book review: You & I by Padgett Powell

"How many of us are there?
There's the two of us, right now. You and me. You and I."

Padgett Powell likes to write inventively. His last book was a series of questions from start to finish leaving the reader searching for their own answers. This time most of the questions get answered as two men discuss life, dreams and whether or not they will go and get some beer dressed in an orange jump suit.

It's been a while since I read the Interrogative Mind but I'm sure some of those questions got a repeat airing here as the two men bounce thoughts back and forth. You have a picture in your mind of two men, not so old ambitions have withered away but neither young, sitting on a porch watching the world go by.

They are clearly old friends and make references to shared experiences that sometimes they can remember and others cannot find it in their memories. They both seem to share the same view of the world and both get excited at the thought of 'losing it' and wandering off verbally into a random world punctured by anger.

Reading this book is not as much of a challenge as the questions after questions predecessor but neither is it perhaps a comfortable ride. Most, myself included, will come to this with a grounding in the old familiar narrative form. Searching for a middle and end here will lead to a headache. The conversation between the two men is going to go on until broken by illness or death and this is a snapshot into it. That sense of it never ending is in itself a challenge to the reader because it raises questions about not just what would your answer be to the questions but what would you do if you were stuck in a verbal relationship like this one?

There is a comfort in knowing that when you sit there with a friend and put the world to rights you are probably more coherent than these two characters. But ultimately just as they struggle to find the effort to make a difference and recapture a lost sense of momentum, perhaps that fate beckons for all of us.

Thoughts at the halfway point of You & I

This is another book with plenty of questions marks in from Padgett Powell.

Just like the Interrogative Mind there are lots of questions being asked. But here there are answers as this is a dialogue between two men.

They are not old but neither are they young and their views range far and wide.

It's strange, fun and probably not going to come to much of a conclusion. But we will see...

book review: The Interrogative Mood A Novel? by Padgett Powell

"Can you cook? Can you fight? Can you lie? Can you do anything well? Have you acquired a sufficient stock of clothes from a mail-order seller that you can, if you want to flip through the catalogue to decide what to wear that day ? Do you know a peony from a petunia? What exactly does "Standard & Poor" mean to you? Can you hang ten? Do you dance?"

Life is full of questions and answers and each child goes through their why? period before learning that asking about things all the times causes both annoyance and frustration because the answers are usually far from satisfactory.

Imagine reading a book that from start to finish a series of questions. It might sound difficult reading, and in parts it is, but perhaps not for the reasons you think. One of the problems is the urge to mentally answer as many questions as you can and the other is to try, even though it's clear one isn't coming, to look out for a traditional narrative structure.

At the end you realise that of course life is a series of questions and a search for answers, for some sort of truth, and that those that ask with the sort of random determination of the voice in this book do so at risk of alienating themselves from friends caught in the questioning crossfire.

The questions ebb and flow and there is something almost symphonic about the way that certain themes recur through the reading. Questions about blue jays, poodles and haircuts crop up in different ways throughout the book.

There is also a sense of asking the reader to think about their perceptions of a novel. The question really is what is a novel? and although this comes hardbound at 164 pages looking like a novel is it one? Is this literature as art? Is this literature as a construction? The questions don't stop at page 164.

As an exercise reading something different this reminds you that the narrative forms you take for granted are there to be challenged and in a way this succeeds where Tom McCarthy's C failed to be an anti-novel. It might not be comfortable but it will make you laugh in places but more than anything it will make you think and that has to be a good thing.

Thoughts at the half way point of The Interrogative Mood

It's hard to know where this book is going, no doubt more of the same questions, as you wade through question after question.

Some of them make you laugh, some disturb and others have cultural references that are missed but overall if the intention is to get you to think about things then it is working.

Keep finding it's taking a long time to read because the natural urge is to try and answer the questions.

Review on completion soon...