Sunnyside

As mentioned earlier, the best parts of Sunnyside are those that focus on Charlie Chaplin.  Although I will admit that the Chaplin plot made me feel pretty ignorant.  I thought I knew a thing or two about silent film short comedies, but it turns out I recognized more of the Mary Pickford references than I did the Chaplin references.  Now I have to go back and watch whatever Chaplin shorts I can find on Netflix to better my understanding of Chaplin’s transition between simple comic shorts and the more profound longer work.  Best I can tell from the novel, Chaplin is frustrated by the emotional response people have to Mary Pickford films and wants them to have the same type of response to the Little Tramp character.  Chaplin struggles to find his happy place (Sunnyside is basically a metaphor for the happy place the main characters are trying to find) which mirrors the struggle one of the other main characters faces on the Western Front of WWI.

The secondary and tertiary plots of Sunnyside take place in World War I.  The better of the two focuses on Lee Duncan, a wannabe actor who gets what he thinks is going to be his big break in the States, only to be framed for a crime and forced to enlist in the service.  As he works as a mechanic in the Air Service, he struggles to deal with the betrayal of his mother (which also mirrors Chaplin’s problems with his mother) and what appears to be the end of his film career.  Eventually the combination of a flamethrower, two puppies (one heroic, one deceitful), and a film of a lame-trick performing great dane, motivate Duncan to follow his dream in Hollywood.

The second plot works well because Duncan’s problems relate to Chaplin’s.  Although one is a struggling actor and the other is arguably the world’s biggest movie star, they both have a love for the cinema and want to devote their lives to it.  The third plot, excepting the final few moments, has little to do with the cinema, which makes it a tad extraneous.  The third plot details the exploits of Hugo Black, a Private assigned to Archangel, Russia.  Unlike, Chaplin or Duncan, Black doesn’t seem to be seeking anything specific.  He wanders from minor adventure to minor adventure, driving trains, dancing with exiled princesses, and shooting people in the head with a crossbow.  Head-shooting crossbow antics notwithstanding, Pvt. Hugo Black lends nothing to the novel.  At the very end of his plot arc, his commanding generals sees a roomful of Russian peasants overcome with emotion while watching a Mary Pickford film, which is a wonderful way to tie the plot back into the main Chaplin plot.

The superflous third nipple of a plot aside, Sunnyside is a wonderful novel.  It captures the obsessive genius of Chaplin and the popularity of the Little Tramp and Mary Pickford, taking the reader back to a time when movie stars were charismatic and awesome, not dumbass frat boys and coked-up skank.  A time when men were men, women were submissive objects of affection, and dogs could throw hand grenades.  A simpler time.  On my scale of one to five tiny Ludivine Sagniers, I give Sunnyside four tiny Ludivine Sagniers.

For example, if I say that I’m reading McSweeney’s 29 (which I just started), you might say, “But Shawn, what is that?” To which I would respond, “It’s a collection of short fiction.” That blurb doesn’t say all that much about the book. It could be a collection of great short fiction (like Babylon Revisited, or it could be a collection of bland, overrated trash, like Winesburg, Ohio. However, if I tell you that I just read The Terror, by Dan Simmons and you respond, “But Shawn, what is that?” I could reply, “It’s a book about the 1840s voyage of two ships to find the Northwest Passage that get stuck in the ice for over a year and are attacked by a giant spectral polar bear that may or may not be controlled by a tongueless Esquimeaux girl.”

And that blurb doesn’t really cover the scope of The Terror. It’s historical fiction, so much of what’s described actual did happen to Sir John Franklin and his ill-fated expedition. I doubt the whole giant spectral polar bear thing is based on fact, but the scurvy, food poisoning, and other maladies the crew faced certainly did happen. The contrast between the real and the supernatural is what helps make The Terror such a great book.

Now, I realize that some of you might be saying, “But Shawn, how can a book about a bunch of cold, malnourished sailors languishing on an ice floe for over a year be exciting? I mean, won’t the giant spectral polar bear just devour them all, since they have no place to run or hide?” That’s a great observation, but fortunately author Dan Simmons anticipated such a response and makes the giant spectral polar bear more of a tormentor. The giant spectral polar bears takes his time hunting and mutilating the ships’ crews. This methodical torture, along with the novel’s narration, helps The Terror stay suspenseful and engaging throughout its 800 pages.

The story of The Terror is told by its crew. Each chapter tells the point of view of a different character. At first, it’s just Sir John Franklin and Captain James Crozier, but soon the narration expands to include other officers and crew members. The point-of-view remains in the 3rd person throughout the entire novel, so this isn’t a Faulknerian exercise in investigating the real truth of a situation. It’s simply Simmons’ way of involving all the major players on the expeditions, from the Captains to the Ice Masters, all the way down to the lowly, mutinous sodomites. Oh yeah, The Terror has sodomy, plus mutilation, decapitation, amputation, astronomical calculation, and even an Edgar Allan Poe inspired celebration. Clearly, The Terror has a little something for everyone.

The one problem with Simmons expanding the scope of the novel to cover a wide range of characters and topic is the issue of resolution. Simmons does a fantastic job of crafting captivating character. With each new chapter, I’d actually be excited when a new character point of view came into the story. Unfortunately, Simmons doesn’t cleanly wrap up all the various narratives that he starts.

Since The Terror is historical fiction, it’s pretty much a given that all the characters will die. But Simmons’ engrossing characterizations made me want to know how the characters die, to know how close they came to getting away or to rescue. With the last few chapters of the novel, however, Simmons chooses to abandon some characters in favour of concentrating on Captain Crozier and Esquimeaux mythology. Spoiler alert: the giant spectral polar bear is a actually some sort of malevolent spirit, out to punish those who do not show proper respect to nature, or some shit like that. It’s disappointing.

I honestly don’t give two shits about what the giant spectral polar bear is or where it came from. In fact, leaving its origins a mystery makes things more interesting. Is it a familiar? A summoned demon? The physical manifestation of fear? The evil in the heart of man? Having all these possibilities makes things more intriguing. I would much rather have found out what happened to all the characters in the novel than having what should have been Shakespearean in magnitude ending turn into a lesson from a 9th grade cultural studies class.

Fortunately, there’s more than enough of The Terror to make up for the unsatisfactory conclusion. If you like Poe, Hobbes (the philosopher, not the tiger), Darwin, botulism, colonialism, and people losing their limbs to both frostbite and giant spectral polar bear bite, then The Terror is the book for you. On my scale of 1 to 5 tiny Ludivine Sagniers, I give The Terror four tiny Ludivine Sagniers.

Way back in the year 2000, when I was an idealistic youngster attending my first graduate classes with stars in my eyes and music in my heart, I owned a copy of the Fourth Edition Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. I hated it. The font choice for the examples was abysmal. Apparently, this font was chosen because it “shows how material appears when typed” (p. xxxi). How wonderfully thoughtful of the APA. After all, the one thing I always wonder about when reading the machine-printed text of a reference book is how text looks when printed on a page. But thankfully, the Fifth Edition uses a far more readable font and it makes use of cutting-edge technology like italics and boldface. Truly, it is a step-forward into a new century of citation referencing.

Despite the production improvements, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association still has some design flaws. For example, the section on quotations (3.34) directs the reader to section concerning style (5.13), which then points the reader back to section 3.34. I spent fourteen hours flipping back and forth until I finally gave up, and I still don’t know how to properly cite a reference to the published proceeding of a symposium. And while I can see the point of arranging the manual in the X.YY section headings, it’s not very helpful when the text references section numbers, rather than page numbers. Sections range in length from a paragraph to a few pages. A direction to “see section 5.13″ doesn’t help me get to section 5.13 any faster. It would be far more usable to cite the page of the section in addition to, or as a replacement for the section numbers.

But enough about form, it’s time to discuss the content of the Publication Manual. Personally, I don’t understand why the APA needs their own style guide. The MLA guide is clearly superior method of citation. And the APA certainly doesn’t need its own manuscript guidelines. I mean, why waste all this time coming up with a set of guidelines, just so a bunch of Viennese witchdoctors can pompously summarize the results of a questionnaire filled out by 500 Psych 101 students? Even if the psychologist is doing lab work, like seeing how many time a toddler will electrocute a hamster before it gets bored and wanders off, the MLA guidelines are more than suitable. But I guess psychologists are too good for the MLA. If they want to publish their child cruelty/hamster cowardice studies using their own esoteric, nonsensical (Citing both pages of non-continuous multi-page newspaper article? Fuck that.) standards, then so be it.

That’s not to say that everything in the Publication Manual is entirely bad. There’s an intriguing subplot involving a Chinese laundromat, the Des Moines hashish trade and a mysterious transient know only as Miser Rosy, but, unfortunately, it never gets resolved in any satisfactory fashion. Despite its plot failings, I suppose the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association still serves its purpose well enough. The convenient index and table of content allow those of us foolish enough to waste our time in the soft sciences to make easy use of the Publication Manual. And really, that’s all a book such as this is good for. Ignoring for a moment the transcendental musings of Miser Rosy and her merry pack of ruffians, the best use of the Publication Manual is as a handy guide for reference and formatting guidelines. Although I can’t recommend the Publication Manual to the casual reader, it meets the need of a specific audience and I suppose that’s got to be worth two tiny Ludivine Sagniers.

It saddens to me to say this, but lil’ Michiko Kakutani’s review perfectly described Against the Day as:

[A] humongous, bloated jigsaw puzzle of a story, pretentious without being provocative, elliptical without being illuminating, complicated without being rewardingly complex.

Well, I disagree with the pretentious label, but everything else is spot on. When I first read the NY Times review, I was all like, “Nuts to this skank! She best not disrespect the TRP!” But I know realize that my pathetic fanboy excitement for the upcoming release of a new Pynchon novel overwhelmed what little reason I still possess. Michiko Kakutani was right. Thomas Pynchon finally wrote a cruddy novel.

As I mentioned before, I spent a good chunk of time today pondering Against the Day. I would breakdance for a while, then ponder, then breakdance and then ponder some more. I came up with two points of comparison for Against the Day: Tolkien novels and the Torque Bow in Gears of War.

Now don’t think for a minute that I intend to compare Tolkien and the TRP as writers. That’s pointless. Thomas Pynchon could shove a Mr. Sketch marker up his pee-hole and use it to craft a better paragraph than anything Tolkien could ever dream of writing. But reading Against the Day reminded me of reading a Tolkien novel. In Against the Day, like in a Tolkien novel, every fucking character has a seemingly interminable back story. It’s like reading the Bible.

The plot of Against the Day doesn’t really advance, it just sort of flops along aimlessly. I’m not going to argue that the TRP’s previous novels were shining examples of logical, Chekhovian plots that strictly adhered to most, if not all, of the Aristotelian unities, but the plots, for all their wacky meandering, were driven and focused by something, whether it be Slothrup’s questing through Europe in Gravity’s Rainbow or the historical sleuthing of the 37 characters named Stencil in V.. Against the Day lacks that minimal amount of focus, and it’s so damn disappointing.

Getting to the Torque Bow comparison, the torque bow is, like a Pynchon novel, supposed to be wicked awesome. When I first got one in Gears, I was all like “Shit yeah! Torque!” I’ve always wanted to use torque as a weapon against aliens and monsters. So few games feature torque as a weapon, so when I came across it in Gears (and in bow form, no less), I was bursting with anticipation. Just as I was prior to the release of Against the Day. However, disappointment soon followed. It’s just a bow with exploding arrows, and you have to expose yourself to open fire for too long to get off a full-powered shot. I quickly switched out the torque bow for my trusty shotgun.

You see, idiots, the torque bow is a symbol of an unfulfilled potential for awesomeness. The same could be said for Against the Day. It opens with the Chums of Chance, and the parts of the novel that features the Chums are all magnificent. Everything else, not so much. On my scale of one to five tiny sunbathing Ludivine Sagniers, I give Against the Day two tiny sunbathing Ludivine Sagniers. I suggest you check it out from your local library and give it a read, but only because it will make you appreciate the TRP’s other works so much more.

Issue 17 was a packet of faux junk mail rubber-banded together. Yes, there was some quality stuff, but just how am I supposed to store junk mail on my bookshelf? I can’t. I should just throw the damn thing out. When I received Issue 19 this morning, I was pleasantly surprised that it came in a square, fairly book-shaped box. But I soon learned that a book-shaped box does not necessarily indicate the presence of a traditional book. Issue 19 is a cigar box.

Inside the cigar box is a bunch of crap. Pamphlets about the Middle East and how to survive nuclear fallout. Black-and-white postcards. A stapled collection of white 8 1/2 x 11 paper. And George Bush’s dental records. I paid money for this crap? Yes, down at the very bottom there’s a small book containing some stories and a T.C. Boyle novella, but it upsets me that an actual collection of short fiction takes a backseat to a collection of random junk posing as a collection of short fiction.

To make matters worse, I can’t tell just how McSweeney’s expects me to appreciate this collection of junk. Is it retro? Am I supposed to laugh at the silly old-fashioned scaremongering and relate it to the modern scaremongering? Is it satire? Am I supposed to be amused by the authentic mimicry of old-fashioned scaremongering and then relate it to modern scaremongering. And why should I care about George Bush’s dental records? I don’t care about my own teeth, much less the teeth of others.

And why the cigar box? Does McSweeney’s assume that I’m a tobacco addict? For am I not. The only things I’m addicted to are caffeine and pornography. But now, when sexy ladies come to my apartment and see Issue 19 sitting on a bookshelf, they’ll say, “Do you like cigars or other tobacco-based products?” And I’ll say, “No. No I do not.” And they’ll say, “Then why do you have a cigar box on your bookshelf?” And then I’ll say, “It’s actually an issue of a quarterly short fiction journal.” Then they’ll say, “Then why isn’t it a book?” Then I’ll say, “Because they over-emphasise superficial cleverness.” Then they’ll say, “A cigar box really isn’t very clever. Not for a short fiction journal.” And then I’ll say, “There’s a fine line between stupid and clever.” I can never resist a good This Is Spinal Tap reference.

Anyways, I’m very disappointed with Issue 19. I generally enjoy T.C. Boyle, so I’m looking forward to reading his novella, but I doubt it will be great enough to compensate for the rest of the garbage in the cigar box. On my scale of one to five tiny Ludivine Sagniers, I give Issue 19 of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern one tiny Ludivine Sagnier.