donn%utah-cs@sri-unix.UUCP (08/19/84)
From: donn@utah-cs (Donn Seeley)
PALIMPSESTS. Carter Scholz and Glenn Harcourt. Ace Specials, c1984.
Non-spoiler review: A difficult read. Pynchon fans may like it.
Micro-spoiler review:
This is billed as a time-travel novel, but it is as much about time
travel as GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is about space travel. The style is very
'artistic' and convoluted, the protagonist is an angst-ridden
anti-hero, and the story ends with a deflating anti-climax. There are
some people who see these things as virtues, among them Barry Malzberg,
who renders glowing compliments to Carter Scholz on the back flap. I
didn't enjoy GRAVITY'S RAINBOW and I had to force myself to finish this
novel, but I know people who adore Pynchon and might like PALIMPSESTS.
Mini-spoiler review:
This novel stirs me to make bad 'angst' jokes. ('What is nihilism?'
'One angst clapping.' Maybe it sounds better with elephants...) The
novel is not all bad -- sometimes it slips in a good one:
Uneasily Camus lit a cigarette. Carpenter was close to
raving. He held his arms apart now, facing the coffin. 'O
sublime ALU-father, daddy data, maw of the motherboard, blind
as a battery, adding in ADA, singing the
giga-GIGO-data-dada-blues, yes, tremulous deliria of deltic
delphic time, the fast fast blues, the ultraviolet and the
invisible....' He broke off witha rough laugh. 'Blacks get
blues. Whites get angst. Machines get even. It's called
parity.'
If you like this sort of thing, then you might like this book since
virtually all the dialogues and internal monologues are written the
same way, alternating philosophical and literary allusions with
'prose-poetry' and amusing Pynchon-like ramblings. The plot, such as
it is, centers around a German graduate student in paleoanthropology
with the unlikely name of Camus. (Most of the characters have unlikely
names, another steal from Pynchon.) Camus is amazingly selfish for a
person who seems to be completely empty -- he has no visible ambitions
or strong emotions, other than boredom and occasionally lust. We are
told that he enjoys failure and is irritated by success, so he is
actually feeling pretty good at a pointless dig in the Neander Valley.
But a hidden cave is discovered by his advisor, Professor Warner, and
in that cave is found a Neanderthal skeleton and a curious block of
metal two centimeters on a side, weighing two kilograms. This block is
construed as evidence of time travel (not visiting aliens, for some
reason) and when Camus finds himself in possession of it he learns that
a certain organization is willing to kill to obtain it. During the
chase Camus manages to fall in love again with his old girlfriend; I
found these scenes to be the most enjoyable in the book, although of
course he dumps her again later on and she attempts to revenge herself
on him. The block and the corporation are meant to be analogous to the
corresponding substance and company in GRAVITY'S RAINBOW (yet another
steal). Eventually the company captures Camus with the help of
Professor Warner and Camus is forced to descend through the heavily
symbolic seven levels of its mammoth underground building in Alaska,
whose inhabitants have all been driven insane by unresolved angst or
tainted egg-salad sandwiches or something.
Why read about angst when you can enjoy it in the comfort of your own
home? Yawn. The authors DID leave out Pynchon's imitations of
Rabelais' lists, and the constant sexual philandering. ('But
GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is SUPPOSED to be boring -- it's demonstrating
the banality of war with the banality of sex.' 'If you say so.')
Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@utah-cs.arpa
PS -- There do appear to be some possibly better Ace Specials coming
down the pike, according to the list in PALIMPSESTS: Howard Waldrop's
novel THEM BONES is scheduled for November and Michael Swanwick's
IN THE DRIFT should come out in February next year.