It is important, now, that I re-listen to Ms. Oyler's appearance on the NY Times Book Review podcast. Because that's why I checked this book out--or maybe it was an interview on "Fresh Air," or some other outlet ("The New Yorker Radio Hour?"). Even though I only knew its trope--girl snoops through boyfriend's cell phone, discovers he is a MAGA conservative, or an online conspiracy theorist--one which did not strike me as terribly interesting, given the bounty of material on QAnon, et al.--the novel seemed "zeitgeisty" and given the perpetual mission of Flying Houses, which is to "sense" the direction of the culture in literary publishing, I had to place a Hold on it immediately (it took a while to get it, many others reserved it before me). Finding the episode from 2/26/21, Fake Accounts is framed as a debut novel by a person pretty close to my age that made her name as a literary critic. So of course, I couldn't just simply ignore it.
Before I re-listen, what am I re-listening for? My sense of this book is as follows: it is not autobiographical, but it is extremely autobiographical. So much of this could have been taken out of every day life. Some of the details are just too unique to have been plucked out discretely from the ether of the imagination. Oyler lives part-time in Berlin and New York. There is a lot about Berlin in it. Near the end, there is a biblical rain and flood in Berlin. Last night (as of 7/19/21) there was apparently massive flooding in Western Germany and so I was reminded that I needed to work on this review. Because for all its flaws, its prescience feels illuminating. That said, this is an extremely particular book and so this will be an extremely particular review. If Oyler is able to write a book like this, then I am able to write a review like this.
*
To begin with literary criticism, here are a few things I re-learned from the interview: she's 30 (younger than I thought), got her start writing "listicles," and forgive me, but I have to quote: "in the process of researching this column, I read a lot of book criticism, I read a lot of weird, sort of book websites, and I learned a lot about what was going on in contemporary literature, and I learned a lot about what I liked and what I didn't like, in criticism as well."
Pamela asked, "What were the weird book websites?" Oyler then refers to alt-lit and Tao Lin--but a large group of internet-inflected writers and poets and novelists who were doing sort of experimental literature that was very much inflected by the internet. She got her style as a critic from reading old articles from the LRB, London Review of Books........
Of course, in reviewing a book where there is so much about the "I" in our online communications, so much about knowing another's entire online presence, so much about Twitter interactions and the weird sorts of archetypes that emerge (particularly in response to women, generally), and if one happens to have amassed a not-insignificant body of criticism hovering on the perimeter of so called "alt-lit" (FYI, it is unlikely I will be able to review Lin's Leave Society prior to its August 4th publication date, particularly as Big Vape stands before it, but it is coming...), one happens to wonder, do I exist, do I matter, why am I here, etc. Oyler obviously intuited a silver bullet and grabbed a brass ring that I have been watching pass by for years. I am secure in the knowledge that at least Jeffrey Toobin appreciated what I had to offer.
"Their sort of signature combination of very sort of cheeky--not cheeky, but in-depth, and a long review, and the books are viewed from many different angles, but ultimately there's a real perspective that's gone into those pieces that I really connected with."
That is about the London Review of Books, and perhaps those critics are better than this critic, but this is always what I have tried to do--that is the r'aison d'etre of FH--a serious perspective, yet cheeky, often from the bitter standpoint of a have-not. Perhaps these are the worst sorts of reviews--I could write a better book than that!--but I like to think I understand the enormous complexity of the undertaking. And I am sure that Oyler spent years toiling as a have-not as well, and so has some sympathy for my position but also may consider my perspective, what with its clouded view of merit or ostensibly unearned success, to be almost irrelevant.
She also does her customary disclosure which is that she went to Yale. So obviously, she is well-educated, and must have been very bright to be accepted. I don't take away points for humblebrags because we have to look at the book itself (and I would be guilty of the same) but sometimes I get triggered, okay, by elitism. But the Yale English Department is less personally offensive to me than Yale Law School--and we all know that toiling away at literature very rarely results in financial reward--so mostly, I am happy for Oyler. She made it happen, probably by writing for other outlets other than her own poorly-trafficked blog stuck in 2008, and maybe I could do the same, but then again there is very little substance to my perspective, and I am not a great writer. This is not false modesty but snippets of truth I've sensed from the limited few that have provided honest and constructive criticism.
She says that she goes into a review thinking about what the other's goal is, and says some people don't do this (note: I don't, though I do think about that when I am trying to end the review, to come to an overall assessment). If she senses a misguided goal, then that is one kind of a review, or a noble goal, that has been executed more or less successfully. Pamela asks if she avoids reading other reviews and she says that she does not.
Is this review about her style of literary criticism, or the book itself? I haven't read her reviews so that is really dangerous, and I'm just going to say that, I thought about this A LOT as a film critic, and it was because I was afraid of looking like a charlatan. Not because I wanted to think about the conversations that people were having about the product; because I was 18 or 19 and didn't feel comfortable participating in such conversations. I have one friend that asked what I thought of Fake Accounts and when I told him I finished it on Saturday (two days ago), and it was OK, he said he saw it had gotten bad reviews and heard a lot about it, but hadn't read it. I have not read any of them but I am very interested to read the NY Times Review. Because there is a weird sort of "scratch my back" mentality with that publication (to say nothing of other highbrow outlets based in New York City) where criticism intersects with marketing. Of course, this is unavoidable: I would not be given copies of It Never Ends or Leave Society (or the half-dozen others in the past) if publicists and publishing houses did not think "all press is good press." So I might read that review before I finish this one. But to be clear, I do not do that, and I do not recommend doing that unless you are afraid of saying the wrong thing. And that is sort of my criticism of Fake Accounts, which is not that bad, nor that great, and which I cannot recommend, nor dismiss. That is, I recommend you read this book if you care about literature and publishing. Also, if you want to go to Germany. Or do a lot of online dating. I do not expect you will have the most enjoyable of experiences, is all. Regardless, there is so much truth in this novel, that there is much to admire in it. The truth hurts, all too often, and I really need to finish listening to this interview to make sure I am not totally off-base.
*
But before that, I really wanted to give this book a bad review just because there is a section of it that is clearly ripping of Jenny Offill, almost making fun of her (even vaguely referencing an interview on the NY Times Book Review podcast), and to me this is almost a Camille Paglia-Susan Sontag throw-down, and just as most would side with Sontag, I think most would side with Offill. Because there is something beautifully humble about her work, and the main character in this novel tears her aesthetics to shreds. Yet perhaps in reality, Oyler is a fan of Offill's work, and realizes that the long section of the novel deeply-indebted to her, is actually its strongest part (which I felt). Here we veer into the autobiographical nature of the literary debut, as the character has no name, but this is premature. I won't reprint the offending paragraph, I will just re-state my (dumb) perspective that I consider Offill a true artist. I feel this has to be a tell--that the protagonist dislikes Offill-esque writing because she can't even try to be concise.
*
Nothing further from the podcast interview. That isn't the book. The only other relevant consideration was, "how much of you is in this novel?" And apparently, there was a lot of her in it, and this bothered me, most likely for the wrong reasons. That is, the protagonist comes off...not so well in my opinion and I am wondering whether I am a bad guy for thinking that, but she is just a snarky b**** and she has to come off badly to others too, not just me. You don't write yourself to be a monster, but perhaps, sometimes, this is quite a brilliant trope. Or if not monstrosity, at least honest, brutal truth, shorn of any societal constrictions of "being nice," for the character is very straightforward about her fakeness in this regard.
The literary style of this novel is unique. At one end, there is a beautiful mellifluousness to the language. If you read it out loud, the strength and force of the words are apparent. But so are the run-on sentences. Now there are basic literary principles, one of which is avoiding passive voice, and another of which is avoiding run-on sentences. It appears that the former is still in vogue and the latter is a relic. I often do both, egregiously. And here, Oyler does run-on sentences egregiously. It is worth noting that there is a great literary tradition of the run-on sentence when it is deftly executed. To me, this entire book was full of run-on sentences. Some of them were good, such as the opening (which clearly must have wowed in the pitch, and further underscores that the first 5 pages may be the most important part of the novel, at least with regard to agent queries--though I suspect a connection or two was made by virtue of critical endeavors). More than a few times, these sentences made me scoff and dislike the character. The first such instance I recall is this, because it reinforces depressing stereotypes as an apparent reflection of reality.
OK I can't find that passage because the book is a miasma of rhetoric, but it has something do with Pursuit-Evasion Game Theory and so I guess if there is a theory for it it must be true. But it is depressing as hell to think that the person going through the trouble of pursuing, doing all of the hard work, is deemed the less attractive by society. I digress. As does she:
"OK, get to the point, my ex-boyfriends are saying from the audience, not unkindly but not kindly either. They will listen to me talk about other men, but you can tell they really don't like it; they use any excuse to cheapen the experience. You take so long to tell stories. It's hard to say what it is they saw in me if they didn't appreciate this crucial aspect of my charm." (31)
As a person given to the same impulses, I can empathize with her. But also the ex-boyfriends. Because, I don't know, this book is like a red herring. Granted I didn't want to read a book about MAGA and chem trails and inside jobs, but I did not know I was reading a book about online dating and putting on fake personas. Of course, there is a fair amount of material on "American anxiety" circa 2015-2017, but ultimately this is a very personal book about a young woman's experiences living by herself in Berlin, for reasons she doesn't totally understand, doing some writing but also nannying for two kids and trawling OK Cupid like it's her job. She has a sweet German roommate, and the mother of the children is sweet as well, but there is an air of condescension about the protagonist that makes her seem like a brat. The "anti-hero" was a big thing about 15-20 years ago, and maybe it is coming back, I don't know. Of course I like the idea of the "anti-hero" because that's realistic, that's real life - none of us are perfect heroes 24/7, nobody is flawless. Still, even with anti-heroes, we root for them to succeed (I am thinking of three major television properties). Here, the reader does not so much sympathize with the narrator as hope that her ruse is uncovered. Perhaps not in the scene in the Visa office--we don't want to see her get in real trouble--but perhaps in the many scenes of first dates, we hope that one person will call her on her BS (this does happen, once, I think, with the chain-smoking American Leo--when she is attempting to either date a person from each zodiac sign, or put on the persona of someone born in each zodiac sign, I couldn't tell--but nothing of consequence comes of it).
And then there is the plot, which as noted above, is very loose. The novel effectively serves as a way for Oyler to make her pronouncements on the world, many of which feel wrong-headed, unfair and immature. This is the character, maybe--not Oyler--but the character that writes snarky internet articles--not "listicles" or actual book reviews. We could imagine such a writer living as such a character. We hope that Oyler has presented an "evil twin" version of herself.
But it is patently obvious that she (like many of us) have run the gauntlet of online dating and have a great number of amusing stories to cull from that experience. So there may be elements that are extraordinary--I haven't even given away the first "spoiler" which shouldn't be avoided in a review because it comes early enough--but these are just framing mechanisms for the long middle section about the narrator alone in Berlin.
The ending..................well, it's not as bad as The Art of Fielding. But it's a deus ex machina. I watched Adaptation a couple nights ago for the first time in many years. As the screenwriter-guru tells his pupils, "for Gods sake, don't use a deus ex machina!" That made me think of this book. Of course, there are different rules for screenwriting.
The ending isn't as bad as The Art of Fielding--but what made that ending so frustrating was that the rest of the book was very good. I'm sorry to say I did not have as good a time reading this one. But I do feel that I have been plugged into the zeitgeist after reading it, and that zeitgeist is depressing as hell (as if I didn't already know that).
I haven't included enough quotes, and I've been rather dismissive here, which isn't fair. Because I admired a fair amount of this book, and truth be told I did move through the parts that were "easier to read" rather quickly. Oh, fuck it:
"The author said she thought having children contributed to the form and style of her books, written in stolen moments, necessarily short sections [Ed. I am thinking, too, of Raymond Carver when I read this], simple, aphoristic sentences, more of an essay than a novel at times. Lots of women were writing fragmented book like this now, the interviewer pointed out. Having read several because they were easy to finish, I couldn't help but object: this trendy style was melodramatic, insinuating utmost meaning where there was only hollow prose, and in its attempts to reflect the world as a sequence of distinct and clearly formed ideas, it ran counter to how reality actually worked. Especially, I had to assume, if you had a baby, which is a purposeful experience (don't let it die) but also chaotic (it might die). Since the interviewer and the author agreed that there were something distinctly feminine about this style, I felt guilty admitting it, but I saw no other choice: I did not like the style." (164)
From there, she hits pause and listens to the Savage Love podcast instead, and then later delves into the online dating portion of the book, written in this same style. Having written several failed novels, I know this experimental facade when I see it--we try to come up with a new angle when we feel we aren't connecting with the reader enough. In fact there are multiple references to the reader themselves, which I also tend to enjoy just because I have done it myself (as have Thomas Mann, Donald Barthelme, and many others, no doubt). This is a generous act to readers--reminding them that the book doesn't exist without them--but unfortunately it is one that critics might like to savage. Not this one, though. I respect self-consciousness, but not "easy-outs." Perhaps one more representative quote will give a sense of how this novel reads (with strengths and weaknesses both emerging out of the same sentences):
".....In the past I might have also sent Felix text messages through periods of inner turmoil, e.g., 'Help, I'm trapped in my body!!' He would usually respond with something I interpreted as tough love, telling me to read a book, or write one. 'What are you doing' I'd always ask afterward, no question mark, because I didn't want to seem more desperate than I already did, and he would reply, lying. The internet is always on, interaction always available, but it could not guarantee I would be able to interact with someone I liked and understood, or who (I thought) liked and understood me. I'd gotten used to using people I'd never met, or met a few times, to muffle the sound of time passing without transcendence or joy or any of the good emotions I wanted to experience during my life, and I knew the feeling was mutual, and that was the comfort in it. It was compared to white noise so often for a reason: so many people, talking, mumbling, murmuring, muttering, suggesting, gently reminding, chiming in, jumping in, just wanting to add, just reminding, just asking, just wondering, just letting that sink in, just telling, just saying, just wanting to say, just screaming, just *whispering*, in all lowercase letters, in all caps, with punctuation, with no punctuation, with photos, with GIFs, with related links, Pay attention to me! Saying something as irrelevant to the wider world as 'I'm in a bad mood' or 'I can't get out of bed' elicited commiseration, and offering commiseration to similar expressions made me feel I had participated in a banal but important ecosystem. There were so many people in bad moods at any given time; all we had to do was find each other. We could pretend something good, connection, had come of our turning to technology to deal with boredom, loneliness, rejection, heartbreak, irrational rage, Weltschmerz [Ed. "a feeling of melancholy and world-weariness," she knows this but not much other German...perhaps like many non-Germans knowing the meaning of Schadenfreude], ennui, frustration with the writing process. We were all self-centered together, supporting each other as we propped up the social media companies...." (116-117)
*
This is all growing pains, I imagine. It's the literary debut of a fresh new voice. We have to accept a certain amount of autobiography, if not categorized as a memoir, and I know from experience that it is very hard to pull deeply meaningful experiences to us out of thin air - if something strikes us with pure, singular detail, it's fake to make something else up in the name not having any shred of autobiography, nothing to connect the author with the character. That feels manufactured, and this feels real. Certain parts of it, at least. And that is what I admire about the book--the bravery and courage in it, if the reader senses those embarrassing details that writers might prefer to disconnect from their real selves. Oyler is somewhat obtuse about how much of her is in this, and perhaps those "monstrous" qualities are the way we all are underneath the surface. But I don't want to believe that. At least for me personally, I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. I don't like making fun of people and sometimes it seems like that's happening quite a bit (not just in this novel, but on social media--making fun of people that can't defend themselves). Maybe this is okay if the narrator makes fun of themselves--portrays themselves as a train-wreck of sorts, as here--but the apparent immaturity and lack of compassion tend to overshadow the self-analysis. The narrator says she likes bad guys. That should be a tell, but I still don't really understand why.
Grade: B
No comments:
Post a Comment