Technique and Mastery of Plot in Haruki Murakami's "1Q84"

There's much to say about a 900+ page novel, especially if that novel is dependent on highly sophisticated story-telling techniques.  I am about half-way with "1Q84" and all I can say is that the novel not only displays Murakami's genius, but it does something else that might not help it make a commercial success (in a good way).  Literary fiction is not really the silver bullet needed to land on top of the NYT bestsellers list, if you catch my drift.  What is brilliant about "1Q84" is precisely what does not help it become a more widely or popular book.  Again, it is not designed to do that, and the fact that literary fiction is to "readers for the sake of escapism" as water is to oil, is the reason we need to keep at least one aspect of that argument nicely qualified.

The novel's amazing plot lines (main and sub) drive the story forward quite fast, but a moment changes everything when the reader discovers things had been taking place right under the sentences he/she happens to be reading at the time.  This is more than just a nice allegory to the many parallels of the plot line.  For example, I quickly became enamored of the character of the "dowager" and her complicated yet loving relationship with Aomame.  Since the chapters jump between Aomame and Tengo, I also found myself wanting to finish the current Tengo chapter just to see if the "dowager" would appear in the next Aomame chapter.  But the reader ignores the dowager's benevolence at his/her own risk.  It was far too simple, far too clean and clear cut.  It is only much later when the "Leader" is asking Aomame to send him to the other world that one slowly becomes aware not all things were right about the "dowager."  This, I believe, was probably one of the most clever, well-planned and amazingly structured pieces of Murakami's technique in story telling since "A Wild Sheep Chase," or "The Elephant Vanishes."  The levels of parallel plots and character existences in "1Q84" are enough to send an existentialist running off a tall building, or a philosopher in general looking for the law of alchemy again.  Here's Aomame, there's Fuka-Eri.  There's Tengo, and here's Aomame.  There are two-moons, and neither one of them is representative of either the world they are currently inhabiting or the one they left behind.... and behind this incredilbe maze of hopscotch, there is the truth of the story.
Then there's the element of "The Little People."  It was quite obvious to me as a reader that the novel inside the novel ("Air Chrysalis") is a parallel world running along sides of the current narrative presently being read.  This reminds me of the very end of "One Hundred Years of Solitude," when the protagonist realizes he is trying to translate the same story he is currently inhabiting from a Sanskrit manuscript, and everything gets blown away by the strong wind of reality.  So far, this is frankly Haruki Murakami's best and most innovative novel to-date.  I can't wait to see what happens next.

20 Years: Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho" Still Relevant After All These Years!

What is really important about Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho" is its social criticism--not to mention the existential issues, depictions of mental illness, and even some pathology still not cataloged by the American Medical Association.  All part-humor aside, this is a novel that stands the test of time not only because Patrick Bateman is an accurate picture of the late 1980s excess, but because since the late 1990s and onto contemporary American society we have taken excess to much higher levels.  Patrick Bateman is what Goldman Sachs, Freddie Mac, Fannie May, and Enron would look like if by some misguided science project we could give a face to the "faceless high-command" who robbed America blind in the last 10 years.  But the greed is not the most important theme.  What gives Patrick Bateman his staying power is the accuracy of a superficial and disturbed mind.  Bret Easton Ellis' technique and craft achieved a Raskolnikovian figure, a "Bigger" Thomas with an MBA and that kind of intellectual violence that later made "Pulp Fiction" attractive to nuclear physicists and Nobel prize winners.

In the last few months, and unknowingly of the anniversary, a couple of my friends (in separate occasions) were talking about the "American Psycho" movie and Christian Bale's performance.  Mary Harron's work as director has much to do with how well the book translated to the screen.  One of my friends actually mentioned how much he enjoyed the monologues, the overly-intellectual, technical and erudite analysis of Genesis' music and wished he could memorize them.  I wouldn't go that far, but I can see why someone would want to burst out one of those monologues during a boring party!

Getting back to the book, there are--admittedly--parts of the book that read like explicit pornography.  The scene with Christine and Sabrina is such an example.  However, if one is to blush over it, then one must blush to Diane DiPrima's "Memoirs of a Beatnik."  If the argument about "American Psycho" being pornographic and written by a male author seems lopsided, Diane DiPrima's book exceeds the illustrative nature of Bret Easton Ellis' work.

"American Psycho" is one of those rare classics, incomparable, often insurmountable in creativity and originality.  Yes, I am re-reading it as soon as the teaching semester is over.  Put down the DVD and read the book... it's about time, if you haven't read it.

Kevin Canty: Master of the American Short Story

They appear out of thin air, it seems. You see them at social gatherings and parties. You know enough to avoid them, but eventually you are drawn into their conversation. They are easy to identify, not just because they are loud (they want everyone to hear what they are saying), but because they have "knowledge to impart." These are the pseudo-intellectuals... the know-it-alls who aim to impress by turning a catchy phrase and throwing it around like it's the newest thing to come out of that vastness of stale ideas that is their little brains. One of these phrases (and I have heard it more than once) thrown around, and one that really kills me (literally and figuratively) is "the American short story is dead." They do sound like college professors, and might actually impress the bar fly hanging on their every word, but the statement is plain false and downright idiotic. If you want evidence that the American short story is alive and well TODAY, all you have to do is read Kevin Canty's "Where the Money Went." Kevin Canty proves mastery of the form both thematically (subject matter) and in terms of technique.

Hitting upon this treasure of short stories has been an eye opening event for me. I've never been resistant to the literary trends (for better or worse), and even "chick lit" (a term I find repulsive) begins to show its value eventually.... after it has been "milked" of all of its commercial and marketing capital. Kevin Canty writes insightfully and with realism about the lives of men in contemporary American society. "Where the Money Went" is a tour-de-force of American existentialism and its relation to men of all social classes; the questions it asks and answers through its vivid characters explore the dark and light comedy that is being a man in America today. Consider this "chick lit" for men, or "dude lit" if you really have to draw a marketing ploy to corner the contemporary fiction share. But Canty does not need that sort of help, not from you, or me for that matter. Rather than summarizing the stories, I will share some of the passages from the stories that 1) shocked me for the depth of their artful mastery, and 2) enlightened me to my own reality as an American male.

In the title piece, Canty displays a great amount of technique (I am not sure if he would be insulted if I called it stream of consciousness). Braxton, the protagonist, engages in a sort of Gregorian chant or litany on precisely where the money went after the divorce. The story is brief, but it packs an amazing amount of detail. For example, there are pauses of beautiful imagery that pop out in the middle of the long list of where the money went: "He watched her topple slowly backward into the water, watched her dress bloom around her in the underwater light like some bright colorful flower and in that moment he had not disliked her." I can't think of a more beautifully composed and artfully constructed sentence in the middle of the acutely painful meditation by the protagonist.

In "The Emperor of Ice Cream" we again meet a character opening up so clearly and agonizingly it bleeds real humanity; I can think of numerous moments of introspection similar to this one: "These were the moments where he felt cut off and stuck inside himself, looking out at the grinning, shouting crowd, smoking and drinking, dancing and flirting away a summer night. Lander thought they looked stupid. This was how he knew how fucked up he was; when happy looked stupid." There's no fault either technically or skillfully in making a character have a philosophical moment; the bad writers over do it... masters like Canty know exactly how to use subtlety, making the reader feel like he is gliding over the surface without realizing he is deep, deep within the character's psyche. Again, this is a matter of technique and art, and Canty possesses both.

Canty pushes the limits of emotion, characterization and just plain humanity in "In the Burn." Just like in "The Emperor of Ice Cream," it is subtlety that makes the complex almost emotionally painful. When I read the following passage, I again felt like all this universality of feelings is both universal and strictly personal. "I'll land on my own two feet, I know it. I was all alone and lonely and sexually deprived when I met her. I can do it again. But just the thought of my little apartment with my little clothes in it sends a willie down my back. One more night of TV, one more night of wondering where I'm supposed to be in this world." When I read this passage to a friend of mine, he pointed out the last eight words as sounding like a broken record; I quickly pointed out that it is the amount of detail that conveys the feeling of both awkwardness and quiet desperation... again, a masterfully written passage both in terms of skill and technique. This is really, without hyperbole, brilliant writing.

I can't recommend this book enough. If you read to explore human questions, of if you read to appreciate good writing, or both, Kevin Canty's "Where the Money Went" is what you need to be reading today. This book should please both readers and readers who read like writers. I recommend it without reserve.