Near the end of my second novel, Self-Mutilation, the protagonist, Oscar, has lost his confidence in the world and remarks that there is no one to trust except the greatest authors of all time:
"Life is not one big Greek drama, complete with a protagonist’s tragic flaw. It’s just babies being born, growing up, doing the things adults do, growing old, and dying. It’s just making a living, that’s all it comes down to. Work. Why can’t we all live in harmony, God? Why can’t there be enough for everyone to go around? Why do we always have to worry about how we’re ever going to be able to survive? Is it just this country I’m living in, that has perverted the basic elements of human existence, or is it the entire world, and is this place actually better than others? I don’t know who to believe about anything anymore. The greatest writers in history. Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Homer, Aeschylus and Aristophanes, Dante and Cervantes, Shakespeare and Milton, Lao Tzu, Flaubert and Balzac, Tolstoy and Kafka, Joyce and Proust, Nabokov and Mann, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. They’re the only ones I can believe. And who knows how many of them were motivated by commercial popularity. Who knows how many of them were fixated on immortality." (184-185)
I shouldn't post this excerpt because it comes from the final page of the manuscript itself, but oh well, it related too closely to James Wood's recent volume on literary acumen called How Fiction Works, a book I half-heartedly recommend (I "half-recommend" it). The book is closely related to the passage because, of the 21 authors named as the greatest of all time by me (in my own, non-English majored, barely well-read estimation) 16 are mentioned. Some of them barely (Aristotle, Balzac, and Hemingway), some of them fairly (Cervantes, Mann, Nabokov, Joyce, Kafka, and Proust), some of them rarely (Homer, Plato, Milton, and Fitzgerald), and some of them heavily (Flaubert-especially!-, Tolstoy, and of course, Shakespeare). Just for fun, let's point out who Wood doesn't discuss at all from my list: Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes (no love for Greek Tragedy!), Dante (right, he meant, like, nothing, to literature), and Lao Tzu (which is not surprising at all, as Lao Tzu is not a novelist and is included in my novel's list as the separating element between the roughly chronological listing).
Enough with the list already! But seriously, the listing of authors is one of the chief pleasures of How Fiction Works. In his introduction, Wood makes several impressive claims:
"As a teenager I was very taken by the rather fancy note to Ford Madox Ford's The English Novel: "This book was written in New York, on board the S.S. Patria, and in the port and neighbourhood of Marseilles during July and August, 1927." I cannot claim proximate glamour, nor a similar feat of library-less memory, but in the spirit of Ford, I can say that I have used only the books I actually own--the books at hand in my study--to produce this little volume. I can also add that, except for a paragraph here and there, none of it is previously published." (xv-xvi)
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I would like to point out the absence of the Beats. No Kerouac, no Ginsberg, and no Burroughs. Granted, I do not put them on my list as the greatest of all time, but no one, NO ONE, can argue that they have not played a crucial role in the development of the novel post World War II. They are positively modern compared to the moderns that Wood namedrops (David Foster Wallace, Rick Moody, Jose Saramago, J.M. Coetzee). Sure, none of them may have won the Nobel, but they do not deserve to be ignored. Oh wait, I think Ginsberg is mentioned ONCE:
"...the Milky Way flows out of her breasts, and the children come from between her legs ('the Monster of the Beginning Womb,' as Allen Ginsberg calls it in Kaddish). Men cannot rival that, even as they, like Mickey or late Yeats, rage on about male 'vitality.'" (201)
That, in a discussion of Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater, and further, even Ricky Gervais and Seinfeld merit mentioning the same number of times as Ginsberg. Burroughs is not there, Kerouac is not there (and Bob Dylan is not there either, so at least there is good company). How can you leave out Burroughs, when he has created his own literary genre (even if it is pretty "out there"), and how can you leave out Kerouac, when EVERYBODY knows and reads On the Road in the same way as The Great Gatsby. And Gatsby only gets mentioned for the sake of its main character, whose private thoughts we do not get to read. Other OMG absences include J.D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut (how can you ignore The Catcher in the Rye, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Cat's Cradle?).
To be fair, this is not a list of all the greatest writers of all time. This is a book in which Wood purports to explain what he views as the inner workings of fiction--character (flat or round ones), detail (relevant or irrelevant--or is anything truly irrelevant?), dialogue, narrative voice, free indirect style, and language. Sometimes the book works wonderfully. The chapters on "Dialogue" and "Language" are excellent, and very instructive for the apprentice writer. However, while Flaubert may be one of the all-time greatest literary giants, Wood masturbates a little too much to the great man's name and monkish attitude towards the literary craft. Also, Wood seems to have a pretty concise idea of what makes great literature, and while reading large sections of this, I reflected on my own work and considered that Wood might denounce it as inadequate, and that all of the other anonymous critics who have dismissed it may be right, and I may not have any talent to speak of and I will be a total waste of life for writing novels that will never be published. Still, Wood does have the ability to surprise (his namedropping the "sadistic eros" of Dennis Cooper in comparison to Kafka and Beckett near the end of the work was a moment of personal vindication) and this volume will be quite titillating for anyone who claims to love literature. Wood might think my fiction doesn't work, but I'll take the company of his authorial voids any day.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Studs Terkel - 1912-2008
Last night, one of the most legendary figures in the history of Chicago passed away. Studs Terkel has been a prominent figure on the city scene since the early 1950's, has beaten the odds to live longer than the vast majority of the human race, has won the Pulitzer, has endeared himself to several generations of the inhabitants of one of the greatest cities in America, and has died on Halloween. One only hopes that his ghost will haunt the city streets and remind people at bus stops about how hard times really were in the 1920's compared to now. One only hopes that his passing is to signal the passing of the torch from one legendary Chicagoan to the next, just a few days before history will, or will not be made. And one only hopes that the new torch bearer will consider Terkel's oeuvre and take direction from the author's benefit from government-sponsored program like Roosevelt's WPA.
Touch and Go is the only Terkel volume I have read. I read it rather recently, after I had started reviewing every book I read for Flying Houses. I read it after Crossing California, feeling it was appropriate to follow up a decidedly "Chicago" novel with arguably the most "Chicago" author. Saul Bellow and Nelson Algren and Richard Wright may more closely approximate that distinction, but they had their ties to Terkel that they too would acknowledge were they still around. Touch and Go is a memoir published in 2007, written when Terkel was 94 years old, after he had undergone a rather complicated heart surgery, for which he may have held the record as the oldest patient ever to successfully undergo it.
Today the Chicago Tribune listed the five most essential Terkel volumes--among them Division Street, Working, and Hard Times. But Touch and Go not among them--nor P.S. his newest volume, being released this month or the next. This man had to have led one of the most productive lifetimes in modern American history. Granted, his writing mostly came out of his interviews done on the radio, but just the idea of writing a memoir at 94 is incredible, particularly with a memory as startlingly strong as Terkel's. I saw footage of him giving interviews on PBS last night after they announced his death and he reminded me quite a bit of my grandmother, who was born around the same time as Terkel and who also was a lifelong Chicagoan. They had a similar way of not being able to stop talking, of never being able to communicate enough information about the past, despite their advanced age. It was kind of hilarious in a way.
I didn't review Touch and Go, because I honestly didn't know what to say about it. I will say that parts of the book were stronger than others. There were definitely some very interesting chapters and there were a few chapters that felt too disconnected from my present situation to interest me that greatly. I remember watching the Democratic National Convention from a motel room in Cedar City, UT and swearing I saw Studs sitting behind Hillary and Bill Clinton. But I couldn't be sure. Then in the paper today it showed a picture of Bill giving him a medal in 1997. Regardless of whether or not he was still at the convention, he did appear at last summer's Printer's Row Book Fair (which I missed because I was attending the Los Angeles equivalent) and he did speak about the election--one can only presume that he supported Obama. It is a shame that he will not be able to vote (or, maybe he did, early...though it seems unlikely). Regardless, politics played quite a role in his life, and he led a wonderful one, an extremely inspiring one as well. Before I mentioned that I wished I could live Chuck Palahniuk's life. Well, I also wish I could live Terkel's life. I wish I could mean as much to this city as Studs did. But he really, truly, was one in a hundred million.
Touch and Go is the only Terkel volume I have read. I read it rather recently, after I had started reviewing every book I read for Flying Houses. I read it after Crossing California, feeling it was appropriate to follow up a decidedly "Chicago" novel with arguably the most "Chicago" author. Saul Bellow and Nelson Algren and Richard Wright may more closely approximate that distinction, but they had their ties to Terkel that they too would acknowledge were they still around. Touch and Go is a memoir published in 2007, written when Terkel was 94 years old, after he had undergone a rather complicated heart surgery, for which he may have held the record as the oldest patient ever to successfully undergo it.
Today the Chicago Tribune listed the five most essential Terkel volumes--among them Division Street, Working, and Hard Times. But Touch and Go not among them--nor P.S. his newest volume, being released this month or the next. This man had to have led one of the most productive lifetimes in modern American history. Granted, his writing mostly came out of his interviews done on the radio, but just the idea of writing a memoir at 94 is incredible, particularly with a memory as startlingly strong as Terkel's. I saw footage of him giving interviews on PBS last night after they announced his death and he reminded me quite a bit of my grandmother, who was born around the same time as Terkel and who also was a lifelong Chicagoan. They had a similar way of not being able to stop talking, of never being able to communicate enough information about the past, despite their advanced age. It was kind of hilarious in a way.
I didn't review Touch and Go, because I honestly didn't know what to say about it. I will say that parts of the book were stronger than others. There were definitely some very interesting chapters and there were a few chapters that felt too disconnected from my present situation to interest me that greatly. I remember watching the Democratic National Convention from a motel room in Cedar City, UT and swearing I saw Studs sitting behind Hillary and Bill Clinton. But I couldn't be sure. Then in the paper today it showed a picture of Bill giving him a medal in 1997. Regardless of whether or not he was still at the convention, he did appear at last summer's Printer's Row Book Fair (which I missed because I was attending the Los Angeles equivalent) and he did speak about the election--one can only presume that he supported Obama. It is a shame that he will not be able to vote (or, maybe he did, early...though it seems unlikely). Regardless, politics played quite a role in his life, and he led a wonderful one, an extremely inspiring one as well. Before I mentioned that I wished I could live Chuck Palahniuk's life. Well, I also wish I could live Terkel's life. I wish I could mean as much to this city as Studs did. But he really, truly, was one in a hundred million.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Haunted - Chuck Palahniuk
The front cover of Haunted contains the words "a novel" beneath the title. Let me just say: I don't think it's fair to call this book a novel. It's a book of short stories. The short stories are the most worthwhile parts of it. Really, it is a novel, but it's a very strangely formatted one. There are 24 chapters. Each chapter has three parts to it. The first part is the "novel" itself--a story about 15 or 16 people coming together in this dark, scary house for a so-called "writer's retreat" where they will spend 3 months in isolation creating their masterpiece that they never have the time for in their busy, workaday lives. The second part is a poem, about the person who is about to tell a story. And the third part is the short story itself, told by a character. These are always the highlights of the chapter.
The "novel" element occassionally shows flashes of brilliance. It is interesting to note that Palahniuk claims this book is a reaction to the "reality television" culture so prevalent over the last decade or so. The book was published in 2005. Wikipedia also highlights a couple interesting tidbits--the novel is actually about the "battle for credibility" that has resulted in things like this very blog (easy, immediate, online publishing)--that, and he listened to "Bela Lugosi's Dead" as inspiration while writing--which I find hilarious and awesome. However, more to the point, Haunted is the third novel reviewed on Flying Houses which I will compare to my first novel, further making the point that my first novel probably does deserve to be published on some level. Like A Long Way Down and Crossing California, Haunted relies on a large cast of characters that are really not all that different from one another (in their motivations, at least) trying to do, something. Not anything big and plot-oriented, just, existing, within this strange space. Further, the novel also reads like my rejected idea for a reality television show, Most Popular Writer, which I pitched to an executive at the Bravo Network who informed me that "writing is an inherently solitary act and not interesting for television viewers." I beg to differ, as Haunted, like Choke, Fight Club, Survivor, and Rant (and I may even be missing a couple) has just now recently been announced as an upcoming film with a director attached (announced a day after my review of Snuff). I do believe Haunted would make for a better HBO Miniseries (which could potentially be awesome) but we will have to see how they manage to translate this very long book into a film. At over 400 pages, it's the longest Palahniuk book.
And it's really more a collection of short stories than it is a novel. And to be fair, and not to be rude, I have to say that the previous short story collection reviewed here, Dead Boys by Richard Lange, is a far more compelling read. I have to honestly state that Haunted was my least favorite Palahniuk book yet, on the whole. Snuff may have been a trifle, but it was a trifle that I sped through in two or three days. It's taken me about a week to read Haunted, and with those two William Burroughs books at the same time, which also, were more compelling reads.
That said, there is one very famous short story here that everyone should read, that should go down as a classic along the lines of "The Killers" or "A Good Man is Hard to Find" or "Cathedral" or "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love": "Guts." Anybody who knows anything about Palahniuk would have seen that coming from a mile away. And also this statement: that it is the story Palahniuk famously reads at his appearances that famously has caused over seventy people to lose consciousness. On a personal note, I found this story absolutely fantastic, but I found the "candle wax" part the most stomach-churning, only to find out a few days later that I might require an operation known as a cystoscopy. Thankfully, I didn't, and I hope I never have to undergo that, but knowing my luck, that is just the sort of way God will plan to torture me further. MOVING ON...."Guts" is the first story in the collection and you might just want to read it out of the library one day. If you're interested by the story of the whole novel Haunted it might be worth your time. Honestly, I found it a bit exasperating at times and I am glad I am done reading it.
But there are a few more excellent stories to be found. Off the top of my head, "Swan Song," "Dog Years," "Exodus," "The Nightmare Box," "Crippled," "Hot Potting," "Evil Spirits," and "Obsolete" all work on differing levels. Aside from "Guts," "The Nightmare Box" and its antecedent stories "Poster Child" and "Cassandra" are the strongest thing in Haunted, and actually reveal the major plot-hinging element to the work as a whole. But if you only read those four, you will miss what happens to the Matchmaker, you will miss the absurdity and ridiculousness of "Dog Years" and "Exodus" and you will miss the "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"-esque "Obsolete"--which is the final story in the collection and arguably the third-best.
This is a work that can inspire a lot of discussion and might be a good creative writing class course syllabus item. Parts of it are great--as good, or better, than anything else Palahniuk has done. But on the whole, it drags, and is content to be macabre and gross simply for its own sake at times. I will stand by my statement, that I liked Snuff better only because it was a quicker read. Haunted certainly has its moments, and it is a fine moment of experimentation, for Palahniuk has here created a new genre of short story collection/novel hybrid--the phrase "story in novels" which I previously did not understand applies here almost singularly. But those unaccustomed to Pahlaniuk will be better to start off with Fight Club or Survivor or Rant or Choke. Those novels build on tension created from page one and come to satisfying conclusions. This novel starts off with an absolute bang and spends the rest of the time trying to match its previous elan. Still, only this novel could contain a paragraph as hilarious as this:
"Even the Link knows that eating a dead man's severed penis will get him extra prime-time exposure on every late-night talk show in the world. Just to describe how it tasted. After that will be the product endorsements for barbeque sauce and ketchup. After that, his own novelty cookbook. Radio shock-jock shows. After that, more daytime game shows for the rest of his life." (359)
The "novel" element occassionally shows flashes of brilliance. It is interesting to note that Palahniuk claims this book is a reaction to the "reality television" culture so prevalent over the last decade or so. The book was published in 2005. Wikipedia also highlights a couple interesting tidbits--the novel is actually about the "battle for credibility" that has resulted in things like this very blog (easy, immediate, online publishing)--that, and he listened to "Bela Lugosi's Dead" as inspiration while writing--which I find hilarious and awesome. However, more to the point, Haunted is the third novel reviewed on Flying Houses which I will compare to my first novel, further making the point that my first novel probably does deserve to be published on some level. Like A Long Way Down and Crossing California, Haunted relies on a large cast of characters that are really not all that different from one another (in their motivations, at least) trying to do, something. Not anything big and plot-oriented, just, existing, within this strange space. Further, the novel also reads like my rejected idea for a reality television show, Most Popular Writer, which I pitched to an executive at the Bravo Network who informed me that "writing is an inherently solitary act and not interesting for television viewers." I beg to differ, as Haunted, like Choke, Fight Club, Survivor, and Rant (and I may even be missing a couple) has just now recently been announced as an upcoming film with a director attached (announced a day after my review of Snuff). I do believe Haunted would make for a better HBO Miniseries (which could potentially be awesome) but we will have to see how they manage to translate this very long book into a film. At over 400 pages, it's the longest Palahniuk book.
And it's really more a collection of short stories than it is a novel. And to be fair, and not to be rude, I have to say that the previous short story collection reviewed here, Dead Boys by Richard Lange, is a far more compelling read. I have to honestly state that Haunted was my least favorite Palahniuk book yet, on the whole. Snuff may have been a trifle, but it was a trifle that I sped through in two or three days. It's taken me about a week to read Haunted, and with those two William Burroughs books at the same time, which also, were more compelling reads.
That said, there is one very famous short story here that everyone should read, that should go down as a classic along the lines of "The Killers" or "A Good Man is Hard to Find" or "Cathedral" or "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love": "Guts." Anybody who knows anything about Palahniuk would have seen that coming from a mile away. And also this statement: that it is the story Palahniuk famously reads at his appearances that famously has caused over seventy people to lose consciousness. On a personal note, I found this story absolutely fantastic, but I found the "candle wax" part the most stomach-churning, only to find out a few days later that I might require an operation known as a cystoscopy. Thankfully, I didn't, and I hope I never have to undergo that, but knowing my luck, that is just the sort of way God will plan to torture me further. MOVING ON...."Guts" is the first story in the collection and you might just want to read it out of the library one day. If you're interested by the story of the whole novel Haunted it might be worth your time. Honestly, I found it a bit exasperating at times and I am glad I am done reading it.
But there are a few more excellent stories to be found. Off the top of my head, "Swan Song," "Dog Years," "Exodus," "The Nightmare Box," "Crippled," "Hot Potting," "Evil Spirits," and "Obsolete" all work on differing levels. Aside from "Guts," "The Nightmare Box" and its antecedent stories "Poster Child" and "Cassandra" are the strongest thing in Haunted, and actually reveal the major plot-hinging element to the work as a whole. But if you only read those four, you will miss what happens to the Matchmaker, you will miss the absurdity and ridiculousness of "Dog Years" and "Exodus" and you will miss the "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"-esque "Obsolete"--which is the final story in the collection and arguably the third-best.
This is a work that can inspire a lot of discussion and might be a good creative writing class course syllabus item. Parts of it are great--as good, or better, than anything else Palahniuk has done. But on the whole, it drags, and is content to be macabre and gross simply for its own sake at times. I will stand by my statement, that I liked Snuff better only because it was a quicker read. Haunted certainly has its moments, and it is a fine moment of experimentation, for Palahniuk has here created a new genre of short story collection/novel hybrid--the phrase "story in novels" which I previously did not understand applies here almost singularly. But those unaccustomed to Pahlaniuk will be better to start off with Fight Club or Survivor or Rant or Choke. Those novels build on tension created from page one and come to satisfying conclusions. This novel starts off with an absolute bang and spends the rest of the time trying to match its previous elan. Still, only this novel could contain a paragraph as hilarious as this:
"Even the Link knows that eating a dead man's severed penis will get him extra prime-time exposure on every late-night talk show in the world. Just to describe how it tasted. After that will be the product endorsements for barbeque sauce and ketchup. After that, his own novelty cookbook. Radio shock-jock shows. After that, more daytime game shows for the rest of his life." (359)
Monday, October 27, 2008
Cursed from Birth: The Short, Unhappy Life of William S. Burroughs Jr. - William S. Burroughs, Jr., Ed. David Ohle
A book I had always been vaguely interested in pursuing was this autobiography/biography of William S. Burroughs Jr. The first time I encountered the book, in a South Carolina library several years ago, I hadn't known that Burroughs had a son. Even more, he had a son that published two books. And just thinking about the oftentimes off-putting subject matter of Burroughs work, it seemed at odds with his persona that he would be a regular, everday family man. Well, it is not at odds with his persona it turns out, because Burroughs had a somewhat distant relationship with his son.
They had lived together through the son's toddler years, and after the accidental shooting death of his wife, Burroughs sent his son to live with his parents in Palm Beach, Florida. After twelve or so years there, Burroughs the younger wanted to spend time with his father, so he flew to Tangier when he was 16 and witnessed the kind of life his father was leading there. One of the first things that happens is one of his father's friends makes sexual advances towards him. He gets used to it though, for a while at least, and smokes kif, and learns about his father's art. His description of the cut-up method is the one of the best I have read:
"I might mention that Mr. Gysin invented the cut-up method as applied to words or at least he was one of the first to take it seriously. The cut-up method enables the writer to achieve the same effect as the artist can with picture montage. The effect can be and often is shattering to the receptive reader because words are images in a much more personalized and internal sense than pictures. I recollect one mind-blowing ditty that my father had on his tape recorder. It was a word montage by Brion Gysin and consisted of one phrase: 'I come to free the words,' repeated over and over in different order. That is, 'The words are free to come, I come freely to the words, The free come to the words...' And while the words were repeated, the speed of the tape was increased gradually until it became a supersonic whine. But because of the rhythm, and after the cartoon laughter stage, some part of the listener would keep pace until he was virtually transported. To where, I don't know, or cannot report." (15)
I shouldn't attempt to lay down Junior's whole life story here. The book consists of four lengthy chapters which gradually will break one's heart. The first half of each chapter is Burroughs Jr.'s own writing, taken from what would have been his third autobiographical novel, Prakriti Junction. The second half of each chapter consists of oral history as told by William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, James Grauerholz, Anne Waldman, George Von Hilsheimer, and others, and additionally letters, mostly from son to father. These three separate mediums through which the story of the young man's life is told combine to create quite a touching and very realistic portrait. I have to say that the oral history consistently interested me the most, and the letters were sometimes tedious, as the previous information communicated had begun to sound repetitive. Burroughs Jr. is not a duplicitous autobiographer and 98% of the time his mind is sharp enough to recognize how absurd his outward physical behavior has become.
The first chapter charts his path from childhood through later education at the experimental Green Valley School, his subsequent arrests on drug charges and time spent at a rehab facility in Lexington, KY. The second chapter appears as if it will be the happiest, with the meeting of his wife Karen, their marriage, the publication of his first book Speed and the progress on his second book Kentucky Ham and various adventures traveling around the country that recall On the Road except with a far lesser degree of exuberance. By the end of the chapter, things are starting to look bleak. The third chapter is mostly a continuation in the vein of the second chapter, with an increased emphasis on Junior's alcoholic habits. He is pretty much a full-blown one throughout the entire part. The fourth chapter is undoubtedly the masterpiece section of this book, the most intriguing part, the most depressing part, and the most cathartic part.
The event which becomes the centerpiece of the book and Junior's life and death is the liver transplant he undergoes at age 28. There is question about how his liver had become so damaged at such a young age, even though he was an extremely heavy drinker. The consensus ends up being that, the drinking probably caused it, but there was probably another health concern that had caused it to occur so early. The operation for the transplant takes 18 hours and Burroughs Jr. reflects on the new appearance of his body:
"The wound, as I called it, was three inches across, eighteen inches long, and as deep as my backbone. I was gutted like a Halloween pig. I couldn't be stitched up because of the infection danger and had to heal from the inside out. When the nurse first saw it, she said, 'Oh my God!' Which scared me to death. Just what I needed. And it had to be washed out with saline at least three times a day and disinfected. Slosh it in with a squirting machine, suck it out with a vacuum machine. The first time I looked down at what they were doing, I said it, too: 'Oh my God!' I didn't look down there again for weeks." (121-122)
Burroughs Jr.'s new life after the operation last five years, and Allen Ginsberg remarked that he couldn't have lived much longer than seven years, that the new liver was constantly being rejected by his body so that he had to take steroids to reduce the rejection, which in turn affected Junior's psychological state, which had changed dramatically in his new, crippled condition. The end of the book is particularly hard to take, especially when the only disturbance between father and son rears its ugly head. Burroughs Jr. asked for $500 to buy a car in Denver, CO to help in finding a job and was not given the money. So he wrote a letter to his father that he never sent. This letter rivals Kafka's famous letter to his father.
There is also a page where Junior writes "pain" a couple hundred times, rivalling William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man "dorky" page. Finally there is much talk of despair and suicide. Most moving at the end of Burroughs Jr.'s autobiographical contribution:
"There's no reason to think that my existence is of any value to anyone. (If I want visitors I usually have to call somebody and feign healthiness to get company.) I tried to give a party, but nobody was interested. I think that fairly soon I am finished, right or wrong--I simply cannot take it--and there's no reason left to try. This is as close to the real suicide note as I have come yet. I'm tired of beating around the bush. The only question left is how.
There hardly seemed any reason left to try to keep it up. I keep hoping that some of my letters, some of the things I've put into the world will bear fruit--but my faith is flagging. There is no money (it's a horror in itself that being without money can be a horror in itself. People actually hate you for it). More and more, I count myself amongst those who will die young, either by design or accident--in my case, probably by design. This is becoming an obsession and I cannot break away from it.
God, I am sick of people." (151)
Burroughs went on to live a few months longer, travelling to Florida to see an old classmate that had a crush on him before he became an item with Karen. He settled down there temporarily and died shortly thereafter from complications stemming from a heart attack. While he is not the literary giant his father is, his prose style will prove to be far more satisfying for the majority of readers interested in a coherent story with beginning, middle, and end. This is also an excellent depiction of William S. Burroughs the man, a caring father, but a very detached one, never washing his hands of his son, but obviously frustrated by the way he is blamed for every fault that his son developed. He was always supportive, from a distance, and the relationship is sometimes warmly felt in their letters--with the exception of the single aforementioned one. Taken in as a whole, this is an excellent document of a man that many probably did not know existed, and a heartbreaking story full of oftentimes gruesome details that reveal just how much suffering one person can be able to withstand.
They had lived together through the son's toddler years, and after the accidental shooting death of his wife, Burroughs sent his son to live with his parents in Palm Beach, Florida. After twelve or so years there, Burroughs the younger wanted to spend time with his father, so he flew to Tangier when he was 16 and witnessed the kind of life his father was leading there. One of the first things that happens is one of his father's friends makes sexual advances towards him. He gets used to it though, for a while at least, and smokes kif, and learns about his father's art. His description of the cut-up method is the one of the best I have read:
"I might mention that Mr. Gysin invented the cut-up method as applied to words or at least he was one of the first to take it seriously. The cut-up method enables the writer to achieve the same effect as the artist can with picture montage. The effect can be and often is shattering to the receptive reader because words are images in a much more personalized and internal sense than pictures. I recollect one mind-blowing ditty that my father had on his tape recorder. It was a word montage by Brion Gysin and consisted of one phrase: 'I come to free the words,' repeated over and over in different order. That is, 'The words are free to come, I come freely to the words, The free come to the words...' And while the words were repeated, the speed of the tape was increased gradually until it became a supersonic whine. But because of the rhythm, and after the cartoon laughter stage, some part of the listener would keep pace until he was virtually transported. To where, I don't know, or cannot report." (15)
I shouldn't attempt to lay down Junior's whole life story here. The book consists of four lengthy chapters which gradually will break one's heart. The first half of each chapter is Burroughs Jr.'s own writing, taken from what would have been his third autobiographical novel, Prakriti Junction. The second half of each chapter consists of oral history as told by William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, James Grauerholz, Anne Waldman, George Von Hilsheimer, and others, and additionally letters, mostly from son to father. These three separate mediums through which the story of the young man's life is told combine to create quite a touching and very realistic portrait. I have to say that the oral history consistently interested me the most, and the letters were sometimes tedious, as the previous information communicated had begun to sound repetitive. Burroughs Jr. is not a duplicitous autobiographer and 98% of the time his mind is sharp enough to recognize how absurd his outward physical behavior has become.
The first chapter charts his path from childhood through later education at the experimental Green Valley School, his subsequent arrests on drug charges and time spent at a rehab facility in Lexington, KY. The second chapter appears as if it will be the happiest, with the meeting of his wife Karen, their marriage, the publication of his first book Speed and the progress on his second book Kentucky Ham and various adventures traveling around the country that recall On the Road except with a far lesser degree of exuberance. By the end of the chapter, things are starting to look bleak. The third chapter is mostly a continuation in the vein of the second chapter, with an increased emphasis on Junior's alcoholic habits. He is pretty much a full-blown one throughout the entire part. The fourth chapter is undoubtedly the masterpiece section of this book, the most intriguing part, the most depressing part, and the most cathartic part.
The event which becomes the centerpiece of the book and Junior's life and death is the liver transplant he undergoes at age 28. There is question about how his liver had become so damaged at such a young age, even though he was an extremely heavy drinker. The consensus ends up being that, the drinking probably caused it, but there was probably another health concern that had caused it to occur so early. The operation for the transplant takes 18 hours and Burroughs Jr. reflects on the new appearance of his body:
"The wound, as I called it, was three inches across, eighteen inches long, and as deep as my backbone. I was gutted like a Halloween pig. I couldn't be stitched up because of the infection danger and had to heal from the inside out. When the nurse first saw it, she said, 'Oh my God!' Which scared me to death. Just what I needed. And it had to be washed out with saline at least three times a day and disinfected. Slosh it in with a squirting machine, suck it out with a vacuum machine. The first time I looked down at what they were doing, I said it, too: 'Oh my God!' I didn't look down there again for weeks." (121-122)
Burroughs Jr.'s new life after the operation last five years, and Allen Ginsberg remarked that he couldn't have lived much longer than seven years, that the new liver was constantly being rejected by his body so that he had to take steroids to reduce the rejection, which in turn affected Junior's psychological state, which had changed dramatically in his new, crippled condition. The end of the book is particularly hard to take, especially when the only disturbance between father and son rears its ugly head. Burroughs Jr. asked for $500 to buy a car in Denver, CO to help in finding a job and was not given the money. So he wrote a letter to his father that he never sent. This letter rivals Kafka's famous letter to his father.
There is also a page where Junior writes "pain" a couple hundred times, rivalling William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man "dorky" page. Finally there is much talk of despair and suicide. Most moving at the end of Burroughs Jr.'s autobiographical contribution:
"There's no reason to think that my existence is of any value to anyone. (If I want visitors I usually have to call somebody and feign healthiness to get company.) I tried to give a party, but nobody was interested. I think that fairly soon I am finished, right or wrong--I simply cannot take it--and there's no reason left to try. This is as close to the real suicide note as I have come yet. I'm tired of beating around the bush. The only question left is how.
There hardly seemed any reason left to try to keep it up. I keep hoping that some of my letters, some of the things I've put into the world will bear fruit--but my faith is flagging. There is no money (it's a horror in itself that being without money can be a horror in itself. People actually hate you for it). More and more, I count myself amongst those who will die young, either by design or accident--in my case, probably by design. This is becoming an obsession and I cannot break away from it.
God, I am sick of people." (151)
Burroughs went on to live a few months longer, travelling to Florida to see an old classmate that had a crush on him before he became an item with Karen. He settled down there temporarily and died shortly thereafter from complications stemming from a heart attack. While he is not the literary giant his father is, his prose style will prove to be far more satisfying for the majority of readers interested in a coherent story with beginning, middle, and end. This is also an excellent depiction of William S. Burroughs the man, a caring father, but a very detached one, never washing his hands of his son, but obviously frustrated by the way he is blamed for every fault that his son developed. He was always supportive, from a distance, and the relationship is sometimes warmly felt in their letters--with the exception of the single aforementioned one. Taken in as a whole, this is an excellent document of a man that many probably did not know existed, and a heartbreaking story full of oftentimes gruesome details that reveal just how much suffering one person can be able to withstand.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Queer - William S. Burroughs
Amongst the Beats, you may find several reviews of Kerouac and Burroughs here, now and in the future, but probably not of Ginsberg. Don't get me wrong--I love Ginsberg--it's just I don't usually go for books of poetry. Poetry, for me, is best enjoyed with strong alcohol and a performance-friendly audience, neither of which I have significant access to at the moment. Enter Queer. Popular Burroughs biographical standards include mention of the difference between his early writing (Junky and Queer), his transitional work (Naked Lunch), and his settling into a motif (The Soft Machine, Nova Express, The Ticket that Exploded). Oeuvre rule: I have read Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, and Interzone. Interzone is closer to the significantly more straightforward prose of Queer (or Junky, even if I haven't read it yet). And I actually preferred The Soft Machine to Naked Lunch because it seemed to be "going somewhere," as far as the "cut-up method" can. Queer is more satisfying than Interzone if you are interested in reading a story with a beginning, middle, and end, though it is atraditional in other ways.
One surprising thing about Queer that I didn't know: It was written in 1953, shortly after Junky, but not published until 1985. In the lengthy introduction (roughly 1/8 the length of the novel itself, which might even be called a "novella") Burroughs is disarmingly naked on several counts:
"My motivations to write Queer were more complex, and are not clear to me at the present time. Why should I wish to chronicle so carefully these extremely painful and unpleasant and lacerating memories? While it was I who wrote Junky, I feel that I was being written in Queer. I was also taking pains to ensure further writing, so as to set the record straight: writing as inoculation. As soon as something is written, it loses the power of surprise, just as a virus loses its advantage when a weakened virus has created alerted antibodies. So I achieved some immunity from further perilous ventures along these lines by writing my experience down." (xiv)
Also when he recounts the unearthing process:
"When I started to write this companion text to Queer, I was paralyzed with a heavy reluctance, a writer's block like a straitjacket: 'I glance at the manuscript of Queer and I feel I simply can't read it. My past was a poisoned river from which one was fortunate to escape, and by which one feels immediately threatened, years after the events recorded. --Painful to an extent I find it difficult to read, let alone to write about. Every word and gesture sets the teeth on edge.' The reason for this reluctance becomes clearer as I force myself to look: the book is motivated and formed by an event which is never mentioned, in fact is carefully avoided: the accidental shooting of my wife, Joan, in September 1951." (xvii-xviii)
The novel does not contain any self-loathing or apologies for homosexuality. There are a few random instances of the protagonist, Lee, meeting other males that are uninterested in pursuing their relationship beyond a general friendship, but there are very few depictions of outright homophobia. In the introduction, Burroughs writes that Lee is off junk, freshly sexualized, and in search of an appropriate object. He finds it in the person of Eugene Allerton, who is probably not queer, but who succumbs to Lee's advances for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. Most intriguing are the first few scenes when Lee meets Allerton, and the way in which he hopes to reveal that he wants to "make it" with him. The closest moment approaching bitter self-examination occurs in Lee's confession to Allerton:
"'A curse. Been in our family for generations. The Lees have always been perverts. I shall never forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands--the lymph glands that is, of course--when the baneful word seared my reeling brain: I was a homosexual. I thought of the painted, simpering female impersonators I had seen in a Baltimore night club. Could it be possible that I was one of those subhuman things? I walked the streets in a daze, like a man with a light concussion--just a minute, Doctor Kildare, this isn't your script. I might have well destroyed myself, ending an existence which seemed to offer nothing but grotesque misery and humiliation. Nobler, I thought, to die a man than live on, a sex monster. It was a wise old queen--Bobo, we called her--who taught me that I had a duty to live and to bear my burden proudly for all to see, to conquer prejudice and ignorance and hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. Whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, you emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink.'" (39-40)
Passages like these push the novel into more classic territory than the majority of Burroughs work, which will never gain recognition beyond its cult literary following. The "cut-up method" is too much to take. It's not the same kind of reading people are used to doing. It doesn't make logical sense. It has no sense of "profluence." Queer should be read before the rest of Burroughs work to gain a sense of his philosophy.
Eventually, the novel becomes an adventure story, with Lee inviting Allerton on a trip to the jungles of South America in search of yage or ayahausca or Bannisteria caapi, a plant which contains a drug which supposedly enhances telepathic communication and makes mind control possible. Lee speaks about how the Russians and the Americans have probably already obtained the plant and have used it on their populaces for their societal aims. He hopes to use it to "have his way" with Allerton so that they can move beyond their predetermined schedule of "twice a week." This is the second half of the novel, and the first half is mostly about Lee going to various bars in Mexico City (much of the time, the Ship Ahoy, where Allerton hangs out with his friend Mary, playing chess), drinking and talking to various friends and eventually getting closer to Allerton, until a perceived split happens, with Allerton trying to avoid him more often than not, finally succumbing to the trip when Lee promises to pay for him all the way. The second half of the novel is stronger than the first, but on the whole this is a major work that is frequently overlooked, and is much more emotional and affecting than Burroughs later literary experiments. If one were to design a curriculum for a Queer Lit course, this volume would be a must.
One surprising thing about Queer that I didn't know: It was written in 1953, shortly after Junky, but not published until 1985. In the lengthy introduction (roughly 1/8 the length of the novel itself, which might even be called a "novella") Burroughs is disarmingly naked on several counts:
"My motivations to write Queer were more complex, and are not clear to me at the present time. Why should I wish to chronicle so carefully these extremely painful and unpleasant and lacerating memories? While it was I who wrote Junky, I feel that I was being written in Queer. I was also taking pains to ensure further writing, so as to set the record straight: writing as inoculation. As soon as something is written, it loses the power of surprise, just as a virus loses its advantage when a weakened virus has created alerted antibodies. So I achieved some immunity from further perilous ventures along these lines by writing my experience down." (xiv)
Also when he recounts the unearthing process:
"When I started to write this companion text to Queer, I was paralyzed with a heavy reluctance, a writer's block like a straitjacket: 'I glance at the manuscript of Queer and I feel I simply can't read it. My past was a poisoned river from which one was fortunate to escape, and by which one feels immediately threatened, years after the events recorded. --Painful to an extent I find it difficult to read, let alone to write about. Every word and gesture sets the teeth on edge.' The reason for this reluctance becomes clearer as I force myself to look: the book is motivated and formed by an event which is never mentioned, in fact is carefully avoided: the accidental shooting of my wife, Joan, in September 1951." (xvii-xviii)
The novel does not contain any self-loathing or apologies for homosexuality. There are a few random instances of the protagonist, Lee, meeting other males that are uninterested in pursuing their relationship beyond a general friendship, but there are very few depictions of outright homophobia. In the introduction, Burroughs writes that Lee is off junk, freshly sexualized, and in search of an appropriate object. He finds it in the person of Eugene Allerton, who is probably not queer, but who succumbs to Lee's advances for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. Most intriguing are the first few scenes when Lee meets Allerton, and the way in which he hopes to reveal that he wants to "make it" with him. The closest moment approaching bitter self-examination occurs in Lee's confession to Allerton:
"'A curse. Been in our family for generations. The Lees have always been perverts. I shall never forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands--the lymph glands that is, of course--when the baneful word seared my reeling brain: I was a homosexual. I thought of the painted, simpering female impersonators I had seen in a Baltimore night club. Could it be possible that I was one of those subhuman things? I walked the streets in a daze, like a man with a light concussion--just a minute, Doctor Kildare, this isn't your script. I might have well destroyed myself, ending an existence which seemed to offer nothing but grotesque misery and humiliation. Nobler, I thought, to die a man than live on, a sex monster. It was a wise old queen--Bobo, we called her--who taught me that I had a duty to live and to bear my burden proudly for all to see, to conquer prejudice and ignorance and hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. Whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, you emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink.'" (39-40)
Passages like these push the novel into more classic territory than the majority of Burroughs work, which will never gain recognition beyond its cult literary following. The "cut-up method" is too much to take. It's not the same kind of reading people are used to doing. It doesn't make logical sense. It has no sense of "profluence." Queer should be read before the rest of Burroughs work to gain a sense of his philosophy.
Eventually, the novel becomes an adventure story, with Lee inviting Allerton on a trip to the jungles of South America in search of yage or ayahausca or Bannisteria caapi, a plant which contains a drug which supposedly enhances telepathic communication and makes mind control possible. Lee speaks about how the Russians and the Americans have probably already obtained the plant and have used it on their populaces for their societal aims. He hopes to use it to "have his way" with Allerton so that they can move beyond their predetermined schedule of "twice a week." This is the second half of the novel, and the first half is mostly about Lee going to various bars in Mexico City (much of the time, the Ship Ahoy, where Allerton hangs out with his friend Mary, playing chess), drinking and talking to various friends and eventually getting closer to Allerton, until a perceived split happens, with Allerton trying to avoid him more often than not, finally succumbing to the trip when Lee promises to pay for him all the way. The second half of the novel is stronger than the first, but on the whole this is a major work that is frequently overlooked, and is much more emotional and affecting than Burroughs later literary experiments. If one were to design a curriculum for a Queer Lit course, this volume would be a must.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian - Kurt Vonnegut
Published in 1999, two years after his final novel Timequake, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian is more of an essay by Kurt Vonnegut than a book. When I took it out of the library, I expected an interview with Kevorkian or an impassioned defense of euthanasia. This is neither. Its 78 pages can be read in probably 30-45 minutes. It consists of an introduction, which reveals Vonnegut's methodology for the piece, and the essay itself, which is comprised of a dozen or so interviews with recent deaths of lesser-known folk showing up in the obituary column of The New York Times and more famous celebrities from the past like William Shakespeare and Sir Isaac Newton and Adolf Hitler and Isaac Asimov and Clarence Darrow. Vonnegut is induced into having near-death experiences by Jack Kevorkian in Huntsville, Texas, and reports back on the experience of being half dead and interviewing these people in the tunnel towards the Pearly Gates. There is no hell. St. Peter guards the gates and begins to get upset by all of this near-death visiting.
Each little chapter in the essay itself, usually between 1 and 3 pages, is, I believe, a report that Vonnegut delivered for New York City's NPR affiliate, WNYC. He exists as a character in this work in the guise of a reporter. Some of them are very funny. The interview with Peter Pellegrino, hot air balloon enthusiast, is my personal favorite. There is also a critique by a recently executed woman in Texas of the Governor at the time who presciently states, "She said that was too bad [that there was no Hell] because she would be glad to go to Hell if only she could take the Governor of Texas with her. 'He's a murderer, too, said Carla Faye. 'He murdered me.'" (70). This in 1998 or 1999.
All of the proceeds of this book went to the WNYC station so it was great for Vonnegut to do this as his own, probably very lucrative pledge drive. He does make a compelling statement about the nature of public radio: "WNYC enhances the informed wit and wisdom of its community and mine. It does what no commercial radio or TV station can afford to do anymore. WNYC satisfies the people's right to know--as contrasted with, as abject slaves of high-roller publicists and advertisers, keeping the public vacantly diverted and entertained." (12) While I support the efforts of public radio, I have never donated to a pledge drive and God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian might be a good way to support that NYC-affiliate station, but it comes at quite a high price for such a short book. That said, if you need to kill a half hour in a library or at your local massive bookstore, this would not be a bad thing to separate from the chaff. It's a cool idea for an essay and I almost wish Vonnegut had developed it further, but it's good the way it is, as an entertaining (and humanizing) little truc.
Each little chapter in the essay itself, usually between 1 and 3 pages, is, I believe, a report that Vonnegut delivered for New York City's NPR affiliate, WNYC. He exists as a character in this work in the guise of a reporter. Some of them are very funny. The interview with Peter Pellegrino, hot air balloon enthusiast, is my personal favorite. There is also a critique by a recently executed woman in Texas of the Governor at the time who presciently states, "She said that was too bad [that there was no Hell] because she would be glad to go to Hell if only she could take the Governor of Texas with her. 'He's a murderer, too, said Carla Faye. 'He murdered me.'" (70). This in 1998 or 1999.
All of the proceeds of this book went to the WNYC station so it was great for Vonnegut to do this as his own, probably very lucrative pledge drive. He does make a compelling statement about the nature of public radio: "WNYC enhances the informed wit and wisdom of its community and mine. It does what no commercial radio or TV station can afford to do anymore. WNYC satisfies the people's right to know--as contrasted with, as abject slaves of high-roller publicists and advertisers, keeping the public vacantly diverted and entertained." (12) While I support the efforts of public radio, I have never donated to a pledge drive and God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian might be a good way to support that NYC-affiliate station, but it comes at quite a high price for such a short book. That said, if you need to kill a half hour in a library or at your local massive bookstore, this would not be a bad thing to separate from the chaff. It's a cool idea for an essay and I almost wish Vonnegut had developed it further, but it's good the way it is, as an entertaining (and humanizing) little truc.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk
Snuff is the most recent novel by Chuck Palahniuk, released May 20, 2008, exactly five months ago today. The earlier comment, made in the review of Survivor, concerning the author's prolific output may be a bit of an exaggeration, though he has already announced details concerning his next novel to be released in 2009 on his website. I do expect to be able to read Pygmy after having finished the remaining volumes. You may be wondering why this Palahniuk obsession all of the sudden? Fact is, I'm coming up very soon on completing my second novel, and the idea of selling it (just printing it out, really) is so daunting to me that I have turned to this author as an example of what it takes to attain success in the modern literary marketplace. On the biographical note at the end of Snuff, it is stated that Palahniuk has sold over three million books. This on top of two movie deals, and at least two more forthcoming. To say that I wish I lived his life would be perfect honesty.
Granted, his fiction may not cast as wide a net as Philip Roth's--Snuff may be downright offensive in comparison to Portnoy's Complaint. But it really isn't so bad. I mean, for a book about the making of a world record breaking pornographic film, it is not really so shocking after the first 50 pages or so. There are at least two revelations concerning potential coital relations with paternal and maternal sources--and while that may be hard to swallow, so to speak, once all of the cliches of porn are exhausted, it becomes just another book about just another job. There are a couple things to mention. First, so far it is my least favorite book by Palahniuk, and I only recommend it if you don't care about reading something that can be considered a trifle. Not unlike A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby, one of the first items reviewed on this blog (except that volume might hold more intrinsic value), it makes for good "beach reading." That is, if you don't mind other beach goers perhaps thinking you are perverted (as someone who read Naked Lunch on beach visits six years ago, I do not worry about that). Second, it is also Palahniuk's shortest book, which is why I call it something of a trifle, and not anywhere near the heights of any of the previous books I've read by him. Rant, this book's direct predecessor, does not get off to as quick a start as this one, but there is a far greater payoff in the end. All things considered, the New York Times review of Snuff (which can be found here http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Ellmann-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) is more harsh than I am willing to be because the book is not as meaningless as Ellman makes it out to be.
One quick note before a discussion of the plot commences. A few weeks ago I heard a piece on NPR about how book publishers are increasingly releasing "trailers" for books. I can understand how this might be helpful in an age where digital cable and streaming Internet videos threaten to trump all other media. However, I believed that, if a person brought themselves into a bookstore, or a library, or randomly searched on Amazon.com, the descriptions of the books are enough reason to pick something out, or leave it. In other words, the notes on the inside covers, the blurbs from other famous authors, or in my world, the "hook" in the query letter (which is enough for agents to tell me, "That's not for me."). Well, if you go to the page for Snuff on Amazon.com, you will find one of these so-called trailers. It is the first one I have watched and it is most instructive for getting to see Chuck Palahniuk in person and to hear how his last name is pronounced (differently than I have been saying for years).
Snuff concerns five main characters: Ms. Cassie Wright, who is undoubtedly the main character, but who does not provide one of the four rotating first person narratives that comprise the novel, Mr. 600, Mr. 72., Mr. 137, and Sheila, the talent coordinator. The setting is one long scene. A concrete basement where 600 guys stand around in their boxers waiting to be called in, 3 at a time, to perform their duties with Ms. Wright and help her to set a new world record for the biggest gang bang of all time. Cassie Wright is a legendary porn star that has been in the business for about twenty years. Mr. 600 a.k.a. Branch Bacardi is her male equivalent, and co-star in many films. Mr. 72 a.k.a. Darin Johnson is an 18-year-old bearing roses and wearing a crucifix necklace who hopes to deliver a particular message to Ms. Wright. Mr. 137 a.k.a. Dan Banyan is a recently disgraced television actor who hopes to resuscitate his career by performing in a different kind of porno than the one from which he was "outed." Sheila is the 20-year-old who makes the pitch to Cassie for the film, and makes all of the preparations for its production.
There is not much of a plot to speak of--beyond the certain pills Mr. 137 keeps, the certain pill Mr. 600 keeps, and issues of paternity and maternity. Snuff is mostly an exhibition space for low-brow comedy, and I will admit that a few of the puns in the filmography of Cassie Wright (To Drill a Mockingbird, The Da Vinci Load, The Postman Always Cums Twice, Catch Her in the Eye, The Wizard of Ass) made me laugh out loud. However, it is also a meditation on the desperation and guilty feelings associated with the industry. There are not as many descriptive segments to excerpt as in other works by Palahniuk, but there are a couple that do identify this element in the novel. The laugh-it-off desperation:
"Even indoors like this, Bacardi, Cord Cuervo, Beamer Bushmills--all the male dinosaurs of the adult industry still wear their sunglasses. They pat and smooth their hair. They're the generation of genuine stage actors; they studied their craft at UCLA or NYU, but needed to pay the rent between legitimate roles. To them, doing porn was a lark. A radical political gesture. Playing the male lead in The Twilight Bone or A Tale of Two Titties was a joke to put on their resume. After they were bankable legitimate stars, those early jobs would become fodder for anecdotes they'd tell on late-night talk shows." (12-13)
And the chilling guilt:
"'It only takes one mistake,' the Dan Banyan guy says, 'and nothing else you ever do will matter.' With his empty hand, he takes one of my hands. His fingers feel hot, fever-hot, and pounding with his heartbeats. He turns my hand palm-up saying, 'No matter how hard you work or how smart you become, you'll always be known for that one poor choice.' He sets the blue pill on my palm, saying, 'Do that one wrong thing--and you'll be dead for the rest of your life.' (110-111)
Snuff is probably not going to be nominated for the National Book Award or the Pulitzer Prize or the PEN/Faulkner prize. (A side note on prizes: with recent mention of why American writers rarely win the Nobel--they supposedly don't understand the mechanics of literature as well as Europeans do--which I will agree on Thomas Mann about, but that's it--would it be appropriate to offer D.F. Wallace the Nobel posthumously, a la J.K. Toole for the Pulitzer? I vote yes. It is certainly the kind of story to keep the literary trade alive and appealing for future generations of would-be-mostly disappointed writers.) Palahniuk may have an even greater American novel than Fight Club in him yet, but this will rarely top the list of his oeuvre. It is, like I said, a trifle; easy and quick to read. I feel good having read it but I'm glad I got it out of the library--it's not a book I need to own.
Granted, his fiction may not cast as wide a net as Philip Roth's--Snuff may be downright offensive in comparison to Portnoy's Complaint. But it really isn't so bad. I mean, for a book about the making of a world record breaking pornographic film, it is not really so shocking after the first 50 pages or so. There are at least two revelations concerning potential coital relations with paternal and maternal sources--and while that may be hard to swallow, so to speak, once all of the cliches of porn are exhausted, it becomes just another book about just another job. There are a couple things to mention. First, so far it is my least favorite book by Palahniuk, and I only recommend it if you don't care about reading something that can be considered a trifle. Not unlike A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby, one of the first items reviewed on this blog (except that volume might hold more intrinsic value), it makes for good "beach reading." That is, if you don't mind other beach goers perhaps thinking you are perverted (as someone who read Naked Lunch on beach visits six years ago, I do not worry about that). Second, it is also Palahniuk's shortest book, which is why I call it something of a trifle, and not anywhere near the heights of any of the previous books I've read by him. Rant, this book's direct predecessor, does not get off to as quick a start as this one, but there is a far greater payoff in the end. All things considered, the New York Times review of Snuff (which can be found here http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Ellmann-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) is more harsh than I am willing to be because the book is not as meaningless as Ellman makes it out to be.
One quick note before a discussion of the plot commences. A few weeks ago I heard a piece on NPR about how book publishers are increasingly releasing "trailers" for books. I can understand how this might be helpful in an age where digital cable and streaming Internet videos threaten to trump all other media. However, I believed that, if a person brought themselves into a bookstore, or a library, or randomly searched on Amazon.com, the descriptions of the books are enough reason to pick something out, or leave it. In other words, the notes on the inside covers, the blurbs from other famous authors, or in my world, the "hook" in the query letter (which is enough for agents to tell me, "That's not for me."). Well, if you go to the page for Snuff on Amazon.com, you will find one of these so-called trailers. It is the first one I have watched and it is most instructive for getting to see Chuck Palahniuk in person and to hear how his last name is pronounced (differently than I have been saying for years).
Snuff concerns five main characters: Ms. Cassie Wright, who is undoubtedly the main character, but who does not provide one of the four rotating first person narratives that comprise the novel, Mr. 600, Mr. 72., Mr. 137, and Sheila, the talent coordinator. The setting is one long scene. A concrete basement where 600 guys stand around in their boxers waiting to be called in, 3 at a time, to perform their duties with Ms. Wright and help her to set a new world record for the biggest gang bang of all time. Cassie Wright is a legendary porn star that has been in the business for about twenty years. Mr. 600 a.k.a. Branch Bacardi is her male equivalent, and co-star in many films. Mr. 72 a.k.a. Darin Johnson is an 18-year-old bearing roses and wearing a crucifix necklace who hopes to deliver a particular message to Ms. Wright. Mr. 137 a.k.a. Dan Banyan is a recently disgraced television actor who hopes to resuscitate his career by performing in a different kind of porno than the one from which he was "outed." Sheila is the 20-year-old who makes the pitch to Cassie for the film, and makes all of the preparations for its production.
There is not much of a plot to speak of--beyond the certain pills Mr. 137 keeps, the certain pill Mr. 600 keeps, and issues of paternity and maternity. Snuff is mostly an exhibition space for low-brow comedy, and I will admit that a few of the puns in the filmography of Cassie Wright (To Drill a Mockingbird, The Da Vinci Load, The Postman Always Cums Twice, Catch Her in the Eye, The Wizard of Ass) made me laugh out loud. However, it is also a meditation on the desperation and guilty feelings associated with the industry. There are not as many descriptive segments to excerpt as in other works by Palahniuk, but there are a couple that do identify this element in the novel. The laugh-it-off desperation:
"Even indoors like this, Bacardi, Cord Cuervo, Beamer Bushmills--all the male dinosaurs of the adult industry still wear their sunglasses. They pat and smooth their hair. They're the generation of genuine stage actors; they studied their craft at UCLA or NYU, but needed to pay the rent between legitimate roles. To them, doing porn was a lark. A radical political gesture. Playing the male lead in The Twilight Bone or A Tale of Two Titties was a joke to put on their resume. After they were bankable legitimate stars, those early jobs would become fodder for anecdotes they'd tell on late-night talk shows." (12-13)
And the chilling guilt:
"'It only takes one mistake,' the Dan Banyan guy says, 'and nothing else you ever do will matter.' With his empty hand, he takes one of my hands. His fingers feel hot, fever-hot, and pounding with his heartbeats. He turns my hand palm-up saying, 'No matter how hard you work or how smart you become, you'll always be known for that one poor choice.' He sets the blue pill on my palm, saying, 'Do that one wrong thing--and you'll be dead for the rest of your life.' (110-111)
Snuff is probably not going to be nominated for the National Book Award or the Pulitzer Prize or the PEN/Faulkner prize. (A side note on prizes: with recent mention of why American writers rarely win the Nobel--they supposedly don't understand the mechanics of literature as well as Europeans do--which I will agree on Thomas Mann about, but that's it--would it be appropriate to offer D.F. Wallace the Nobel posthumously, a la J.K. Toole for the Pulitzer? I vote yes. It is certainly the kind of story to keep the literary trade alive and appealing for future generations of would-be-mostly disappointed writers.) Palahniuk may have an even greater American novel than Fight Club in him yet, but this will rarely top the list of his oeuvre. It is, like I said, a trifle; easy and quick to read. I feel good having read it but I'm glad I got it out of the library--it's not a book I need to own.
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