Fwd: Fw: Thomas Pynchon & Vladimir Nabokov are other touchstones ...

[David Morris]

>From the Nabokov list:
> 
> http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/books/story/50430p-47338c.html
> 
>       New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com 
>       The usual suspects 
>       By SHERRYL CONNELLY
>       DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER 
>       Friday, January 10th, 2003 
> 
>       A 20th century satire packs 'em all in
> 
>       Tom Carson's latest novel is, at first, quite clever; then, too clever
> by half. What begins as an audaciously inventive frolic through the 20th
> century ("an era that stayed unimaginable even as it happened") becomes a
> forced march through a slush of word play, iconic allusions and anagrams. 
> 
>       "Gilligan's Wake" (the reference to James Joyce is fully intended,
> while Thomas Pynchon and Vladimir Nabokov are other touchstones) allows seven
> characters to narrate his or her own story, starting with Maynard G. Krebs in
> the psychiatric wing of the Mayo Clinic being informed by Dr. Kildare F.
> Troop that he has had a breakdown and, in fact, Krebs is not his name. He's
> housed in the Cleaver Ward with Holden Caulfield, who wants to get well and
> get out so he can shoot "a really, really famous musician," while down the
> hall a pregnant Nixon screams as he gives birth to a new self. He's Gilligan,
> of course. 
> 
>       The next chapter belongs to the Skipper, who's doing a tour of duty in
> the South Pacific as head man on a PT boat alongside McHale and John F.
> Kennedy Jr. Meanwhile, Nixon's a supply officer who's none too happy when JFK
> Jr. and the crew of the 109 are found alive. On board the skipper's boat is
> Algligni, an anagram for Gilligan, one of several used in the book as he
> plays a role in each of the future castaways' stories. 
> 
>       Thurston Howell, rich and sweetly dim, recommends an old social
> acquaintance, Alger Hiss, for his first job in government. His wife, Lovey, a
> morphine addict, was formerly Daisy Buchanan's lover. Their son is named
> Maynard and, for a time, sports a goatee. 
> 
>       The professor, who played a key role in the Manhattan Project, is a
> Cold War mastermind who's behind the curtain with Roy Cohn pulling the levers
> on every every international coup and conspiracy of modern times. His plan is
> to eventually make his escape among a group of strangers he arranges to have
> marooned on a desert island. 
> 
>       Ginger, a backwoods Alabama girl who came "from a long line of
> slatternly women," enjoys a night of ecstasy with Sammy Davis Jr. at Frank
> Sinatra's Palm Springs compound. Mary Ann makes her way out of Kansas to
> study at the Sorbonne. In Paris she acquires a boyfriend, "Jean-Luc
> something" — she can't remember his last name — who is a film devotee with
> aspirations to direct. 
> 
>       Carson, television critic at Esquire magazine, obviously has his
> references, particularly to pop culture, at hand. But while this is an
> ambitious book that can entertain, it also numbs. Not a good thing, that. 
>      
> 
> 
> 
>
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