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Jonathan Pool's Reviews > 10:04
10:04
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Synopsis
Our narrator is asked to expand a recently published short story into a novel. Lines are blurred throughout the book as the narrator/author fictionalise truth and assume alternate characters - the mise en abyme conceit. The reader is taken on a metaphysical roller coaster that makes 10:04 anything but an easy read.
The book divides into five sections. In truth a number of the strands could be repositioned elsewhere in the book without distorting the overall meaning unduly.
We start with (real) lifelong girl....friend, Alex, (� less a couple, than conjoined) and the emotional dilemma, of whether the narrator should become a sperm donor, vs the awkwardness of full coitus, as a friend. This is the most straightforward part of the narrative and it plays out through the book, and to the backdrop of freakishly stormy weather in New York City.
An old university lecturer mentor is taken ill; a young boy (Roberto- aged eight) is tutored by the narrator; an Occupy Walk Street protestor gets a shower and a meal. The narrator works as a volunteer in a food Co-op; the ill-fated Challenger space mission (with Christa McAuliffe, and Peggy Noonan’s tribute) is formative; we visit the Institute of Totalled Art (based on the real life Salvage Art Institute); drug fuelled parties; German prisoners of war (from Rommel’s Afrika corps). it’s an eclectic mix
Any link between these events isn’t obvious, or necessary. There is a set of largely unconnected events that individually make a very satisfying read.
The obvious, understandable, and legitimate, criticism of Ben Lerner’s prose style is that it is sometimes hideously overwritten. Words are used that are rarely, if ever, heard in aural communication.
That said, if these words exist in the dictionary it could be argued that Lerner is doing no more than enriching language, and using available resources.
Questions
Several! Joining the dots on a Lerner novel demands a degree of reader perseverance and imagination.
What is the prevalent theme, or meaning in this book of separate, anecdotal stories?
� when the author stands in front of a gaslight in New York (67). He imagines the view in 2012 (now), 1912, 1883. Why these two yesteryear dates?
Making Sense of the Themes
* “Everything is the same but a little different� (prologue- Hasidim); (19) (54) (109) (156)
The narrators prospective book, including falsification of correspondence
� � a novel about deception� (137) Faking the past to find the future (123)
�
� Back to the Future clock tower. The various references to this 1970’s (now rather dated) film, seemed a bit shoehorned into the story. The book title is the time at which the Clock Tower is frozen. There’s even a photograph of Michael J. Fox embedded in the text.
The narrator says that � the objective of the book is to project myself into several futures simultaneously� Pictures of the Challenger mission � a project pulling us to the future� (16)
� Dinosaurs. The storyline (and self-published book on dinosaurs), featuring Roberto (aged 8) seemed to me to be at odds with the almost aloof, brooding narrator. Scientists produce evidence to rewrite history.
� � I am with you and I know how it is � valedictory reflection. From Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry in Leaves of Grass
Author background & Literary/ Cultural Influences
10:04 is the middle part of a trilogy, with Leaving The Atocha Station and the recently published (2019) The Topeka School . Lerner was a poet first and foremost, and this is apparent in his work both by reference to American poets and as champion of the idea that poets are the great blenders of fiction and non-fiction. (194)
The featured poets in 10:04 are, primarily Walt Whitman, with references also for William Brink, Robert Creeley, John Ashbury, Wallace Stevens..
The Art world is also acknowledged. Marfa, Texas is the location of the Donald Judd, Chinati Foundation and is an artistic retreat. Jeff Koons sculpture also gets a backhanded acknowledgement.
Lerner is very much aware of his literary antecedents and an especially good passage is one in which the author, being consumed by a girlfriend, Alana (she is in complete control of their relationship), muses: � A match burning in a crocus; an inner meaning almost expressed" . It’s a working of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway , and the reflected sensuality is perfect once you know the original source of the quotation.
Recommend
Cautiously. The Lerner writing style, and the disjointed series of introspective contemplations of key life moments becomes strangely more and more compelling as the reader tunes in to the density of the writing style, and ambiguity in the messages.
Our narrator is asked to expand a recently published short story into a novel. Lines are blurred throughout the book as the narrator/author fictionalise truth and assume alternate characters - the mise en abyme conceit. The reader is taken on a metaphysical roller coaster that makes 10:04 anything but an easy read.
The book divides into five sections. In truth a number of the strands could be repositioned elsewhere in the book without distorting the overall meaning unduly.
We start with (real) lifelong girl....friend, Alex, (� less a couple, than conjoined) and the emotional dilemma, of whether the narrator should become a sperm donor, vs the awkwardness of full coitus, as a friend. This is the most straightforward part of the narrative and it plays out through the book, and to the backdrop of freakishly stormy weather in New York City.
An old university lecturer mentor is taken ill; a young boy (Roberto- aged eight) is tutored by the narrator; an Occupy Walk Street protestor gets a shower and a meal. The narrator works as a volunteer in a food Co-op; the ill-fated Challenger space mission (with Christa McAuliffe, and Peggy Noonan’s tribute) is formative; we visit the Institute of Totalled Art (based on the real life Salvage Art Institute); drug fuelled parties; German prisoners of war (from Rommel’s Afrika corps). it’s an eclectic mix
Any link between these events isn’t obvious, or necessary. There is a set of largely unconnected events that individually make a very satisfying read.
The obvious, understandable, and legitimate, criticism of Ben Lerner’s prose style is that it is sometimes hideously overwritten. Words are used that are rarely, if ever, heard in aural communication.
That said, if these words exist in the dictionary it could be argued that Lerner is doing no more than enriching language, and using available resources.
Questions
Several! Joining the dots on a Lerner novel demands a degree of reader perseverance and imagination.
What is the prevalent theme, or meaning in this book of separate, anecdotal stories?
� when the author stands in front of a gaslight in New York (67). He imagines the view in 2012 (now), 1912, 1883. Why these two yesteryear dates?
Making Sense of the Themes
* “Everything is the same but a little different� (prologue- Hasidim); (19) (54) (109) (156)
The narrators prospective book, including falsification of correspondence
� � a novel about deception� (137) Faking the past to find the future (123)
�
� Back to the Future clock tower. The various references to this 1970’s (now rather dated) film, seemed a bit shoehorned into the story. The book title is the time at which the Clock Tower is frozen. There’s even a photograph of Michael J. Fox embedded in the text.
The narrator says that � the objective of the book is to project myself into several futures simultaneously� Pictures of the Challenger mission � a project pulling us to the future� (16)
� Dinosaurs. The storyline (and self-published book on dinosaurs), featuring Roberto (aged 8) seemed to me to be at odds with the almost aloof, brooding narrator. Scientists produce evidence to rewrite history.
� � I am with you and I know how it is � valedictory reflection. From Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry in Leaves of Grass
Author background & Literary/ Cultural Influences
10:04 is the middle part of a trilogy, with Leaving The Atocha Station and the recently published (2019) The Topeka School . Lerner was a poet first and foremost, and this is apparent in his work both by reference to American poets and as champion of the idea that poets are the great blenders of fiction and non-fiction. (194)
The featured poets in 10:04 are, primarily Walt Whitman, with references also for William Brink, Robert Creeley, John Ashbury, Wallace Stevens..
The Art world is also acknowledged. Marfa, Texas is the location of the Donald Judd, Chinati Foundation and is an artistic retreat. Jeff Koons sculpture also gets a backhanded acknowledgement.
Lerner is very much aware of his literary antecedents and an especially good passage is one in which the author, being consumed by a girlfriend, Alana (she is in complete control of their relationship), muses: � A match burning in a crocus; an inner meaning almost expressed" . It’s a working of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway , and the reflected sensuality is perfect once you know the original source of the quotation.
Recommend
Cautiously. The Lerner writing style, and the disjointed series of introspective contemplations of key life moments becomes strangely more and more compelling as the reader tunes in to the density of the writing style, and ambiguity in the messages.
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Reading Progress
August 31, 2015
– Shelved
August 31, 2015
– Shelved as:
american-lit
August 31, 2015
– Shelved as:
to-read
November 3, 2019
–
Started Reading
November 10, 2019
–
Finished Reading
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Neil
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rated it 5 stars
Dec 24, 2019 07:25AM
Good review. This is one I should re-read. Glad you liked it: I think you are right that it is not for everyone.
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