‘Vernon God Little’: An Irreverent Novel that falters
First the story. Courtesy: Goodreads.com
“The surprise winner of the 2003 Man Booker Prize, DBC Pierre’s debut novel, Vernon God Little, makes few apologies in its darkly comedic portrait of Martirio, Texas, a town reeling in the aftermath of a horrific school shooting. Fifteen-year-old Vernon Little narrates the first-person story with a cynical twang and a four-letter barb for each of his diet-obsessed townsfolk. His mother, endlessly awaiting the delivery of a new refrigerator, seems to exist only to twist an emotional knife in his back; her friend, Palmyra, structures her life around the next meal at the Bar-B-Chew Barn; officer Vaine Gurie has Vernon convicted of the crime before she’s begun the investigation; reporter Eulalio Ledesma hovers between a comforting father-figure and a sadistic Bond villain; and Jesus, his best friend in the world, is dead–a victim of the killings. As his life explodes before him, Vernon flees his home in pursuit of a tropical fantasy: a cabin on a beach in Mexico he once saw in the movie Against All Odds. But the police–and TV crews–are in hot pursuit.
Vernon God Little is a daring novel and demands a patient reader, not because it is challenging to read–Pierre’s prose flows effortlessly, only occasionally slipping from the unmistakable voice of his hero–but because the book skates so precariously between the almost taboo subject of school violence and the literary gamesmanship of postmodern fiction. Yet, as the novel unfolds, Pierre’s parodic version of American culture never crosses the line into caricature, even when it climaxes in a death-row reality TV show. And Vernon, whose cynicism and smart-ass “learnings” give way to a poignant curiosity about the meaning of life, becomes a fully human, profoundly sympathetic character. –Patrick O’Kelley
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After finishing ‘Vernon God Little’, DBC Pierre’s booker-winning novel- “A 21st-century comedy in the presence of death”- the feeling is not that of bewilderment nor of devastation or absurdity challenging every sense. It is rather that of grumble.
It is rather odd for a work which bravely spells out questions one would be ashamed to ask, charts territories where none would venture to go. After all it is a work which is a first person singular narration of a 15-year old white Texan boy living with single mother and almost on the verge of poverty. The focus is about reality, its representation, justice as a narrative, alienation and every human relation turning into a commodity. The gamut is vast, the subject is determinedly modern and journey of the protagonist- emotional as well as actual is brilliantly captured. The journey may seem different things to different people at different times. It may well be an escape, a retreat, a maturing, enriching experience or just a walk into nothingness.
Why then does it so happen then that one doesn’t experience the emotional deluge expected from such work within himself/ herself? The real issue is while the entire portrayal of Vernon’s ordeal and imprisonment remains a modern classic, a la Salinger or Kafka; it comes to an end with a whimper. A last-minute pardon and release is theatrical, almost surreal- so much so, I turned the pages and re-read to confirm if the same was what was meant. All in all, what promised to be a tragi-comic existential tale of modern individual who always ever-increasingly fails to come to terms with structures and institutions, with surrounding men and their manipulations; is turned into a movie with a happy ending. And then, as one ponders over it, the cracks become apparent. It remains an episode in the end, as Vernon finally declares that ‘everything’s back to normal’. It remains uncertain if this is what he wants others to believe while his inner world has undergone a sea-change or he just witnessed it awhile and moved on for better. I am reminded of umpteen Bollywood movies, pulp fictions where we get a Happy ‘The End’ with melodious tunes all around. A little odd, for a literary masterpiece of this sort.
However, if this is all that had there been to the issue, it would have been a matter restricted to follies of single author. The issue at hand is much large and Vernon is just one symptom of the same. Let us take stock of the same.
The question of ‘self’ and ‘other’ is foundational at any modern social activity including reproduction of the same at a fictional narrative level and novel as an epitome of modernity, at least one of the most recognisable symptom and symbol of the same, has witnessed a chequered journey at that. The modern classic works of literature from Dostoevsky to Kafka and Camus owe a lot to operation of subjecthood, its constitution, it’s problematic with itself and society etc. The critical appreciation and canonisation is direct proof of that. Birth and growth of psychology, psychoanalysis is another example of sense of alienation which the emerging subject witnessed and required to be dealt with scientific manner. All this is well-known.
With the transition from high-modern works of art to post-modern texts (as Fredric Jameson put it), the subject in the novel has increasingly undergone a change. As historicity, or the temporal side of social dialectic starts to be sidelined in favour of spatial shift; the narratives turn into an eternal present in double sense. First, the histories and timelines themselves become specific to spaces giving rise to some Texas story, India story, Semi-urban Maharashtra story (like Nemade) etc. which argues for relativity of values in relation to spaces. Second, time as a cursor of change or indicator of transient nature of things, fades away in favour of a perennial present: a sort of Foucauldian prison-house from where there is no exit.
One would ask: so what? Even Beckett with his ‘Waiting for Godot’ or Camus with ‘myth of Sisyphus’ was highlighting similar ordeal of no exits. Rather, acknowledging no exit is perhaps first step to find a way out. However, there is a crucial difference. If ‘Catcher in the Rye’ brought forth the anxiety of turbulence within a teenager to come to terms with society, it was filled with expectations of change and finding a way out. A way out for all. Now Vernon doesn’t have anxiety. He has the drives: he bothers about the world enough to intelligently see through the lies. However, he doesn’t bother to go beyond questioning ‘fucken way of life’. One would well argue: his struggle is now carried out with few dollars in pocket and rather this is what a realistic presentation would look like. Rather than making illusory tall claims in the name of all, he sticks to one. At times. It is honesty and strength of the whole effort. Every single illusion he has, about the girl Taylor, Lally the reporter, his mother, other townspeople is shattered; he stands alone to face his truth in the end.
Just as in case of novels of Roberto Bolano, Pierre refrains from any solutions till almost the end of the novel: highlighting the fate of the present, the nature of defeat, loss of meaning and non-availability of any alternative meanings. It is well captured by what Vernon figures out at one point: the world has only 2 categories: psychos and underdogs. Bolano carries this Nihilism to a greater degree, creatively turning it into a political arsenal especially with questions over gender, violence, life, games/ relations etc. and wants to make a single big statement via his works; to that extent he retains link with high-modern works. But what would one make of such statement? The underlying subject is declared dead. All we have is an endeavour to explore possibility to resurrect one- a totally human one and commitment to such endeavour is the only differentiating factor today from cynic laughter and chill of a pastiche. Vernon, with all its irreverence and innocence largely achieves it, only to fall short, by well a few last pages.
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Originally published at modernitymusings.wordpress.com on March 10, 2014.
