Fans of the supermassive black hole known as the postmodern novel could easily overlook this quiet debut by a Flemish author, recently published in English in a paperback edition by a non-profit press. That would be a shame, because it stands right alongside the best practitioners of the genre for its layered allusions, dystopian themes, fractured history, and unfettered wordplay. It yokes together a Holocaust survivor memoir, the fragmented psyche of post-reunification Germany, Wagnerian totalities, mathematical singularities, and behavioral science, just for starters. But Verhaeghen also has a symphonic way with prose (he did his own translation), begging comparisons with Wagner’s own masterful ability to combine lyricism, storytelling, and myth into a total experience.
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Other reviews of this novel have, I think, undersold it as sheer farce. But Sharpe’s post-apocalyptic version of the Jamestown settlement story is both deeply funny and, well, unsettling. By sending us back to Jamestown – a new world after we’ve wrecked the old one – Sharpe’s novel takes on the deeply rooted mythos of American selfhood as well as myth-making itself. The novel’s riffs on the first go-round at Jamestown are clever without being cloying or over-determined. Fans of George Saunders’ and Adam Johnson’s near-future satires will find a kindred spirit here.
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The novel's power lies in its exploration of one of the most familiar human urges -- to ensure the survival of our children -- in the defamiliarized landscape of a dying world.
I have mostly avoided McCarthy's work before now, because his prophetic style was always a little ponderous for me. Here it works beautifully, as a bleak witness to terrible events, pulling you forward the way Dante's linked tercets pull you through Hell.
The novel is ultimately about the tension and mutual dependence of its two central energies: the boy's innate goodness and compassion and the father's sometimes ruthless imperative to keep the boy alive while the world dies. McCarthy somehow pulls off the feat of resolving this tension in the novel's final pages, and the effect is both shattering and soaring.
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Ignore the critics who trotted out their templated "pomo novels are baggy monsters with no heart" review to meet their deadlines for reviewing this novel. This is Pynchon at the height of his descriptive powers, which is all the more remarkable for this stage of his career.
Against the Day lacks the hallucinatory quality that makes Gravity's Rainbow such a headrush of a reading experience, but it adds real depth and breadth to GR's exploration of systems of power and Pynchon's unique way of connecting themes of antithesis and subversion to the science of physics -- he is right at home in the Age of Invention and Robber Barons.
There's an entire universe of dark magic contained here; the novel's 1100 pages becomes a footnote to the real story that includes the present day.
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Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen
Eric Anderson, January 21, 2008
Fans of the supermassive black hole known as the postmodern novel could easily overlook this quiet debut by a Flemish author, recently published in English in a paperback edition by a non-profit press. That would be a shame, because it stands right alongside the best practitioners of the genre for its layered allusions, dystopian themes, fractured history, and unfettered wordplay. It yokes together a Holocaust survivor memoir, the fragmented psyche of post-reunification Germany, Wagnerian totalities, mathematical singularities, and behavioral science, just for starters. But Verhaeghen also has a symphonic way with prose (he did his own translation), begging comparisons with Wagner’s own masterful ability to combine lyricism, storytelling, and myth into a total experience.(4 of 4 readers found this comment helpful)
Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe
Eric Anderson, April 16, 2007
Other reviews of this novel have, I think, undersold it as sheer farce. But Sharpe’s post-apocalyptic version of the Jamestown settlement story is both deeply funny and, well, unsettling. By sending us back to Jamestown – a new world after we’ve wrecked the old one – Sharpe’s novel takes on the deeply rooted mythos of American selfhood as well as myth-making itself. The novel’s riffs on the first go-round at Jamestown are clever without being cloying or over-determined. Fans of George Saunders’ and Adam Johnson’s near-future satires will find a kindred spirit here.(8 of 16 readers found this comment helpful)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Eric Anderson, February 6, 2007
The novel's power lies in its exploration of one of the most familiar human urges -- to ensure the survival of our children -- in the defamiliarized landscape of a dying world.I have mostly avoided McCarthy's work before now, because his prophetic style was always a little ponderous for me. Here it works beautifully, as a bleak witness to terrible events, pulling you forward the way Dante's linked tercets pull you through Hell.
The novel is ultimately about the tension and mutual dependence of its two central energies: the boy's innate goodness and compassion and the father's sometimes ruthless imperative to keep the boy alive while the world dies. McCarthy somehow pulls off the feat of resolving this tension in the novel's final pages, and the effect is both shattering and soaring.
(13 of 25 readers found this comment helpful)
Against the Day: A Novel by Thomas Pynchon
Eric Anderson, December 1, 2006
Ignore the critics who trotted out their templated "pomo novels are baggy monsters with no heart" review to meet their deadlines for reviewing this novel. This is Pynchon at the height of his descriptive powers, which is all the more remarkable for this stage of his career.Against the Day lacks the hallucinatory quality that makes Gravity's Rainbow such a headrush of a reading experience, but it adds real depth and breadth to GR's exploration of systems of power and Pynchon's unique way of connecting themes of antithesis and subversion to the science of physics -- he is right at home in the Age of Invention and Robber Barons.
There's an entire universe of dark magic contained here; the novel's 1100 pages becomes a footnote to the real story that includes the present day.
(19 of 30 readers found this comment helpful)