A READING LIFE
Codex, Metatext, and the Novel Approach
By Caroline Leavitt | April 4, 2004
Books are often separated into genres. There's serious literature, commercial
fiction, nonfiction, thrillers, the odiously named chick lit, humor, and
a hundred other labels. But what takes a tale out of its specified category
and makes it into something wonderfully different? How do you make jaded
readers suddenly take new interest in a particular kind of book? Sometimes
the medium, the way form is played with, is indeed the message.
I admit thrillers aren't usually teetering at the top of my to-be-read pile, but Lev Grossman, book editor of Time Magazine, turns the genre into something eerie and literate, in his fabulously entertaining first novel Codex (Harcourt, $24). Welcome to the world of Edward Wozny, a quiet, spit-shiny New York investment banker, headed further up the corporate ladder to a new gig in England. All's right in his ordinary world until he's hired by the shadowy duke and duchess of Bowmry to catalogue their library and find a codex-- a rare 14th century book by Gervase of Langford that prophesizes the end of the world-and could reveal some dangerously dirty royal laundry. No one's sure the book even exists, including Margaret, the young graduate student Edward hires to help him in his quest, but Edward finds himself growing more and more obsessed by the hunt.
Ah, but that's just the first of the Chinese puzzle boxes Grossman constructs. Edward's not just gripped by rare books. He becomes equally addicted to an underground computer game MOMUS, which plunges him deeper and deeper into a terrifying game of time and space that's strangely similar to his search for the codex. Gradually these two threads-the trancelike obsession for a game and the additive pleasures of rare books-converge, and as they do, Edward transforms, discovering hidden passions in himself he never imagined possible. I guessed a few character motivations and a final plot twist long before they were revealed, but these are tiny quibbles in a book so inventive, so jaw-dropping interesting, that I felt enthralled.
What is so exhilarating about Codex is the way Grossman links the revolutionary beginnings of reading for pleasure in the 14th century with the rise of modern computer game society, how he couples the advent of fiction with the blossoming of virtual realities. The book's full of wonderful arcane facts-rare books have to be frozen to kill the parasitic "bookworms" and if that doesn't work, the books are put in partial vacuum so insects are smothered: computer games may have "Easter Eggs", hidden messages programmers build in for those who know where to look. Codex is at turns fascinating, compelling and deliciously disturbing. It's an intelligent thriller that truly is just that: intelligently thrilling.
How many ways are there to tell-or contort-a story? Metafiction is really
fiction about the way in which a story reveals itself. Ibid: A Life:
A Novel in Footnotes (MacAdam/Cage, $22) by Mark Dunn (Ella Minnow
Pea) starts off with the premise that Dunn's editor has lost his manuscript
and offers to publish the only remaining pieces of the work-the footnotes.
(Come on, what writer wouldn't have at least seventeen backup copies of
his or her novel?) The premise, of course, is that regular, plain old
narration isn't the only means necessary to tell a tale, that footnotes
can do the job. But can less traditional storytelling really be more?
Can a life lived in the margins be rich enough to sustain our interest?
Ibid chronicles the life and times of Jonathan Blashette, a three-legged man who is first a member of a Traveling Circus and Wild West Show and later a CEO of the Dandy-de-odor-o men's deodorant company. It's a delicious premise and Blashette's rise and fall is quintessential Forrest Gump, taking us on a historical rollercoaster ride from the 1880s through the 1960s, where he meets Nelson Rockefeller, takes a cab with Rudolf Valentino, and has his company bankrolled by J. P. Morgan, whom he met in his earlier circus days.
The writing's playful and witty, and there's a good bit of inventive silliness to the tale. Young Jonathan misinterprets a wink as sign that a young girl likes him, when actually it's a spasm. There's a wry running joke through the novel that all the loves of Jonathan's life are killed in freak Boston accidents, including the Great Molasses Flood. It's all sometimes dazzling fun, but the truth is I wasn't lost in the book the way I wanted to be. I was always aware of the writer's sprightly mind at work here, when what I wanted was the feeling that his characters were real, that they might knock on my door any second and ask for a cup of tea-and that I might be so charmed I'd want to fresh-brew it for them. Ibid is like the scaffolding of a novel, or an inspired blueprint, but what I wanted was the whole lived-in house. While Codex gives us breathing characters, Ibid hands us craft and games and wordplay, and however brilliantly done, the heart of Jonathan's story is still somehow hidden. Can we ever really know someone? Maybe. Maybe not. But shouldn't novels help us try?
What do we want from our books? Of course it depends on the reader, but personally, I think that new shouldn't just be novelty. Heart should override mind. And always, always, the characters-be they investment lawyer or circus attraction-should let us into their souls.
Caroline Leavitt's latest novel is Girls In Trouble. She can be reached at http://www.carolineleavitt.com
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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