Dave's latest effort, The Secret Ingredient, is probably the hardest to read of all his books, saving only The Code of Life, which he wrote in a combination of Navajo and a computer language he invented. But Ingredient isn't difficult because of its language—in fact, its fluid, jaunty English is eminently readable. What makes the book so difficult is what it leaves out. But perhaps that can't be explained until I set out what it includes.
The book follows Michael Taudré, an up-and-coming American chef who goes on a destructive drug- and alcohol-fueled bender in Lebanon and ultimately has to be rescued by American intelligence agents. Taudré is given a choice: he can be turned over to the Lebanese authorities to face the music, or he can work for the CIA. Taudré opts for the latter, and ends up at a "dark site" where prisoners are being held and interrogated.
At first Taudré is merely asked to make sure the prisoners get (barely) enough nutrition to survive, but after a few months of tedium, he proposes a new approach. Instead of the harsh interrogation techniques that the Americans have been using, he suggests "key ingredient torture," in which the prisoners' food is almost, but not quite, complete.
Taudré serves them pizza with no salt in the crust, tomato sauce with no garlic, and chocolate chip cookies with no chocolate chips. (At first, Taudré bakes chocolate chip cookies with raisins instead of chocolate chips, and when they realize his duplicity, the prisoners howl in anger and abject misery. But this proves to be too much even for the hardened CIA operatives at the site, and they secretly inform their commander. Their whistle-blowing is passed up the chain of command, and the administration quickly dispatches a human rights ombudsman who immediately puts a stop to the practice.)
The results are impressive. Food that is missing a key ingredient creates an "uncanny valley" effect, in which the prisoners are paradoxically tormented the closer the food gets to perfection, while still falling short. The intelligence flows, at first haltingly, and then in torrents. But the effect doesn't last, or at least, it doesn't keep working with the same foods. Taudré is forced to push his creations to a higher and higher level of culinary sophistication, while still omitting crucial ingredients. His gel of lamb and coriander is perfect—or at least it would be, if he included capers. His soufflé of duck and tarragon is better than anything he ever served in his restaurants—except that the dish is incomplete without slivered almonds on top. The prisoners, racked with deprivation, millimeters from culinary perfection, spill out their guts in a mad race for something, anything that can scratch the itch his preparations have left on their palates.
What the CIA doesn't realize is that this is all an elaborate charade. Once Taudré has moved past his early forays into saltless pizza crust, the food is actually perfectly delicious, and the prisoners are merely pretending to be tormented. The intelligence they are divulging is either untrue or is information that they don't mind the Americans having. The difficult part of the ruse is that the CIA agents insist on knowing which crucial ingredient Taudré is leaving out, which means he has to find a way to tell the prisoners which ingredient to lament the absence of. Ordinarily he simply blinks in Morse code, but on occasion the prisoner is blindfolded. Then Taudré has to find a way to lead the prisoner to the right ingredient without tipping his hand to the CIA—these are the funniest scenes in the book, as Taudré comes up with outrageous ways to hint at the missing ingredient. ("Do you find anything... faulty in the salad dressing?" he asks, referencing Basil Fawlty, John Cleese's character in the highly regarded British TV comedy Fawlty Towers.)
But who is conning whom? As the prisoners come to respect Taudré and appreciate his Herculean efforts to protect them, they come to feel remorse for their earlier anti-American actions, and they genuinely want to give the Americans the information they need to shut down violent terrorist operations around the world. Were the CIA agents really taken in by Taudré's machinations? Or were they manipulating him and the prisoners all along?
Dave must know that this fantasy is hard to swallow. The reality is that every day, the American government tortures an unknown number of people around the globe, many of whom are probably innocent of any wrongdoing, or hands them over to odious regimes that do our bidding in exchange for military support. The book never addresses this tension head on, it simply builds a fantasy world that is so perversely cartoonish and soft-edged that it forces our minds back onto the reality of American torture. There are times, reading the book, when I couldn't stop laughing, and then suddenly I couldn't stop crying. It's a beautiful world that Dave has built, but its impossibility makes it a painful thing to contemplate—really, it makes it an obscenity, like an impressionist painting of a concentration camp. But maybe in these dark days a little obscenity is what is called for.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Sarang's Sua Sponte
Sarang's latest effort, Sua Sponte, marks something of a comeback for the reclusive novelist. Critics savaged his previous novel, Without Wax, and the drubbing was so severe that some doubted he would ever write again. Personally I think the critical reaction was unfair. The novel was ambitious and perhaps a bit smug, but it didn't deserve the almost universal opprobrium it received. To put it into context, there had recently been a spate of novels featuring unreliable narrators, an approach the critics rightly bemoaned as tired and tiring. Nevertheless, the critics were not amused when Sarang, by way of parody, introduced a hyper-reliable narrator, a tax professional who not only recounted the weather and headlines with complete fidelity, but who also divulged his "real" phone number. Dial that number, and you would be connected to one of several dozen actors Sarang hired to help you with your personal issues while staying "in character" as the narrator. The critics called this level of narratorial reliability a "stunt" and a "gimmick," though this didn't prevent them from dialing the number when tax season came around.
Sua Sponte could also be called a gimmick of sorts, but it is a very different kind of book. Sarang took his inspiration from the true story of a judge who presided over a rape trial that resulted in a wrongful conviction. Although the defendant was freed years later, his life was ruined, and he was picked up on drug charges. Recognizing the defendant, the judge dismissed all charges immediately, to the consternation of the prosecutors.
The only element that links the 12 stories in Sua Sponte is that in each story, a character appears before the same judge twice. A bankruptcy judge urges a chapter 7 debtor to think twice before reaffirming his debt (a process in which someone entitled to discharge his debt nevertheless voluntarily incurs the legal obligation to repay it). But the debtor can't be dissuaded, and a decade later, the same debtor is back before the court, never having escaped the debt burden from his prior reaffirmation.
By the time you have read two or three stories, you find yourself spending a lot of time trying to predict what will bring about the second judicial encounter. One story starts with an acrimonious divorce, and I found myself wondering where it would end—perhaps with a murder trial? In fact that story ends happily, with the same judge presiding over the remarriage of the couple.
The final story in Sua Sponte opens with an emotionally charged courtroom scene. A man has had sex with a mentally disabled young woman, and the prosecutors are seeking a rape conviction on the grounds that she can't consent. But she did consent, the alleged victim insists. She wanted to do it, and she is an adult. The woman's parents are outraged the judge is even allowing this testimony, but the judge hears her out.
Eventually, the defense attorney successfully argues that his client (who is also mentally disabled) didn't commit a crime, but after the acquittal we wait in torment for the hammer to drop. Which character will end up back in criminal court, and why? Manipulative, maybe, but there's a term for manipulating emotions as well as Sarang does: great writing.
Sua Sponte could also be called a gimmick of sorts, but it is a very different kind of book. Sarang took his inspiration from the true story of a judge who presided over a rape trial that resulted in a wrongful conviction. Although the defendant was freed years later, his life was ruined, and he was picked up on drug charges. Recognizing the defendant, the judge dismissed all charges immediately, to the consternation of the prosecutors.
The only element that links the 12 stories in Sua Sponte is that in each story, a character appears before the same judge twice. A bankruptcy judge urges a chapter 7 debtor to think twice before reaffirming his debt (a process in which someone entitled to discharge his debt nevertheless voluntarily incurs the legal obligation to repay it). But the debtor can't be dissuaded, and a decade later, the same debtor is back before the court, never having escaped the debt burden from his prior reaffirmation.
By the time you have read two or three stories, you find yourself spending a lot of time trying to predict what will bring about the second judicial encounter. One story starts with an acrimonious divorce, and I found myself wondering where it would end—perhaps with a murder trial? In fact that story ends happily, with the same judge presiding over the remarriage of the couple.
The final story in Sua Sponte opens with an emotionally charged courtroom scene. A man has had sex with a mentally disabled young woman, and the prosecutors are seeking a rape conviction on the grounds that she can't consent. But she did consent, the alleged victim insists. She wanted to do it, and she is an adult. The woman's parents are outraged the judge is even allowing this testimony, but the judge hears her out.
Eventually, the defense attorney successfully argues that his client (who is also mentally disabled) didn't commit a crime, but after the acquittal we wait in torment for the hammer to drop. Which character will end up back in criminal court, and why? Manipulative, maybe, but there's a term for manipulating emotions as well as Sarang does: great writing.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
The Literary Feud of the Century
What is it about literary feuds that fascinates us so much? Is there something about the high/low dynamic that thrills us, that gives us a frisson of shock in an otherwise staid corner of the world? Or is it just a chance to see our intellectual heroes from a new and not-necessarily-flattering angle?
Whatever the reason, the explosion of the long-simmering Dave/Sarang feud into public view has captivated the press, with the New York Review of Books calling it "the summer blockbuster for people who don't like summer blockbusters" and the New York Post blaring: "LIT SNIT PITS WIT AGAINST WIT; CRITS HAVE FITS." (This is not the duo's first encounter with the tabloid: after the Post published pictures of Sarang holding court at his new clothing-optional nightclub, Dave suggested the headline "BRAINLESS MAN IN TOPLESS BAR.")
In truth, though, the brawls have been more salacious than edifying. The latest flare-up started when Sarang ordered a "Dave's literary career" at the Algonquin. When the bartender admitted he didn't know the recipe, Sarang responded that he didn't either, but he knew it was on the rocks. Unfortunately, the famous "battle of wits" that resulted was a bit too literal for most people's taste: Dave threw a wit beer in Sarang's face, and Sarang responded in kind.
It seems to be one of those cases in which the viciousness of the fight is exacerbated by the closeness of the combatants' views. In fact, if anything Dave and Sarang have been allies in most of the big literary and political debates of the last two decades. They both defended Ian McEwan against Alice Munro; they were both outraged when the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's algorithmic novel This Sun of York was blackballed by the Pulitzer committee; they both wrote novels illustrating the folly of placing the school lunch program within the Department of Agriculture. Both men signed the St. Louis Manifesto.
Perhaps a rapprochement is on the horizon. However grudgingly, Dave has admitted that Sarang's latest effort, Actually, Paris Is Significantly Farther North Than Montreal, breaks new ground in experimental "obnoxious fiction." And when he was recently asked to name the 21st century's "biggest intellectual culprits," Sarang declined to name Dave, instead focusing heavily on the Polish literary establishment. At any rate, the men now have a common enemy: Richard Flanagan, whose The Narrow Road to the Deep North edged out Sarang and Dave for 2014's Man Booker prize, the first one for which both men were eligible. There's blood in the water.
Whatever the reason, the explosion of the long-simmering Dave/Sarang feud into public view has captivated the press, with the New York Review of Books calling it "the summer blockbuster for people who don't like summer blockbusters" and the New York Post blaring: "LIT SNIT PITS WIT AGAINST WIT; CRITS HAVE FITS." (This is not the duo's first encounter with the tabloid: after the Post published pictures of Sarang holding court at his new clothing-optional nightclub, Dave suggested the headline "BRAINLESS MAN IN TOPLESS BAR.")
In truth, though, the brawls have been more salacious than edifying. The latest flare-up started when Sarang ordered a "Dave's literary career" at the Algonquin. When the bartender admitted he didn't know the recipe, Sarang responded that he didn't either, but he knew it was on the rocks. Unfortunately, the famous "battle of wits" that resulted was a bit too literal for most people's taste: Dave threw a wit beer in Sarang's face, and Sarang responded in kind.
It seems to be one of those cases in which the viciousness of the fight is exacerbated by the closeness of the combatants' views. In fact, if anything Dave and Sarang have been allies in most of the big literary and political debates of the last two decades. They both defended Ian McEwan against Alice Munro; they were both outraged when the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's algorithmic novel This Sun of York was blackballed by the Pulitzer committee; they both wrote novels illustrating the folly of placing the school lunch program within the Department of Agriculture. Both men signed the St. Louis Manifesto.
Perhaps a rapprochement is on the horizon. However grudgingly, Dave has admitted that Sarang's latest effort, Actually, Paris Is Significantly Farther North Than Montreal, breaks new ground in experimental "obnoxious fiction." And when he was recently asked to name the 21st century's "biggest intellectual culprits," Sarang declined to name Dave, instead focusing heavily on the Polish literary establishment. At any rate, the men now have a common enemy: Richard Flanagan, whose The Narrow Road to the Deep North edged out Sarang and Dave for 2014's Man Booker prize, the first one for which both men were eligible. There's blood in the water.
Sarang's Tomorrow Darling
Sarang's latest effort, Tomorrow Darling, has been called "a penetrating examination of the human spirit in the form of an astonishingly good mystery story" (J.M. Coetzee), "at once a love letter to the mystery genre and its high-water-mark" (Michael Ondaatje), and "the book I wish I'd written" (Dan Brown). It has also been called "warmed-over tripe" (Michiko Kakutani) and "an unappetizing pastiche of Poe, Christie, and Conan Doyle" (Kirkus Reviews). So it is fair to say that the book is polarizing. But most would acknowledge that it is a welcome departure from Sarang's previous forays into the mystery genre, in which the culprits turned out to be, respectively, the subprime mortgage market; capitalism, and in particular its emphasis on exchange value instead of use value; and "man's inhumanity to man." Darling, at least, has a flesh-and-blood murderer (or murderers).
Set in the Cotswolds in the twilight years of the Victorian era, the novel follows amateur detective Cecil Overby-Smythe on a visit to the country estate of the Barrington family. The patriarch, William, is in poor health, aggravated in recent weeks by news of potentially disastrous financial setbacks in his large industrial concerns in North America. And his family seems to be disintegrating. His somewhat erratic daughter Delia has become increasingly radical and politically active (particularly on the question of Home Rule). His older son Reginald has accepted a quasi-permanent post in India. His younger son David has married a Methodist. William has summoned the whole family to the manor for some unspecified purpose, and Overby-Smythe has joined the fractious gathering in the company of his longtime friend, George MacBride, the family solicitor. (The witty if occasionally bitchy repartee between Overby-Smythe and MacBride is one of the chief pleasures of the book.)
On the morning after he arrives, Overby-Smythe goes for a stroll, braving the sullen rain, in search of mud to eat (he suffers from what today would be diagnosed as pica). From behind a coppice of willows, Overby-Smythe witnesses a mustachioed man in a brown suit and bowler hat somberly handing a sheaf of papers to a woman in a green dress, whose features Overby-Smythe cannot quite make out. When a woman's body is found later that day, apparently poisoned, Overby-Smythe feels bound to get to the bottom of the case. (I won't reveal who the victim is, or whether she is the same woman Overby-Smythe witnessed on his walk, since for a time the reader is kept in the dark on this latter point. Suffice it to say that a careful reader can piece quite a bit together from the seemingly innocuous details that Sarang weaves into his rich description of the English countryside.)
Darling is refreshingly traditional. It bears far more resemblance to The Woman in White than it does to Banville's Quirke books (which are published under the pseudonym Benjamin Black and which have recently been turned into a television series starring Gabriel Byrne). In short, if a literary writer like Sarang or Banville is going to spend time "slumming" in genre fiction, it is an exercise in self-indulgence unless he is willing to commit. Banville's books barely qualify as mysteries, whereas Darling is delightfully true to the genre, from the opening scene right down through the climax, in which Overby-Smythe, munching on splinters of wood, reveals the identity of the guilty party (or parties) to the rapt audience.
So while the book definitely doesn't transcend the genre, or even much modify its time-honored formulas, it is gratifyingly rich in all of the things that make the genre so irresistible in the first place, and if you can put the book down during its last 50 pages, then you're a better man than I.
Set in the Cotswolds in the twilight years of the Victorian era, the novel follows amateur detective Cecil Overby-Smythe on a visit to the country estate of the Barrington family. The patriarch, William, is in poor health, aggravated in recent weeks by news of potentially disastrous financial setbacks in his large industrial concerns in North America. And his family seems to be disintegrating. His somewhat erratic daughter Delia has become increasingly radical and politically active (particularly on the question of Home Rule). His older son Reginald has accepted a quasi-permanent post in India. His younger son David has married a Methodist. William has summoned the whole family to the manor for some unspecified purpose, and Overby-Smythe has joined the fractious gathering in the company of his longtime friend, George MacBride, the family solicitor. (The witty if occasionally bitchy repartee between Overby-Smythe and MacBride is one of the chief pleasures of the book.)
On the morning after he arrives, Overby-Smythe goes for a stroll, braving the sullen rain, in search of mud to eat (he suffers from what today would be diagnosed as pica). From behind a coppice of willows, Overby-Smythe witnesses a mustachioed man in a brown suit and bowler hat somberly handing a sheaf of papers to a woman in a green dress, whose features Overby-Smythe cannot quite make out. When a woman's body is found later that day, apparently poisoned, Overby-Smythe feels bound to get to the bottom of the case. (I won't reveal who the victim is, or whether she is the same woman Overby-Smythe witnessed on his walk, since for a time the reader is kept in the dark on this latter point. Suffice it to say that a careful reader can piece quite a bit together from the seemingly innocuous details that Sarang weaves into his rich description of the English countryside.)
Darling is refreshingly traditional. It bears far more resemblance to The Woman in White than it does to Banville's Quirke books (which are published under the pseudonym Benjamin Black and which have recently been turned into a television series starring Gabriel Byrne). In short, if a literary writer like Sarang or Banville is going to spend time "slumming" in genre fiction, it is an exercise in self-indulgence unless he is willing to commit. Banville's books barely qualify as mysteries, whereas Darling is delightfully true to the genre, from the opening scene right down through the climax, in which Overby-Smythe, munching on splinters of wood, reveals the identity of the guilty party (or parties) to the rapt audience.
So while the book definitely doesn't transcend the genre, or even much modify its time-honored formulas, it is gratifyingly rich in all of the things that make the genre so irresistible in the first place, and if you can put the book down during its last 50 pages, then you're a better man than I.
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