Lots of stir about the latest young whippersnapper, Tao Lin.
Couldn't put it off any longer so I tackled his latest, Taipei, a full-length
novel. It’s not particularly long; the narrative is not complicated; there aren't
that many characters; no post-modern trickery here. But it’s not an easy read; nor is it a
pleasurable read in the usual sense. The story, such as it is, centers on a
young Asian-American writer (Paul) who takes lots of drugs, does many public
readings, goes in and out of romantic relationships, and in the course of the
book gets married. Doesn't sound
especially unusual, but this is the most bizarre book I've read in a long time.
Paul’s childhood places him in a self-imposed protective
isolation. In a sense the book
represents his attempt to escape that exile.
IMHO he achieves little more than a glimpse out the barred window, but
some reviewers (see NYT) think he achieves more. As an intelligent and well-educated young
adult Paul wraps himself in multiple layers of protective irony to the extent
that any kind of normal emotional reality is so distant as to be inconceivable. Lin writes in an informal journalistic
blog-like style, complete with syntax that only a programmer can
appreciate. At first I had to read every
chapter twice it was so different. I
did find a flow after a while, but what kind of flow I’m not really sure. One reviewer called it “a massive discharge of waste matter.”
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The style is so flat, so devoid of what at least I take to
be fundamental humanity as to be almost unreadable … or maybe super-readable
(or compilable) … or just plain boring.
Characters are introduced with their age in parentheses, almost like
programming code. They never truly interact. They are concerned only with themselves and
with their images of themselves as seen online, in mirrors, or most often in
their own heads. It really is like a
group of blind people in a circle jerk.
Each is intensely involved in his own experience, but minimally aware of
what’s going on around him. Yet each
longs for interaction. What they’re
doing is only a substitute for the ‘real thing’, so the isolation paints a crushing underlying despair. I so dearly
hope that Lin’s personal life is not accurately portrayed here. You can’t get out of depression easily if you
don’t truly feel. And the only path out is a
long and painful one that I wouldn't wish on anyone.
Perhaps Paul’s experience shouldn't be taken literally. Perhaps the book is meant to represent
metaphorically the alienation imposed on us by society and especially by
technology (both electronic and pharmaceutical). If so, I guess I get it. But if so, we’re all in a shithole without
much hope. The few strands of light that
Lin shows at the end are only a hint of the beginning of the start of the awakening.
And it will only get worse. Every year
we’re offered new more up-to-date tools that are supposed to help us, but
actually only distance us further from human interaction and the concomitant fundamental joy
and pain., and push us deeper into the hole If we continue to take the bait offered by those tools, we’re doomed
to a life-long mostly futile struggle to find the simplest pure and strong feelings about
each other. Our masochistic feelings about ourselves play an impenetrable zone defense that
keep us far from the basket. But if we don’t take
the bait, we’re outside the mainstream (or at least the whippersnapper version
thereof), and doomed to yet another version of exile.
Is this the novelistic version of art as the urinal on the
wall? In a way it is. I’m not fond of it. I wish him well. I'm happy to have read it. I’ll take it as a warning.
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here."
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