story starts with Jeremy getting jilted by his movie star boyfriend, and in protest, he leaves the Brooklyn mansion he is being kept in. When Jeremy comes to, he realizes the last ten years have been spent waiting for his knight in shinning armor to come home and be with him. That never happened, though, and Jeremy realizes that his life has completely evaporated in the process. So he has to start again. He gets a job, he finishes his novel, he sells his screenplay, he has one success after another piled upon him, but he never smiles or even slows down to enjoy it. He seems to be happiest when miserable. It’s always easier to be unhappy, and in Jeremy’s case, it’s a thrilling breath of fresh air to be sad. Jeremy is a very smart character, and has been rounded out almost perfectly. He’s too well spoken, at times; in real life, nobody knows what to say at every turn, but Jeremy is never at a loss for a putdown, an insult, a smart remark. Just once it would be a relief for him not to say the right thing. Christensen seems to be holding the strings so tightly that she overworks the story. Jeremy savagely lashes out at everyone he knows, and every time he gets upset, he has a drink. Why does that have to be the only answer? Towards the middle of the story, after selling his screenplay, Jeremy is offered a life outside of New York City in a retreat/bungalow/writers' camp in L.A.
As with everything positive, he turns it down. Very few novelists seem to know how their books are going to end before they write them, and Christensen is no different. She wraps things up so quickly that you feel like you’ve left the movie thirty minutes before the end. Jeremy has one thought that is so base to his character that you may wretch when reading it; don’t say you weren’t warned. While eating his breakfast sandwich, talking to his new editor on the phone, while putting his ketchup on the bun he’s about to eat, Jeremy thinks to himself that the contents of this ketchup pack are the same size as a payload of cum. Christensen draws some of the more graphic scenes you're likely to read for a long time to come, and at times, one can't help but think that she is the one who is the most unhappy, not Jeremy Thrane.
THE FOURTH HAND by John Irving
It’s usually a nice surprise to read a novel that is a complete homerun, but when you get a chance to read John Irving’s latest masterpiece THE FOURTH HAND, you’ll be beyond surprised; you’ll be left breathless. Irving’s books are almost always met with unanimous praise, and this one will be no different. He’s won every prestigious literary prize known to man and achieved every goal he’s set for himself. His speech at the Oscars recently while accepting the award for CIDER HOUSE RULES was perhaps one of the most inspired moments in that telecast's history. Irving has a long list of books that most people hold dearly to their hearts, like A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY and THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP. If you were to mention his name on a crowded bus, nine out of ten people would emphatically announce their love and knowledge of his novels. Not only has Irving captured the imagination of most of this generation, he’s stolen their hearts to boot. You know why? He tells a kick-ass story and makes you believe in each character that’s presented. You’ll find something you can identify with in every one of his stories.
What’s most incredible about this book is that the impossible is made real. Imagine getting your hand snatched off your arm while visiting the zoo, but on international television with the entire world watching. Patrick, the sturdy drop-dead handsome center of this story, has just that happen to him. In one moment, his life is changed. But is it? He never seems to look back, or even for one minute feel sorry for himself about having only one arm. One of the reasons he does not feel sorrow for his plight is that he is a respected newscaster, on television every night, and miraculously a doctor steps forth and attempts hand replacement surgery. This is where the novel takes its most brilliant turn. Irving has this ability to describe each character as if he were giving them his full attention, or even their own book. What gives this story its heart is the relationship Patrick develops with the wife of the man whose hand is donated to Patrick. Ms. Clausen is a wonderfully sweet salt of the earth housewife who wants only the best for her husband’s hand, and who has decided that she must first visit with Patrick to determine if he is a suitable recipient. Hailing from Wisconsin, and of course being a Packers fan, Ms. Clausen has some quirks. Would it be a John Irving novel if she didn’t?
Patrick falls hopelessly in love with her, but has to get some of the ants out of his pants with the other women who come between him and his destiny. How can anyone find a man with one hand attractive? Women in this novel do, and in spades. Patrick attempts to fulfill his Oedipus complex, literally, and without even knowing it. He jaunts off to remote parts of the world with a woman he’s just meet and decides to sooth his pain with the sexual longings of his makeup girl. Patrick is such a womanizer that you're stunned when you don’t take offense to his actions; you can thank Irving for that. Every aspect of Patrick is metered out to the reader with an almost perfect pacing. Most of the women in this story do the dirty work that would normally be performed by a man in the hands of any other writer. On the way through this great ride, Irving keeps the marginal details of the daily goings-on current, and you’ll appreciate his attention to detail at every turn. The story ends up so perfectly, over a beautiful part of this country, that you’ll find yourself thinking about it long after you’ve finished the book. Patrick is one of those characters you see everyday - a strong, confident, worried, paranoid, living breathing “everyperson” who sometimes talks to himself, and who gives the most passionate reasons for living his life his way. John Irving tells a story like nobody else.
