In the last November issue of the New York Review of Books Zadie Smith reviews two novels from 2008. The title of her article is “Two Paths for the Novel;” one narrow, twisty and uncertain (Remainder), the other cleared, mulched and packed (Netherland).
Netherland is written as lyrical Realism and the only one Barnes & Noble had in stock. Remainder by Tom McCarthy is a rejection of style and a challenge to the genre. “When we write about lyrical Realism our great tool is the quote, so richly patterned,” says Smith. “But Remainder is not filled with pretty quotes; it works by accumulation and repetition,” This is precisely what I found shocking in Remainder, its absence of lyrical prose. I latently and then uncomfortably recognized this absense as a style-flirtation with purple prose, unique turn of cliché-endemic in much of what I read.
Remainder can be repetitious, wearing its reader down with seemingly mundane trivialities. And yet you keep reading because you expect-and a few times expect to call the author’s bluff-a huge pay-off, perhaps a craftily disguised dues ex machina followed by the revelation and final reckoning. What we get is a protagonist waking from an injury-induced coma. A large sum of hush money. A strange sense of artificiality in people, himself included. The entire novel has him reconstructing scenes and reenacting events, real and imagined, repetitively, until they become almost real for him. There is no background story and, save for near the end, very little in the way of exposition on this odd behavior. Satirically, brain damage sets him off in this quixotic search of authenticity. And so Remainder provides us with an excellent novel-long proof of argument by way of failed experiment.
This story brought to mind aspects of the “Theatre of the Absurd,” evoking Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus. Smith notes this as well. But this is a geeked-out topic du jour for artists. It seems significant that nobody in this novel appears to care or understand what the main character is attempting-even the other actors/enactors?!
Smith links the protagonist’s preoccupation with authenticity to white male insecurity over inauthenticity: “The frustrated sense of having come to the authenticity party exactly a century late!” (Note that she begins with psychoanalytical hand-waving-”A flashback-inclined Freudian”-a sign of insecurity many literary academics have, or should have, in regard to their field.) What am I to do but grimace and bear this historical contingency that has me as white educated male considered by many exempt and incapable of generating authenticity or, more so, even recognizing it. N’est-ce pas?
Forced to face our alleged insecurities might make for an uncomfortable read. What’s humorous is Smith’s statement that these two novels concern themselves not with the Platonic ideal but its antithesis: debris, refuse garbage, the remainder. For these white males, authors and protagonists alike, there is sanctuary among, and authenticity in Dorian Grey’s “rotting flesh- assemblage hanging in his attic.” So this is where the search for authenticity leads us. But does this really differ from that all too familiar quest for the unique and novel when confronted with existential angst, that intrepid spirit lauded among male Brits of previous centuries? Am I just satisfying impotently an ancestral need?
Smith says view the world like the post-colonialist writer V.S. Naipaul: “…such an attitude is often mistaken for linguistic or philosophical nihilism, but its true strength comes from a rigorous attention to the damaged and the partial, the absent and the unspeakable.” That’s as close as anyone gets to authenticity. Inhabit this realm with my thoughts and words much like my forefathers did with their germs and guns. What a cliché! It is their world and so we must finally colonize.
My main grievance with Remainder is a technical one, something Zadie Smith overlooks, the significance of the “short councillor” as a contrivance. This character is equivalent to a movie using interior monologue to lay out for the audience the protagonist’s motivation. The “short councillor” broke down that “Realist” agreement between author and reader, as if, late in the story, McCarthy second-guessed his application and decided to confess. Maybe it is a case of coming full circle from avante-garde to hack writing.
For further reading on authenticity by McCarthy read his joint manifesto.
I didn’t read “Netherland” as being about authenticity. It is about apathy and existential angst, both which Zadie Smith acknowledges. But Hans isn’t drawn to Chuck because the darker immigrant has some sort of naturalness the whiter one lacks; it’s for the same reason Nick Carroway was drawn to Gatsby–the scope of the man’s dreams. Hans cares about little besides pleasing his wife and getting his son back. But Chuck wants something big. Hans knows all along it’s ridiculous, but he wants to be convinced it’s not.
If O’Neill’s prose is self-conscious it isn’t because he’s preoccupied with authenticity but because he’s well aware of all the other narratives out there that are similar to his. He’s not afraid of being unreal; he’s afraid of being crowded into oblivion.
And I’m skeptical about “Remainder”’s place alongside some of the other challenges to realism: it has a coherent plot, a sympathetic (if bizarre) protagonists, and even builds along a narrative arc to a resolution.
I was at first excited about Smith’s comments on the “Two Paths,” but after reading her article and then reading both books I think she couldn’t have missed the point more if she tried. This is one of the dangers of novelists getting too steeped in literary theory–they see confirmations and challenges to it even where they don’t exists. I for one think lit theory is a mind virus, and the works inspired by it are tragic trashbins of talent.
The best thing for reading enjoyment is to assume the writers mean what they say and focus on how well they’ve said it. I like stories a lot more than I like theories.
If by “bizarre” you mean a sociopath…which, admittedly a hard sell to the reader, I’m not convinced McCarthy successfully pulled-off. The culprit of course being lack of back story to chart a progression from normal to abnormal. How else does he expect us to wrap our minds around the absurdities…this isn’t Magical Realism praise jebus.