Bold statements are becoming. I like a review to start with them. Short, bold statements. Yes indeed. I believe this, I believe that. That sort of thing. The tepid readers of today need lightning bolts, or they’ll sink only further into the apathetic depths. That’s why we reviewers need to take more risks. Put those necks of ours right on the line. Go for broke, seize the day, pickle the onion before it dries. Sock it to them before the cows come home.
No, you won’t catch me paddling my feet in the timid tides of cautious criticism. Damn those timid tides! The fear of error should not be permitted to annihilate the sparkling potential of the stertorous assessment. We all get things wrong. Obsessive deliberation is tasteless. Tip-toeing around issues is a pleasure reserved only for those of fairy ancestry. And the literary world is no place for nymphs.
Like I said, we all get things wrong. Our strident opinions can on occasion, à la the early cannon, blow up backwards. Cackleberry on the face, posterior over elbow – and so on. And I’ll freely admit that it happens to the best of us. When I first reviewed the book in question, I opened up with what I thought to be a suitably potent statement. I blew an imaginary trumpet and its deep brassy sound hung like a tribe of hot-air balloons over my strident sentences. Witness ye, quoth I: the revolution has begun. The days of the rectangle are behind us! The hegemonic rule of the standard bookshelf is coming to a great and glorious (perhaps even bloody) end! Triangular novels are on their way!
Boris Bash-Benver was my prophet. And the clothes fit him well; his very title revealing – with much convenience – both his approach and the contents of his project. Was their ever a more raucously named novelist? The three closely succeeded ‘b’s are aural battering rams: a beautifully clamorous trinity. Born of his fragmented background (Russian mother, Canadian father; brought up in Los Angeles and Copenhagen) they mark the contours of his current preoccupations. Here I am: the triangular novelist. Here is a pre-packaged radical, I thought, primed for the big-time.
But it wasn’t to be. Not that Bash-Benver has been a failure, no. To date Tripulation has probably sold more copies that its author ever expected it would. However, the subsequent success of the triangular novel has been a little less healthy than I had imagined. In short, it has had no success at all. People were happy to accept Tripulation, it seems, but less happy to emulate it. Putting aside the sterling efforts of a Peruvian publishing house who are currently trying to flood the avant-garde South American market with octagonal novels (and very good they are too), the rectangular (or more rarely, square) book continues to control the perch. The great European writers resume their task of radically rearranging words upon the page; but the shape of the page remains pretty much the same.
What a pity. What a shame. Oh dear. Still, maybe it’s just as well. In retrospect, the triangular novel doesn’t suggest itself as an entirely viable alternative. It suits certain ideas well enough, but I accept the fact that it isn’t for everyone. And I say this not only because it doesn’t sit well on my bookshelf. Nor am I eschewing the noble view that authors ought not to be pressurised into making things easier for their audience. Reading Tripulation is no stroll in the park; no walk in the woods; no dallying about a veranda. But I have no qualms about this, no qualms at all. My main fear, in fact, is that the present generation of writers have not the ability or talent required to push this concept through. Indeed, I have of late begun to doubt whether even Bash-Benver has succeeded in rising to the challenge of his own idea. And this is after having branded him as the perfectly constructed conduit for the tri-perspectival narrative.
For those who haven’t followed the phenomenon of the triangular novel, further explanation may be required at this juncture. Here goes. The shape of the book is, of course, triangular, with one side acting as the spine. The text, however, is squashed into three circular blocks on each page, like so:
As you can see for your pretty little selves, there are here three narratives running at once, each telling the same story through the eyes of three different people. An old trick, perhaps, but given a new presentation. And – as noted – devised by the mind of someone who would seem perfectly placed to pull off this formerly maligned fictional stunt. Not only is Bash-Benver a product of a highly assorted upbringing, but as he has freely admitted, he is very much a child of the twenty-first century: politically vague, sexually confused and religiously befuddled. Juggling three points of view at once should come easily to such a man. Who better to deconstruct the semi-schizophrenic state of an increasingly dislocated society?
Ah, I say. Ah. You see, Bash-Benver’s problem is not that he isn’t capable of seeing things from several points of view, but that he has chosen to ascribe these points of view to different people. The three circles of Tripulation ought to chronicle one person thinking about life in three ways; instead it describes three people thinking about life in one way. Bash-Benver has taken single strands of his own personality and created two-dimensional characters out of them: an authorial error so common that I am almost embarrassed to have to mention it. The only thing I can say in the writer’s defence is that the error is so obvious, it may well have been deliberate. He must’ve decided against well-rounded characters – for what purpose one can barely imagine. All I can think of is that, seeing the opportunity to create a significant contribution to the understanding of the modern mind, he took the slip road of cheap laughs instead. Either that or, as I am beginning to suspect, he found himself curtailed by other concerns; concerns which, triangular intellect that he is, he might have mistakenly thought might play in his favour.
By this I mean, mostly, sex. Though Tripulation starts off trying to explore three different forms of government (as supported by its three strangely politically certain characters) and later moves into the regions of religion (represented by an atheist, a Christian and a potato pagan) it could be said to linger for far too long on the subject of sex. In this sense, it seems to me that Bash-Benver has been spending a little bit too much time in the company of those revolutionary young something-or-others who call themselves ‘The Adultists’. Claiming to be a reaction against the multi-perspectival post-structuralist pseudo-formless camp into which Bash-Benver would appear at first to have placed himself, this group pride themselves on an ‘honest no-nonsense prose’. Short, bold honesty. Great. Of course, in simple terms, this tends to mean a surplus of vivid sex, drugs and violence; but should you be tempted to attack them on this front, be sure to understand that they will retaliate, thinking you somewhat ‘stuffy’ and ‘old-fashioned’. Good on them, I say, my tongue only straying towards my cheek. May their semi-pornographic prose gain as much exposure as it deserves before shriveling up like old man’s skin and being tossed in the nearest dark alleyway.
For all that, I will say this: Tripulation‘s attempt to align itself with this movement is not a particularly wise one. For where ‘Adultist’ fiction derives its currency from the first person narrative, singly presented, Tripulation undermines the honesty of its three viewpoints by juxtaposing them with each other, creating more comedy than tragedy through its utilisation of dramatic irony. Extreme viewpoints, which might seem heroic on their own are, when counterpoised by their opposites, dragged into the arena of farce. This is particularly true when the viewpoints are so obviously opposed, as they are here. The otherwise earnest nature of Jaspar – one of Tripulation’s two male characters – might charm in any other circumstances. When read alongside the corresponding narrative supplied by Verity – the main female character – he becomes instead no more than a figure of fun (as in fact they all do). Is this Bash-Benver’s intention? I don’t think so. Not his original intention at least. His true aim was surely to suggest to the reader that there are many ways of looking at the world, and that more than one of them may be considered ‘legitimate’. Instead of this, it seems as though he is saying that all ways of looking at the world are utterly insane. In short, he has somehow managed to take a concept that should widen the reader’s experience and ended up, through his failure to icepick his way through the glacial stereotypes, by narrowing it.
Considering all of this, you may wonder why it was that I ever supported the notion of the triangular novel. All that trumpeting I did – what in the name of Nabokov was it for? One might suppose that I had confused a suggestively bold approach with a truly bold product. Here I’ll be brave and say ‘Well, maybe’. Bash-Benver’s attempt to bring three vastly different viewpoints into one narrative certainly appears to have resulted in something less subtle than three narratives concerning one viewpoint. But it isn’t all bad. And if you’ll allow me to nail another colour onto that old mast of ours, I might say that for all its disappointments, there may yet be life in the triangular novel. Bash-Benver’s legacy is not necessarily lost. All we need to do is find new way around the issue. On this basis, I unveil my plan my action, consisting of three simple questions which inspiring triangular novelists must ask themselves.
The first question is this: how will my book be read? I don’t expect ready answers to this one, as it is in many ways a bit of a rotter. Yet it will always be the first concern of readers. Does one follow one circle of prose through the book and then return to the beginning and follow another? Or does one read all three circles after each other? Is there – as there ought to be – a third way? Georgy Riecke might like me to suggest that reading the book upside-down might represent the best alternative, but ever since ‘the accident’ I am inclined to remain skeptical of this system. Ultimately, some assistance from the writer may be required. For believe it or not, I don’t think it a a bad thing for writers to be bossy, to state their case in a brief introduction: Read My Book This Particular Way OK. There’s only so far you can go with this you-make-your-own-story stuff.
The second question is: what are you trying to do? Is this a new way of presenting the first person narrative, or a new narrative altogether? Again, this is the point on which I differ with Bash-Benver. Tripulation is greatly entertaining; highly rewarding: oozing with potential. But in another sense it is no more than three first person narratives rolled into one: a cunningly negotiated game: more clever than profound. Think, however, of what it could have been! If only Bash-Benver had accepted the possibilities of presenting three perspectives from one mind. If his specific cultural background would seem to have demanded it; modern psychology alone continues to provoke it. Dr. Helga Glautenberg of the University of Bissennich wrote only two months ago that ‘voices in the head typically assume three definite roles, emanating from the three perceived areas: left, right and centre’ (‘Mind: How you Go?’ H Glautenberg, Oslo 2007). And this is something one imagines that we have all experienced. Some of us, in fact, have got quite used to the different personalities that coexist within the single construct of our minds. For instance, I learnt quite a long time ago never to accept a serious decision from the left side of my head. The left side is a teaser. If you’ve got a problem, wait for a voice calling from the right or the centre. If you’re not sure whether it’s centre or left, for goodness sake leave it alone (for my left side has developed the ability to throw its voice). Of course, none of us are quite yet able to transcribe the exchange between these three centres: it all happens too fast. But any writer worth his salt, or weight in gold, or bag of onions, should certainly be up for this task. And need I say it, the triangular novel provides the obvious foundations for such a flight of fantasy.
Onto the third question. This one doesn’t immediately present itself. In fact, I’ve been waiting around some time now and it still hasn’t presented itself. For the sake of this article, I really ought to have three questions to pose, so there’s no chance of me letting you off just yet. On the other hand, there is a distinct lack of pertinent queries jumping up and down upon the patchwork quilt of my three-cornered mind. I am reminded, also, that the end of the review, like the beginning, asks for a further series of short, bold statements. I conclude this, I conclude that. Tripulation is a something-or-other, which tells us this-or-that. Boris Bash-Benver is as thus. Maybe I could get these two needs to unite, like two nervous lovers. No, not nervous. Bold, yes. Bold lovers. That’s the spirit! That old end-of-the-review spirit! One book, one review, one closing question.
Whatever next?
Review by T E Heeman
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