Entry tags:
2010 Reading #19: A Dark Matter by Peter Straub
Books 1-10.
11. The Dream Years by Lisa Goldstein.
12. Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow.
13. The Bone Forest by Robert Holdstock.
14. Con Men and Cutpurses: Scenes from the Hogarthian Underworld by Lucy Moore.
15. Fredrick L. McGhee: A Life on the Color Line, 1861-1912 by Paul D. Nelson.
16. Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley.
17. East by Edith Pattou.
18. Early Candlelight by Maud Hart Lovelace.
19. A Dark Matter by Peter Straub. It's funny; Straub is an author whom I respect without having read much by him. I read The Talisman about a million years ago, and I thought Straub's story "Little Red's Tango" was perhaps the best short story in the excellent Conjunctions: 39, the "New Wave Fabulists" issue of that anthology series. Otherwise, I mostly know Straub by reputation and from having heard him speak at various literary events. He's obviously wicked smart, which I suppose is why I decided to pick this book up as soon as it came out; to finally start trying to get a handle on his career as a whole. Unfortunately, I think I chose the wrong book to start with. It's not that there isn't a lot to like here, because there is. A Dark Matter is ambitious; Straub is trying, I think, to call up a vortex of story, a narrative that circles around a central idea with gradually increasing speed until the reader is irresistibly drawn in. And it works, to an extent; it's just that the center, and the characters Straub creates to delineate it, are not so terribly compelling. Part of this is due to Straub's decision to put forty years between the event and the telling of it. In 1966, in Madison, Wisconsin, four high school kids and three college students were drawn into the orbit of a con man/guru named Spencer Mallon, and became part of a dark ritual (although not strictly the dark matter of the title) which ended with one dead body, several disappearances, and a host of questions. (One major problem I had right from the start was that Mallon's appeal was never explained in a way that enabled me to sympathize with the kids; Straub tells us that they all needed father figures, but that explanation comes across as pat and unsatisfying.) In the present day, novelist Lee Harwell--the fifth of the group of high school friends, the one who was not present that day--tries to figure out what it was that happened. While sections of the story that unfold are compelling, what comes across most clearly is how removed from the horror Harwell and his friends are now, and how banal and comfortable their lives have become. I think this is part of the point that Straub is trying to make, that the sort of evil he is writing about is routine, everyday, petty, thoughtless; but it may not be a weighty enough idea to hold down the edges of the novel, which at times feel like they are flapping in the wind. Despite my misgivings, it's undeniable that some of the parts make an argument in favor of the whole; the titular section, for example, and the visit with Spencer's girlfriend at the time of the ritual, now a senator's wife, are as menacing and unsettling as anything I've read. But somehow the thing as a whole failed to hang together for me. That doesn't mean I've given up on Straub, by any means, but next I think I'll go back to read some of his already-acknowledged major works.
11. The Dream Years by Lisa Goldstein.
12. Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow.
13. The Bone Forest by Robert Holdstock.
14. Con Men and Cutpurses: Scenes from the Hogarthian Underworld by Lucy Moore.
15. Fredrick L. McGhee: A Life on the Color Line, 1861-1912 by Paul D. Nelson.
16. Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley.
17. East by Edith Pattou.
18. Early Candlelight by Maud Hart Lovelace.
19. A Dark Matter by Peter Straub. It's funny; Straub is an author whom I respect without having read much by him. I read The Talisman about a million years ago, and I thought Straub's story "Little Red's Tango" was perhaps the best short story in the excellent Conjunctions: 39, the "New Wave Fabulists" issue of that anthology series. Otherwise, I mostly know Straub by reputation and from having heard him speak at various literary events. He's obviously wicked smart, which I suppose is why I decided to pick this book up as soon as it came out; to finally start trying to get a handle on his career as a whole. Unfortunately, I think I chose the wrong book to start with. It's not that there isn't a lot to like here, because there is. A Dark Matter is ambitious; Straub is trying, I think, to call up a vortex of story, a narrative that circles around a central idea with gradually increasing speed until the reader is irresistibly drawn in. And it works, to an extent; it's just that the center, and the characters Straub creates to delineate it, are not so terribly compelling. Part of this is due to Straub's decision to put forty years between the event and the telling of it. In 1966, in Madison, Wisconsin, four high school kids and three college students were drawn into the orbit of a con man/guru named Spencer Mallon, and became part of a dark ritual (although not strictly the dark matter of the title) which ended with one dead body, several disappearances, and a host of questions. (One major problem I had right from the start was that Mallon's appeal was never explained in a way that enabled me to sympathize with the kids; Straub tells us that they all needed father figures, but that explanation comes across as pat and unsatisfying.) In the present day, novelist Lee Harwell--the fifth of the group of high school friends, the one who was not present that day--tries to figure out what it was that happened. While sections of the story that unfold are compelling, what comes across most clearly is how removed from the horror Harwell and his friends are now, and how banal and comfortable their lives have become. I think this is part of the point that Straub is trying to make, that the sort of evil he is writing about is routine, everyday, petty, thoughtless; but it may not be a weighty enough idea to hold down the edges of the novel, which at times feel like they are flapping in the wind. Despite my misgivings, it's undeniable that some of the parts make an argument in favor of the whole; the titular section, for example, and the visit with Spencer's girlfriend at the time of the ritual, now a senator's wife, are as menacing and unsettling as anything I've read. But somehow the thing as a whole failed to hang together for me. That doesn't mean I've given up on Straub, by any means, but next I think I'll go back to read some of his already-acknowledged major works.