A Filmic Semi-Diversion

Child of the '80s though I am, I somehow managed to get through that decade and the two-plus succeeding ones without having seen Purple Rain, in spite of loving Prince and having thoroughly enjoyed one of his performances right after college (in which his numerous costume changes enhanced even further some already amazing dancing). I remedied that gap this weekend, and wow: it was bad. Incredibly bad; shittily so, in fact. Not that I was expecting a life-altering experience, but-- well, I'll just lay my general dumbfoundedness out on the table, and will be glad to engage in exchanges of disbelief and wry laughter, should anyone care to take part.

Source: Nicolas Genin

But as I find happens frequently when I'm involved in reading/viewing/discussing multiple cultural products at the same time, a weird thread or connection between them peeps out every now and then. In this case, Prince's mode of dress during his Purple Rain phase-- and the periodic plot and/or motivational gaps in the film that threw me into brief bouts of confusion-- seemed a perfect match for the baroque style of the book I'm currently reading, José Lezama Lima's Paradiso.

Given, the latter work is in no way crappy, campy, or even potentially culty. But I could picture The Purple One reading some of these flowery passages in his frilly poet's blouse, and being entirely unconcerned about the fact that, say, a conversation between our young hero and his classmate, whose favorite pastime is poking his fellow students in the butt with his pen, involves dialogue more appropriate to foppish university philosophes who use approximately 75% more words to express their confused thoughts than are necessary. It's true; youths often don't have a very good sense of what they're saying, or even trying to say, and might comically puff up their language to try and make themselves sound more sophisticated-- and so, although Lezama's probably making a point with all of these words, so far, I'm unconvinced by his characters' ownership of their own verbiage.

To link back to another film, my experience with this novel up to this point is similar to the emperor's reaction, in Amadeus, to a performance of one of Mozart's pieces: "There are simply too many notes." I'm having some nebulous thoughts about why this is so for Paradiso and not for David Foster Wallace, whose style is sometimes jam-packed, but without using one word too many. I'll have to get to the end of Lezama's text, though, before I'm willing to take that thought any further.

Putting the Pieces Together

Well, it's about time I made my pronouncements on Georges Perec's Life: A User's Manual. When I got started on it, I really didn't know what to expect; after all, my only exposure to his writing had come through material on that mad group of mathy wordplayers, Oulipo, and via Species of Spaces and Other Pieces.

Basically, the whole large tome involves a look at one moment in the various, not-overtly-connected lives of the dwellers of a Parisian apartment building. I wasn't aware, of course, that all of these little pictures were taking place simultaneously, but upon reaching the end of the tale, that "time frame" (if time frame it is), became clearer-- and after checking out a brief précis of the piece, it didn't surprise me. All the detailed description-- which honestly got old after a while; describing surroundings in minute detail does tell a story through objects, but begins to amount to one long list after a few hundred pages-- didn't allow for much action. You're essentially left, then, at a very brief point in time, but-- and here's the genius-- fully loaded with everything each participant is bringing to that blip, with everything a normal, quick glimpse at a person wouldn't be able to discern. Perec here is giving us the normally-impossible fullness of an individual's being within one moment, alongside his or her neighbor's equally full presentation within that same moment. The problem the author makes explicit, of course, is the fact that we can't see all of this simultaneously; in telling a situation, we're limited to separate, linear recountings of one individual at a time as a means of presenting this being who, although s/he physically ages "linearly," if that's accurate, lives as an existential something within many times and places simultaneously.

I'm aware of the fact that Perec set certain rules and limitations upon himself while writing this book; if you're interested in these challenges, Wikipedia has a list of them. At this point, the only thing about this writing arrangement that's of interest to me is the confirmation that yes, quite often, constraints cause creativity to blossom, not die. (Look at Greek tragedy, or Twin Peaks-- the latter of which I consider David Lynch's best work, perhaps because he had to confine himself to the strictures of FCC broadcast rules, and couldn't fall back [too much] on over-the-top violence.)

What really blew me away, though, was the chronology that follows the book's index-- an appendix that makes clear just how involved and deeply knowledgeable Perec was about the details of his character's lives, and about how they all fit together. My amazement was of the same genre (but I'll admit, never got anywhere close to) the level of wonder felt at reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: namely, the giddiness that ensued at the realization that someone had this all inside his brain, kept it straight, and presented it clearly and engagingly. Evidence of rare genius? I'd like to harbor the delusional fancy that the same ability resides in all-- or at least a surprising portion-- of us as well.

As Usual, the Book is Better

Jack Kerouac. Courtesy Tom Palumbo.

I'm sort of straying from the reading path here and offering my two cents on the recent film adaptation of On the Road. As one of my favorite books (and given the fact that I was a Kerouac junkie in my twenties), it was with an odd, eager trepidation that I looked forward to viewing the thing. That low-grade sense of dread came from the conviction that this book simply should not be filmed-- not necessarily because it's some sacrosanct piece of mid-century Americana, but because I can't think of a way to do cinematic justice to that weird mix of poetics, action, and camaraderie.

As expected, the celluloid (OK, I guess it'd be more accurate to say "digital") version was a pale reproduction of the pen-n-paper original. Much of the casting was weird (except for Viggo Mortensen as Bull Lee/William Burroughs) and the dialogue stilted (again, you have another problem there with the transition to film: actually making moving, visible characters talk like a book is a risky venture). What I will say the project added to all the written encapsulations of the Beats and those who tried to follow in their footsteps is some evidence of the toll all these men and their kicks took on the women involved with them-- and the ways in which a solid portion of these partiers didn't really take women as much more than vessels to attend to their sexual and sometimes financial needs. The film did do a good job of bringing some of these ambiguities to the fore, so I'll at least applaud it for that.

Still, I'd advise anyone to stick with the book.

Other works that fall into the hands-off category, where movie directors are concerned? Hopscotch (Julio Cortázar), Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace), The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen-- although I think this one's already under contract, or has had the rights bought, something). Anyone have any other thoughts on books that should stay books?

A Brother in Style?

Courtesy David Shankbone.

There's a shout-out on one of the preliminary, "rave reviews for the author" pages in George Saunders' Tenth of December from David Foster Wallace, which expresses the late great writer's admiration for Saunders' work. After having devoured this volume, I find the inclusion of DFW's quote entirely apt, not only because the book is just plain solid and deserves to be praised, but also due to the fact that I see a certain kinship in the two guys' writing: the way they deliver a story, the way in which an everyday conversational style acts as the vehicle for mind-blowing outcomes.

Take "The Semplica Girl Diaries," for example. The first time I read it, in The New Yorker, I was astounded at the way the narrative moved from casual chuckles at the protagonist's slightly goofy, if well-intentioned, passage through life, to an alarming end in which said protagonist has become aware of just what such an earnest, if blinkered, approach to existence might lead to. I was left with the same feeling-- of not having seen any of the dread coming, and of awe at how the hell the author pulled that off-- that I experienced upon finishing DF Wallace's "Oblivion."

Too, there's a shared ability to understand the logical conclusions of contemporary absurdities, from medicalizing humanity to marketing (someday, I'll look more closely into the contrasts and similarities between, say, "Escape from Spiderhead" and "My Chivalric Fiasco" and DFW's "Mister Squishy" and Infinite Jest).

But I don't want to allege that one author is or was imitating the other, or that each could be the other. Nope; the pieces each man writes/wrote is definitely his and not the other's. I would have liked to have witnessed a conversation between the two, though, to see if any personal affinity, rivalry, or anything else were present. For now, though, I relish the prospect of diving into all the other Saunders tales I've been missing out on-- and seeing whether, after I've imbibed all that reading, my initial vision of authorial kinship still holds.