joe4

The author sent me an autographed copy of her book to review:

Salem, why do I feel like I’m playing a game of geocaching when I read one of your books? What would a Salem/China Mieville novel do to the literary world? The flapdoodle factor in your novels is tenfold a normal novel, but somehow I semi-understood whatever. The hoi polloi will not understand a word you wrote, but my gut feeling says that you don’t care, am I right? The dross don’t count. The salient factor in your novels is always blurred, only patently obvious to you. To juxtapose your novel with Mieville’s Kraken would put someone’s cognitive ability on ice. Am I speaking your language? Okay, you know that I’m just having some fun with you. I still don’t sorta understand your novels, although this one was a tad easier to comprehend. I’m still trying to figure out quantum. Is it a discrete quantity of energy proportional in magnitude to the frequency of the radiation it represents, or a wad of money? It seems to change depending on what novel of yours I’m reading. Okey-dokey, my drivel is done (my compos mentis has been damaged), so let’s get on with the detritus! Wow, that was fun...besides Salem, did anybody understand what I just said? So what’s the confusing story about?

joe4 works for Dr. Naranja (remember him?) in N.Y.C. as an “engineer who analyzed the effect of acoustical vibrations on sidewinder solar satellites.” Got it? But joe4 says that he is a pop musician. By the way, you will have to find out yourself how he got his name. Anyway, joe4 just got a quantum account of one million from DJU, a music company who wants him to make hit songs for them. joe4 goes to his regular job in order to resign from Naranja’s all powerful company. He could be executed for trying to quit. But they put him through the ringer, take his journal from him (to be examined rigorously by a chief censor) as he awaits their decision. joe4 wondered if Naranja or DJU knew “that he dreamed his music, that he heard it when falling asleep, then he simply harvested it.” It was alien. “joe4, Dr. Naranja decided, was no competitor’s spy. He was, somehow, a human tuning fork, and Dr. Naranja knew he needed to know why.” The good Dr. Naranja decides to let him go, but puts Chief Intelligence Officer A0333 on joe4's tail for ten years (apparently not uncommon). joe4 and his dog, Aiode, arrive at a desert in four Corners (in Arizona?) in order to work on his alien hits for DJU. Does his dog speak to him? And by the way, what are biozippers and squid cartilage envelopes?

joe4 lives in a Silverstream with his dog, pumping out musical hits from his alien dreams. Dr. Naranja listens to the music from N.Y.C. and he says, “perhaps our reality is being- very, very cleverly- abducted.” joe4’s music is delivered to DJU in the form of chewing gum...and listened to through your molars? Had enough yet? No, you want more, don’t you? Well, buy your own copy of this wacko book to find out how it ends. I’m still trying to figure out if Salem is insane or brilliant. Right now, it’s a coin flip. But in all sincerity, I felt the same way with China Mieville until I read his third book. I’ve only read two Salem novels, so school is still out! I had a lot of fun writing this review...I hope you enjoyed it.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: By far the weirdest novel that I ever read was given to me by my son and guest reviewer, Deron O. It is Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves (see my review of 2/01/2013). The following is my first paragraph of the review:

This novel is not a sequel to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass . In fact, it’s not like anything I’ve ever read before. Welcome to the world of ergodic literature. This was my first foray into this genre, and I liked it. This genre requires the reader to make a real effort to read and interpret the text. There are different ergodic levels, such as Charlton Mellick III’s bizarro Cuddly Holocaust or Ayn Rand’s play Night of January 16th, a murder trial where the jury is picked out of the audience, and their verdict decides the outcome of the play. I’m not sure where Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel fits in the world of ergodicity, but I’ll give the next reader an idea of what’s in store for you: hundreds of footnotes (some real, most not), one to four texts on the same page; some pages blank, some with one or two words; some pages upside down, some obliquely angled; and, different narrators on the same page. And why is the word ‘house’ always in blue and ‘minotaur’ in red? I have to say that some of the footnotes are pure genius. The reader does eventually understand what’s going on because the diverse narrators and variant footnotes are in distinctive fonts! Absolutely brilliant!