"Oh North America, how I want to show you such foul delight!" : Nog Reads Rontel

"I can connect nothing with nothing."  --T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

[May contain spoilers, though it's not really a spoiler kind of book]

I thought of Eliot's line somewhere in the midst of Rontel in connection to our narrator's feelings on his life and his city as he wanders through Chicago.  He is simultaneously baffled by the world and wants to kill everyone he meets even while unexpectedly finding a sort of strange beauty (and even connection) in his encounters, such as this moment in a sandwich shop:

"I pointed at the things I wanted. 
 'That bread, please,' I said, pointing towards some bread behind a glass blocker.
It was very intimate.
An intimate process.
A mutual trust.
A marriage.
In which he agreed to gently make my sandwich as I directed."

It's a very White Noise-y kind of moment: hidden meaning behind the mundane.  

I expected Rontel to be an overload of quirk (and it IS quirky as fuck, and also wildly funny), but I came away from it strangely moved.  There even seems to be a bit of a character arc, as our narrator begins with a view of life as being "a truly pointless equation where what happens happens and moves you toward the end where you supplement another section of the equation..." but ends (at least momentarily) with a feeling that "things were going to have meaning again maybe."   Having a weird-ass, shaved-headed cat like Rontel probably helps.


 

Karen's quick and dirty review of Rontel

Although I was unable to sext with the author like @knsstsx, an ecstatic yes, yes, YES to our new book Rontel by Sam Pink.

As we listen to internal dialogue, we follow the main character through two feverishly sweltry hot days of summer in the streets, stores, thrifts, and apartments of Chicago.

The book starts off slow and self-loathing, but a complex character surfaces who is difficult to stereotype. The weather is a metaphor for a personality which is hot, temperamental, unpredictable. And let's talk about love. I loved my time with this character. He both loves humanity and is indifferent to it. He is both compassionate and intolerant.

Is this a novel or short story?  Who cares.  Give me more of Sam Pink.

My cover looks like this, so I was surprised when I learned that Rontel was the character's beloved cat

Giving Him the Business

As many of the hard-core PBR Book Clubbers know there was an offer on the table for Sam Pink to be whisked away for the glorious April meeting of the infamous PBR Book Club. I have been in somewhat regular contact with Mr. Pink, after all we did share a stimulating sext, and while he was very honored to be invited he is unable to make it. However, he has agreed to a chat. We are banging out the details on what medium we will be using, but April 30, 8pm we will have contact with Mr. Pink and everyone can give him the business.

Lost Treasure Stash

Encountering George Saunders for the first time through his latest short story collection "Tenth of December" was a little like discovering a lost treasure stash somewhere, filled with a variety astonishing pleasures, from fascinating trinkets to serious and valuable works of art.

Once again I am indebted to my fellow PBR Bookclubbers for pointing my gaze in a necessary direction, as I was also introduced to Haruki Murakami through his latest work (master work "1Q84") and to Roberto Bolaño the same way ("2666").

I was hooked at the first story "Victory Lap" by the easygoing stream of experience flow and casual effortless breaking of the language rules while demonstrating a masterful grip on the narrative and dialog from underneath. In this respect, I'm reminded of Brautigan and his making up words and creating sense out of seeming nonsense in works like "In Watermelon Sugar". Then he switches persona viewpoints and the landscape shifts underfoot. Then he does it again. Yep, hooked.

The second story "Sticks" was more or less an interesting little poem for me but then with the third story "Puppy" Saunders had me hook, line and sinker with his Escherian narrative reflexivity built around a dog. Or, a boy. Or, both. A family held up in juxtaposition to another family (a common theme throughout this collection). I put the book down at the end of this story and thought "This guy's a friggin' genius". Later, intrepid fellow clubber Abby told me that in fact Saunders had won a Genius Grant somewhere along the way

Probably the tour de force here is "The Semplica Girl Diaries" as Nog has previously mentioned - it's long enough to really sink into and is subversive, creative and wryly humorous all at once. Well, all of these stories are that way but this has the room to stretch out in and really pound it home on all levels.

"Escape From Spiderhead" packed so many commentaries about society at once that it makes your head spin but made it such a fun ride with the sci-fi overtones and suspiciously adept articulations of mental states under the influences of a variety of neurotransmitter-manipulating high-tech pharmaceutical recipes.

While I literally liked every story included here, I would have to say that other than perhaps Semplica Girl my favorite was probably "Home". It just works on so many levels and demonstrates deep levels of understanding, questioning, compassion, frustration, and love. What could be more central to all of us in the biggest picture than what "home" means to us?

Generally speaking, in addition to the themes and techniques already mentioned above, what really draws me to this author is his ability to weave humor and poignancy into a single mesh in a playful yet calculating way. In the same way a comedian might set up his final punchline with what comes before, Saunders does exceptionally well what many great writers do (including the Coen brothers in their movies) - by feeding us a bit of information at a time, with judicious timing and sequence, he allows our minds at each step to fill in details based on our natural inclinations, assumptions we automatically make, and tropes we are accustomed to and then leverages those to drop the next bit of information in that radically alters our understanding - sometimes in humorous ways, sometimes in horror-inducing ways.

We see this on the larger narrative level in "Victory Lap" where it is amplified by the cycling through character viewpoints, but we see it within short stretches of description and dialog, as well.

I'll end with a bit of the opening to "Home" which captures the kind of understated humor which produces an overstated smile on my face as I consume it. The person telling the story has just arrived home to where his mother lives after being gone for a long time and not only is the place still a trashy mess, he notices new water stains on the ceiling in the kitchen, and so forth. His mother notices him standing outside and tells him to "get in here, you":

"Still ain't no beeping cleaning lady," Ma said.
I looked at her funny.
"'Beeping'" I said.
"Beep you, " she said. "They been on my case at work."
It was true Ma had a pretty good potty mouth. And was working at a church now, so.
We stood there looking at each other.

Nog's Brief Thoughts on Saunders and Tenth of December

I'm pleased to pompously report that I've been on board with Saunders since the very beginning.  I loved CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia and In Persuasion Nation and their vision of "theme-park America" as portrayed in simultaneously hilarious/vicious stories of the lower/middle class at the mercy of all manner of corporate/New Age doublespeak and (sometimes) medical experimentation.   I'm not sure how much Saunders has evolved over the years in his writing or if he just emerged fully formed.  I suppose some of the stories in Tenth of December might have a little more emotional heft than the early work, and maybe a bit more hope, but mostly we're in familiar Saunders territory here and, for my money, that's just fine.  The stories are still terrific. 

I'd say the strongest two are Escape from Spiderland (poor sap victimized by emotional manipulation via new drugs, though Verbaluce actually sounds pretty cool: I'd try it) and The Semplica Girl Diaries (young women from poor countries physically exploited--via yard decoration!-- as a sign of American success).

Random notes: 

I LOVE Saunders' fake reality show titles:

America's Most Outspoken Dirt Bikers

I, Gropius (described as a "show where guy decides which girl to date based on feeling girls' breasts through screen with two holes").

Kill the Ho (from the collection In Persuasion Nation).

Favorite all-time Saunders' stories:

"Sea Oak" --from Pastoralia ("Look, show your cock. It's the shortest line between two points.  The world ain't giving away nice lives. You got a trust fund?  You a genius?  Show your cock. It's what you got...And also: don't remember me like this. Remember me like how I was that night we all went to Red Lobster and I had that new perm.").

"Jon" --from In Persuasion Nation  (very similar to "Escape from Spiderland")

Picture:  Saunders and dog (via interview with Robert Birnbaum)

PBR Book Club April Preview

Faulkner February has come to an end, but that doesn't mean that the Faulkner fun will ever stop. We never did decide what kind of relationship Faulkner had with his mother or what color @LLGivens underwear were. Time moves on, unless you are living in the hills of Yoknapatawpha and so is PBR Book Club. Quick everyone read The Tenth of December for the Summit Book Club combo. And then sit back, relax. You are going on a journey. It will be time for a little Sam Pink action.

This is Sam Pink:

This is the book we will read:

You can buy the e-version here: Electric Literature

Or for those paper-lovers: Amazon Link

Throwing Violent J A Bone

I'm about a quarter of the way through the fascinating Jon Ronson collection "Lost At Sea" but the work couldn't have started on a better note, as laughing at the ICP "Miracles" video over and over again on repeat until my face hurt and tears streamed down my cheeks was one of the highlight meme moments of early 2010 for me. I still have very fond memories of it. You know, long neck giraffes, magnets, "effing ____ how do THEY work?!" endlessly. In fact, I began following Violent J on Twitter after that because the inevitable ham-handed quotes would cause me to burst into laughter. Needless to say, if you have not seen "Miracles" by ICP, proceed forthwith to YouTube - it is a mandatory internet experience.

I had a wonderful revelation halfway through the first piece after feeling at least a slight impulse to defend Violent J and Shaggy from the merciless sarcastic pounding and after the poignant moment where Ron asks why he hates science so much if he and his son enjoyed an important experience as he explained fog to his son (fog is on the Miracles list and Ronson thought it be a rather low threshold for miracles, having grown up around it in Britain).

It's really a recurring epiphany of mine that surfaces now and then and in this context it's just: How limiting it is to view the world through only one of either filter of wonder and childlike innocence on the one hand versus knowledge and scientific understanding on the other. The ability to view through either filter at will is something I take for granted but I realize now and then that a lot of times people tend to only have one mode or the other, feeling they must choose between them in the way people choose a political party and then act out that role and live out the talking points. Both is better! I like salty fried foods but I also like sweet desserts like PIE. I like both! Both is better than only one or only the other!

Still, to play court-appointed literary attorney for Violent J and Shaggy, at this time I'll offer a poem from the ultimate hipster and one of my favorite American poets, Walt Whitman, to balance out the field a bit in that first essay. Note how even the meter and flow transition from more structured and complex to less structured and more free-form when the transition between the two ways of looking at the world occurs :

When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer  

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer; 
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; 
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, 
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; 
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, 
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. 

-Walt Whitman from "Leaves of Grass" (First published in “Drum-Taps,” 1865)

Oh, but, just for fun, a Juggalo-Mom response to the SNL parody video mentioned in the Ronson piece: