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independentreviewer
, August 08, 2011
~ If one were to attempt to identify a central question in Blackout Publishing’s first release, The Introduction to the World by GMHolder, it might be something like, “Why do we destroy ourselves?” Of course we all do, some directly with crack and razor blades, some slowly with the comforting, hypothermia-like numbness induced by flickering media and mindless routines, still others do it despite themselves with excruciatingly stark abstinence and denial of their own inherently self-destructive natures, but however it is achieved, self-annihilation, more so than social behavior, language, or the use of tools, is perhaps the most, possibly the only universally defining human quality. It is, in fact, unavoidable. To be clear, The Introduction to the World is not an investigation into the root causes of the Freudian death instinct. The narrative does not concern itself overly with the causal why, as in “Why can’t so’n so maintain a relationship?” “Why doesn’t he/she like cauliflower?” or, “Why did Dahmler do the things he did?” Holder’s question might be more specifically phrased “Why should or must we destroy ourselves?” “to what end?” and, “for what purpose?” Reader be warned, such a question when asked seriously will seldom provoke an answer involving redemption.
~ The first movement of Holder’s symphony, entitled Visual Purple, is the most difficult to read or interpret, and the easiest to dismiss. It may be only in the course of later movements that the context and atmosphere which has been set in this section can be properly appreciated. This is appropriate to the sonata form of symphonic first movements from the classical period, in which musical themes that tend to reoccur throughout the symphony are established. The characters and setting are broadly familiar. This is unlikely to be the first story modern readers have encountered about criminals, junkies and prostitutes against an urban backdrop. However, the expectation for plodding, simplistic narration and third grade vocabulary (ala Charles Bukowski) that often accompanies such subject matter is sure to be dispelled within the first few pages. GMHolder is less a fiction writer than a writer of prose, in a sense seldom found these days. The dense and challenging use of language forces readers to linger, even struggle over passages they might prefer (or unconsciously choose) to skim. Instead, the reader’s agony is prolonged. This effect may not always be pleasant, but it is not arbitrary. The author deemed it necessary. The current publishing industry’s infatuation with marketability has resulted in literature that is much more concerned with readers’ anticipations and demands than with the varied reactions authors intend to provoke from their audience. The Introduction to the World is not that type of literature. These characters rend and poison their own corporeality, exposing what lies beneath, only to flagellate it with mortal often unforgivable sins, as if that were the only way to truly ascertain if there is a soul there. Readers may at times find this disquieting.
~ The second movement in a classical symphony is slower, adagio, at ease, where the audience is given a chance to absorb variations on the themes from the first movement. GMHolder’s The Fires of the Burning Embrace fills this role well analogously. In it the reader meets Aleksandar Sava, whose self-destruction is more or less complete; his sins already committed. Sava is a veteran of the Bosnian conflict living in America, and at the point of his introduction he is on the verge of coming to terms with the atrocities he committed in that war. What terrible terms those prove to be. Aleksandar appears to be a good enough man in his present life, a passive man who even endures his girlfriend’s physical and mental abuse without complaint, but during the war his actions were horrifying and unredeemable. Before the war he was an innocent man, like most. As his submerged memories resurface, reconciling these several Aleksandars into one cohesive self does not turn out to be something he can do without accepting the destructive acts that caused and constituted his own self-destruction, already completed, awaiting only his recognition to be fully accomplished. Aleksandar Sava is finally faced with the impossible yet inescapable choice of remaining an incomplete person, or incorporating the bad person that for a short time he became into the person he is and must be. In a sense he is an inverted Aristotelian hero, immoral, with no particular claim to greatness his fall is brought on by the spark of virtue he finds within himself. The result is an achingly sympathetic study of an extremely complex character, sweetly morose like when a friend finally succumbs to a long-endured illness.
~ A symphony’s third movement should be a fast paced scherzo, so where better to set it than on our nation’s highways. In Down the Green Hallway the reader is confronted on nearly every page by quick unexpected death due to a host of immediate causes including drunkenness, speed, exhaustion, inattentiveness, and sheer dumb luck. The shorter vignettes of this movement hop about erratically between collisions and occasional near misses illustrating an underlying message relevant for our whole society; this culture is destroying itself through its sheer unreflective need for momentum, a message which, taken metaphorically can be easily extended past the dangers of operating a motor vehicle. Here Holder, who made a few brief cameos in Visual Purple, emerges as a more regular character, for the most part a passenger, observing, absorbing and digesting in a world of constant forward motion that takes time for none of those things and yet, in his role as narrator he is still a participant, never so removed as to keep himself above the guilt that his characters and readers alike all share for the flurry of tragedy he describes.
~ The resolution in a symphony’s final movement comes through a return to the tempo and musical themes of the first. Therefore it is no surprise that In the Vineyard of the Lord of Hosts lands the reader back on the squalid streets of an uncompassionate metropolis. This time the focus is on one protagonist, Bill Palely, a priest who did not so much lose his faith as discard it in favor of the company of the self-destructive people he feels the church disregards. Somehow, the reader is less depressed by Palely’s drawn-out and consistent downward spiral of self-abuse, because Palely seems not just to desire and enjoy his dissipation, but he finds it enigmatically admirable, at least more so than his former clerical vocation. This last movement is the real pay off for readers of The Introduction to the World. Holder is truly in his element, illuminating the metaphysical through intricately wrought description and illustration. Every neon sign or broken bottle in this section of the book seems to sparkle with spiritual significance. Every indignity the protagonist suffers seems to bring the reader closer to some comprehension of Palely’s remotely relatable, but ultimately inscrutable motives. Every hallucinatory stream-of-conscious, dreamscape plunges the reader into a churning sea of moral uncertainty, theological vagary, and transcendental agony. There may be no salvation for Bill Palely, but just maybe his martyrdom is the only salvation for all the other lost, hopeless and inconsolable souls that populate The Introduction to the World.
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