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I am still officially on hiatus, but when I read James Wood’s review of HHhH, a new postmodern historical novel by Laurent Binet, in The New Yorker, I had to post about it. Binet’s novel, which revolves around the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the intelligence service of S.S. in Nazi Germany during WWII.
Binet does not use invented characters, and has asserted that the narrator is not, in fact, a character, but himself. This is significant because throughout the novel, the narrator discusses the fictional techniques the author is using to tell the story. Wood describes this all in much greater detail, and also contrasts Binet’s (ultimately shallow, he contends) use of these techniques with those in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, another self-aware historical set during WWII.
Basically, it seems to me that HHhH is one of those incredibly pretentious postmodern novels that make me roll my eyes. Like the trashy romance novels of postmodernism. (Not that there’s anything wrong with trashy romance novels–except, wait, yes, there is, because most of them rely on horrible sexist stereotypes and cultural norms that are borderline offensive.)
I love weird writing. And of course postmodernism is a hotbed of weird stuff. But I can’t stand weirdness for the sake of weirdness, weirdness that screams LOOK AT ME, I’M DIFFERENT AND SMART. I love weird writing that actually says something new and important about the world we live in. The reason I love postmodernism and metafiction so much is because they give us a way to fight against those hurtful, painful cultural norms that constrict us and force us to be things other than who we really are, who we really want to be.
Based on Woods’s review, and his quoting of certain glib passages from Binet’s novel, it sounds like HHhH, at best, highlights silly fictional techniques, and at worst, makes light of horrible tragedies to prove how smart he is. I think this is a novel I’ll skip.
I wanted to watch The Men Who Stare at Goats for one main reason. And if you guess because Ewan McGreggor is in it, you’re right. Kind of.
Mr. McGreggor certainly isn’t ugly, but his main attraction for me was that he played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. And The Men Who Stare at Goats is basically a two hour Star Wars joke.
And I’m okay with that, because I’m the kind of Star Wars fangirl who gets X-wings tattoos, dresses up like Mara Jade at Star Wars cons and covers her office in wall-to-wall posters (my favorites being a Celebration IV exclusive print of Vader killing the Emperor, a Japanese poster of R2-D2 jetpacking over a derivative of Hokusai’s famous “Great Wave off Kanagawa” painting and a map of the galaxy that came in one issue of Star Wars Insider many many moons ago).
After the movie (Men Who Stare at Goats, not Star Wars) ended, I had a feeling that it wasn’t really a very good movie, but I thought it was awesome anyway. The main problem I had with Goats is not that it’s one giant Star Wars joke (that part was awesome), but that the story never quite got off the ground.
I’m going to blame the complex narration and use of extensive flashbacks for that. Ewan McGreggor narrates the story from the present. He tells us how his wife left him and he went off to Iraq and met George Clooney’s character.
And then, throughout their journey, we get flashbacks to the 1980s when the army was playing around with making these psychic super warriors. Sometimes we get flashbacks within flashbacks. Eventually everything gets wrapped up, but the problem is that we’re following two, and sometimes three story lines, as the flashbacks comprise at least half of the movie.
McGreggor and Clooney do a lot of sitting around, which is when Clooney tells McGreggor his story. Even though we don’t see them sitting around a lot because of the flashbacks, it’s kind of tiring to have them sitting in the desert alone for so long. That being said, the flashbacks are done extremely well and are easy to follow.
In one sense too much is going on, and in another sense nothing is going on, and it creates frustration for the viewer. I do admire director Grant Heslov’s ability to navigate these multiple layers of narration, but I don’t think they quite work here.
Another problem is that this movie is based on a documentary (you can read about it on Wikipedia here, and I highly suggest checking out the links at the bottom), so it’s trying to impose a narrative structure on a story that doesn’t necessarily have any.
Again, the plot does accomplish what it sets out to do in satirizing the ridiculousness of the military and war in Iraq, but it still falls flat, perhaps because it’s trying to do too much. Or perhaps because it’s a comedy, so you can never be sure what’s included solely for comedic effect, or how much of the movie is based on the “truth.”
In the end, I think it’s worth watching for the acting (which is excellent), the Star Wars jokes and the layered narrative, but considering the title is The Men Who Stare at Goats, there were not enough goats!
Vintage was not paying attention when they produced this book. On the front, it reads “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts.” Beneath the title it says, “Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.”
But guess what the back says? “Fiction/Literature.”
Yes, a book that, on the front, is called “nonfiction” and “memoir” is meant to be shelved in the “fiction” section. I found it in the biography section of Borders, where, in my opinion, it belongs (of course I love the memoir/fiction dichotomy here).
Maxine Hong Kingston’s beautiful and wonderful account of her childhood in California and her family’s dry cleaning place is not a traditional memoir, though it does contain the confessional quality of many.
Although there are parts that are clearly not “real” or never happened, the important part is that they are clearly fictional. The “real life” parts of the book are no fuzzier than memory, and because of that, I think the book deserves to sit with other memoirs.
My favorite section, “White Tigers,” does not deal with Kingston’s life, but rather her childhood fantasy of becoming, quite literally, a woman warrior in ancient China and defending her village and family against invaders. The language stuns and amazes, and at the end of the “chapter” I felt a profound sense of having lost something for it being over.
Other parts of the memoir deal with Kingston’s mother being a doctor in China and how she dealt with many evil ghosts, as well as an imagined situation in which her aunt arrives from China and has to face her husband, who has re-married in California and become a rich doctor.
While it is these “fantasies” that get The Woman Warrior pegged as “fiction,” it is these fantasies that make the story real for the reader. Kingston shows the reader the reality of her family, but what child never indulges in fantasy? What child has a realistic view of her family?
The ghost stories and half-remembered family memories convey the feeling and emotion of this family—something that tells the reader far more about their lives than mere facts ever could. This is without a doubt a case of fiction being truer than truth.
Plus, in the sections that deal with ghosts and ghost stories, Kingston is primarily relaying stories that her mother told her, and she points that out. In relaying these stories, Kingston is showing the reader what is important about storytelling—that it be a story worth telling, and a story with meaning.
Kingston doesn’t relate these ghost stories because they are “fun.” She relates them because they show the reader the incredible difference between her mother’s life in China and her life in the United States. They highlight cultural differences, and they show us what her mother lost in coming to this new country—magic.
The books’ nontraditional structure also fascinates me. Kingston did not write traditional “chapters,” but rather five sections that could easily stand alone, but that accomplish much more together.
You could argue that the book is a collection of short stories, or you could argue it’s a complete book. I think both are correct, and the first section, “No Name Woman,” was published elsewhere first.
The disjointed sections don’t really come together to tell one singular story. Kingston peppers each section with family anecdotes among the ghost stories, and leaves it up to the reader to search out all the mundane details of her childhood and put them together, which makes the reading experience rewarding.
On a more personal note, although Woman Warrior doesn’t deal specifically with gender roles, Kingston elevates Woman in a beautiful, poignant way, and shows the reader Woman’s inner strengths and weaknesses. I think every woman, especially women who love good stories, should read this book.
This is a text, that as I write my own ghost stories and memoir, I will return to again and again for inspiration.
Also, if you’re publishing a book, make sure your genres match on both covers!
Don’t forget to enter my Slaughterhouse-Five Book Giveaway! Details here. You have until Friday to enter.
