Edited by Steve Bamlett, Friday, 26 Aug 2016, 10:59
If there had to be a Vietnam memorial novel on the Longlist,
I would have preferred Hannah Kohler’s The
Outside Lands. For all its recall of bestseller fiction like Malantes Matterhorn, it is a beautiful book, a
haunting book – basically a bildungsroman of the kind I love.
Hystopia is a very
fine science/medical/war fiction fantasy supposedly resurrected from one of the
characters, Meg Allen – and though that kind of fictive play is likeable in
Graeme Burnet’s novel on the list here, I have to admit, it is not to my taste
and hence colours my ability to appreciate even its very fine writing, that so
often recalls Vonnegut (when he is good) and always William Burroughs (writers
I like but steer clear of in practice).
It is a novel of a counterfactual world in which Kennedy won
a third term to be shot during that, it concerns the use of a technique to
enfold traumatic memory so that Nam vets can return to normal life. But there
are problems:
·Enfolded memory will unfold if exposed to exact
recall / replay of original events or with good sex or immersion in iced water.
·Some people , for unknown reasons, were so
harmed by the drug Tripizoid, used to enfold memory, that they became violent
replicants of the trauma and toured America – a bit like Burroughs The Wild Boys re-enacting the scene of
their trauma on the ‘innocent’ under their Black Flag (those presumably who had
seen supporting American aggression in Vietnam as ‘innocent’ anyway)
Of this latter type is Rake (named after what he did to the
face of one of his victims – while the victim was alive.
As a book about war trauma – as experienced by veterans and
those who loved ‘survivors’ (although this term is very relative applied in
this novel) the novel is necessary and important – at least to those who will
be willing to read it as something more than a serial murder story. The font
used on the book cover with its alpha-like Greek A’s will be forgiven because
probably intended to read the 'P' as rho – producing ‘Historia’, ‘Hysteria’ and
(U)topia out of the novel's title. All are possible takes on what the novel
appears to cover – an attempt to see the dystopic nature of the world we
currently inhabit – from a possibly hysterical (Meg’s family we are told has a
history of mental ill-health) version of history.
Like many other novels on this year’s list the themes of
suicide and a world whose reality is already more or less Gothic in its nature
run high. In the middle of it all is a Government Department running the scheme
‘trying to figure out a way to spin this fucked historical moment’.
So a metafiction again in a world that perhaps has already
outrun the value of Borges – but then the beauty of this novel is that its best
writing admits that – enfolds (defined in the novel – p. 18. – as turning, ‘the
drama/trauma inwards’) fiction and faction into mere noise that has wrapped
reality in intrapsychic effects of drugs, ‘hype’ and lies – spin.
…a soldier could fake, or embody
a state – was that how he put it? – in order to fool the enemy, or whatever.
All of Klein’s long-winded briefings, all that chatter, seemed to blend with
the sound of the car’s engines and the slight aftermath of the mystery pill,
and he reached over and dug around in the ashtray and got another joint lit and
decided to end further discussions on this topic.’
Steve’s Bookers: David Means HYSTOPIA
If there had to be a Vietnam memorial novel on the Longlist, I would have preferred Hannah Kohler’s The Outside Lands. For all its recall of bestseller fiction like Malantes Matterhorn, it is a beautiful book, a haunting book – basically a bildungsroman of the kind I love.
Hystopia is a very fine science/medical/war fiction fantasy supposedly resurrected from one of the characters, Meg Allen – and though that kind of fictive play is likeable in Graeme Burnet’s novel on the list here, I have to admit, it is not to my taste and hence colours my ability to appreciate even its very fine writing, that so often recalls Vonnegut (when he is good) and always William Burroughs (writers I like but steer clear of in practice).
It is a novel of a counterfactual world in which Kennedy won a third term to be shot during that, it concerns the use of a technique to enfold traumatic memory so that Nam vets can return to normal life. But there are problems:
· Enfolded memory will unfold if exposed to exact recall / replay of original events or with good sex or immersion in iced water.
· Some people , for unknown reasons, were so harmed by the drug Tripizoid, used to enfold memory, that they became violent replicants of the trauma and toured America – a bit like Burroughs The Wild Boys re-enacting the scene of their trauma on the ‘innocent’ under their Black Flag (those presumably who had seen supporting American aggression in Vietnam as ‘innocent’ anyway)
Of this latter type is Rake (named after what he did to the face of one of his victims – while the victim was alive.
As a book about war trauma – as experienced by veterans and those who loved ‘survivors’ (although this term is very relative applied in this novel) the novel is necessary and important – at least to those who will be willing to read it as something more than a serial murder story. The font used on the book cover with its alpha-like Greek A’s will be forgiven because probably intended to read the 'P' as rho – producing ‘Historia’, ‘Hysteria’ and (U)topia out of the novel's title. All are possible takes on what the novel appears to cover – an attempt to see the dystopic nature of the world we currently inhabit – from a possibly hysterical (Meg’s family we are told has a history of mental ill-health) version of history.
Like many other novels on this year’s list the themes of suicide and a world whose reality is already more or less Gothic in its nature run high. In the middle of it all is a Government Department running the scheme ‘trying to figure out a way to spin this fucked historical moment’.
So a metafiction again in a world that perhaps has already outrun the value of Borges – but then the beauty of this novel is that its best writing admits that – enfolds (defined in the novel – p. 18. – as turning, ‘the drama/trauma inwards’) fiction and faction into mere noise that has wrapped reality in intrapsychic effects of drugs, ‘hype’ and lies – spin.
…a soldier could fake, or embody a state – was that how he put it? – in order to fool the enemy, or whatever. All of Klein’s long-winded briefings, all that chatter, seemed to blend with the sound of the car’s engines and the slight aftermath of the mystery pill, and he reached over and dug around in the ashtray and got another joint lit and decided to end further discussions on this topic.’
A terrible beauty is born!
All the best
Steve