Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

The story of Oda Sotatsu begins with a confession that he signed.

He had fallen in with a man named Kakuzo and a girl named Jito Joo.  These were somewhat wild characters, particularly Sato Kakuzo.  He was in trouble, or had been.  People knew it.

Now this is what happened:  somehow Kakuzo met Oda Sotatsu, and somehow he convinced him to sign a confession for a crime that he had not committed.

That he should sign a confession for a crime that he did not commit is strange.  It is hard to believe.  Yet, he did in fact sign it.  When I learned of these events, and when I researched them, I found that there was a reason he did so, and that reason is – he was compelled to by a wager. (p. 12 iPad iBooks e-edition)

This quote, taken from the opening page of Jesse Ball's fourth novel, Silence Once Begun, immediately grabs the reader's attention.  Just who is Oda Sotatsu and why in the world would he ever agree to sign his name to a confession after losing a bet?  More importantly, to what did he actually confess?  It is with this little mystery that a fictional Jesse Ball begins his interrogation/interviewing with those who should have known Sotatsu and yet whose various accounts paint conflicting images of a man who became silent after his false confession led to his conviction.

Silence Once Begun could be described as a crime/procedural novel.  So too could Franz Kafka's The Trial.  Although Silence Once Begun bears very little surface similarity to Kafka's acclaimed "unfinished" novel, there certainly is the sense in both novels of reality coming to stand for something else.  Here in Ball's novel, with its meticulous reproduction of a faux set of interviews and statements, the verisimilitude serves to underscore the very trappings of "reality" that the interview/deposition structure has created.  Just who is this silent guy and what has he confessed to?  Ball very skillfully teases us with snippets of answers, of events that lead to public outrage when Sotatsu is arrested for his (false) confession.  Just as K. is confronted with a stream of testimony against him for acts he himself does not understand, Sotatsu's acquaintances provide all sorts of conflicting testimony as to the sort of person he may or may not have been.  These contrasting reports simultaneously muddy the composite image of Sotatsu that we may have formed and they sharpen our view of him and the reasons behind not just his signature to a flase confession, but also to his subsequent silence.  Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the key people in this case:

I believe in discovering the love that exists and then trying to understand it.  Not to invent a love and try to make it exist, but to find what does exist, and then to see what it is.  I believe in trying to understand such love through other loves, other loves that have existed before.  Many people have made the records of these loves.  These records can be found.  They can be read.  Some are songs.  Some are just photographs.  Most are stories.  I have always sought after love, and longed for it.  I have looked for all the kinds that may be.  I am writing to you now to talk about Oda Sotatsu, who is a person I loved, and who loved me.  Although I know there are others who will say things about Oda Sotatsu, who may say things about me, who may know about this situation, although they are few, perhaps there are some who can speak about these things, yet what I know is what I felt and what I saw.  I am not writing this for any comparison or for any other sort of understanding, but as a record of love, for use by those who love and who hope to love.  I am not nimble and I cannot hide things well.  I will write what I felt and how.  You may see how I do. (p. 180 e-book)

Ball very carefully develops Sotatsu's character through these character deposition/interviews.  While he himself may be silent, those around him are not, even if their comments may be at odds with one another.  This approach toward characterization takes a lot of work, as not only is the character himself largely absent from the actual narrative, if there is a single false note, a singular time where the words are not placed just so and the dialogue not pitch-perfect, then the entire enterprise would collapse like a deck of cards.  Ball, however, manages to weave his way through this narrative labyrinth, creating a fascinating character stuck in a nebulous yet increasingly dangerous situation (sometimes, what certain characters left unstated or edited out of their comments say much more than their actual words).

Not only does Ball manage to plot well, but the prose does several things.  Look at the passage quoted just above.  The way this character voices her feelings, there is the sense that she is saying something that may prove to be opposite of what she professes.  It is easy to accept the claim that she is "not nimble and I cannot hide things well" at face value, but there is that niggling sense that she may be covering up something, perhaps something very vital to understanding what has been transpiring ever since Sotatsu signed his name to that false confession.

Silence Once Begun is not a novel to be read quickly.  Its seeming forthrightness belies the layers of deception that are occurring underneath.  Due to Ball's carefully constructed interviews, the plot is very intricate and requires some attention to detail from the reader in order for the mystery to be interpreted, if not completely solved.  Yet the effort more than amply rewards the careful, patient reader, as Silence Once Begun is one of those rare novels whose form and structure are so well executed that they, along with the narrative and plot, can be appreciated for just how well it all comes together by the end.  Highly recommended.
 

Sometimes, "non-genre" does "genre" well, or at least differently

All paradigm shifts answer the amoral craving for novelty.  Obama's election victory did it.  So did the Auschwitz footage in its day.  Good and evil are irrelevant.  Show us the world's not the way we thought it was and a part of us rejoices.  Nothing's exempt.  One's own death-sentence elicits a mad little hallelujah, and mine's egregiously overdue.  For ten, twenty, thirty years now I've been dragging myself through the motions.  How long do werewolves live?  Madeline asked recently.  According to WOCOP around four hundred years.  I don't know how.  Naturally one sets oneself challenges - Sanskrit, Kant, advanced calculus, t'ai chi – but that only addresses the problem of Time.  The bigger problem, of Being, just keeps getting bigger.  (Vampires, not surprisingly, have an on-off love affair with catatonia.)  One by one I've exhausted the modes:  hedonism, asceticism, spontaneity, reflection, everything from miserable Socrates to the happy pig.  My mechanism's worn out.  I don't have what it takes.  I still have feelings but I'm sick of having them.  Which is another feeling I'm sick of having.  I just...I just don't want any more life. (p. 7)

This quote, taken from Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf (released last month), underscores something that I've noticed from some so-called non-genre writers when they utilize SF/F genre staples such as a werewolf.  Whereas the werewolf in say something influenced (derived) from Stephanie Meyers' Twilight Saga might represent a conflicted, brooding, emo-inspired youth or where it might be a vicious, animalistic force depicting carnal lust and violence, here in Duncan's book (the opener of an apparent trilogy) the purported "last" werewolf  is shown going through a mid-life crisis of self-doubt and ennui.  For someone like myself who is entering mid-life, something rings truer in Duncan's werewolf than in others that I've read over the years.  Perhaps it's that sense of been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

Whatever it might be, I have noticed that some of the more recent "genre novels" by "non-genre" novelists have brought something to the table that made me pay closer attention to their own works.  Take for instance Cormac McCarthy's The Road.  When it was published five years ago, several SF/F fans derided it for being (to them a post-apocalyptic novel) a genre trope-laden novel in denial.  True, there is the post-apocalyptic setting, but what made McCarthy's take on it more powerful was not its similarities to 1950s-1960s post-nuclear event SF stories, but rather its core of the father/son dynamic and their search for peaceful refuge in a world seemingly devoid of peace or rest.  It wasn't a matter of what McCarthy "borrowed" or "stole" but rather what he added.  It doesn't matter as much if it's viewed as a genre novel that contains a strong commentary on familial bonding and hope or if it's seen as a social commentary that utilizes post-apocalyptic SF imagery to make its point.  What does matter is if McCarthy achieved something memorable and by and large he has done so with The Road.

Next week will see the American publication of Lev Grossman's The Magician King, the sequel to his 2009 novel, The Magicians.  Two years ago, a lot of the controversy revolved around the "ripping-off" of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series in the form of the Brakebills magical academy and C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia for the setting (and many of the mechanics) of the fantasy portal world of Fillory.  Others did not like Grossman's novel because of the upper-middle class youth and their open insecurities and confused relationships; it read too much like an 1980s social commentary novel the likes of Bret Easton Ellis or Jay McInerney might write.  There is something to that charge, something that appeals to me.  Perhaps it is Grossman's tackling of the consequences of escapist dreams co-existing with those capable of wielding magical forces.  Maybe it is the ripping away of aspirations to lay bare some rather brutal truths about the unfairness of life.  Possibly it is the traumas that make the fantasy world feel hollow and self-serving rather than something bigger, brighter, and better than "real life."  These things together make Grossman's last two novels refreshing reads.

Then there are authors who are doing weird fictions outside of genre imprints.  Jesse Ball's latest novel, The Curfew, tackles a dystopic future of a controlling government a bit differently than most dystopic fictions:

Who had overthrown it?  Why?  Such things weren't clear at all, just as it wasn't entirely clear that anything had been overthrown.  It was as if a curtain had been drawn and one could see to that curtain but not beyond.  One remembered that the world had been different, and not long ago.  But how?  This was the question that nagged at those who could not avoid asking questions.

The nothing that had changed at all was really beyond bearing.  Houses and buildings were full of desperate people who deeply misunderstood their desperation. This was due to artful explanation on the part of the government.  It is impossible to tell, many said out of the corners of their mouths, if the ministry is thinking well of us – if they are acting on our behalf.  Yet still there were acorns falling from trees, fish breaking the surfaces of ponds, etc.  In a long life, said many an old man, this is but one more thing.  Yet there were others who were young and knew nothing about the helplessness of life's condition.  Did they glow with light?  They did, but of course, it could not be seen.  And all the while, the grinding of bones like machinery, and the light step of tightrope walkers out beyond the windows. (p. 8-9)

The Curfew was an entertaining, thought-provoking novel not because it tackled the issue of a totalitarian novel head-on, but rather because it was obliquely referred to through metaphor and poetic turns of expression (Ball is a poet by trade).  The horror of the "curfew" builds slowly; we know there is something nefarious about the government, but seeing it through the eyes of its citizens makes it more monstrous because of how uncomfortably close it gets to describing a plutocratic republic.  By the time we get to the following dialogue, the action is more palpable because it is more implied than acted out directly:

Molly tugs on William's sleeve.

*Do you think that the world can be saved?

– The world saved?

William smiles.

– From what?

*Those people.  That, and, and Mother dying.

– That is part of our world, and can't be changed.  I don't know that I would want to live in a world where things had become better, but your mother was gone.  She always dreamed about that place, and I don't think I could go there without her.

Molly looks at her feet.  Then she looks out into the audience.  She appears to be looking right at them, one by one.

William draws in a deep breath.  He continues.

– But, for you, I want it to change.  One day you will be the only one of us three remaining, and then the world that includes us will be inside of you and nowhere else. (p. 185-186)

Ball's narrative works well because he hints at revolt and revolution against a repressive regime and he "shows" this through how furtive the opposition is to the "curfew" imposed upon them.   I especially enjoyed the subtle jabs employed by some of the characters because this felt more "real" to me than any imagined sudden open defiance to an insidious, established, totalitarian regime.

Perhaps this is where many people discover the appeal in these works noted above.  For some, the fantastical or SFnal are but window dressing for the spectacle that is human drama.  We can appreciate a good monster, but monsters as monstrums that evoke fear and wonder not because they are grotesque, but because they warn us through illumination of something within us.  These authors, in their own ways, do this through the use of genre elements to convey a sense of human curiosity and fallibility that is found more often in other literary branches than the purely speculative.  Sometimes, it does take an "outsider" to "steal" something to make something that if not quite sui generis, at least authentic to those readers who love a mixture of real-world concerns with the fantastic.