The Year of Percival Everett!
You sound like a physicist," she said.
"There's no need to be insulting.”
― Percival Everett, Dr. No
I was reminded that I wanted to read this author’s work earlier this year, when I was perusing a thread on Twitter about who is the greatest living American author now that Cormac McCarthy is no longer with us.
Many names were trotted out--most prominently: Thomas Pynchon, followed by Colson Whitehead and Barbara Kingsolver. Happily, several people suggested Percival Everett—thereby reminding me how much I wanted to read Dr. No. Known as a writer not afraid to play with language and genre, I think Everett is not afraid of play in general! To wit: Dr. NO is a spoof on the old James Bond movie, which I cannot believe is 60 years old? How is that possible it is older than I am? I was tempted to re-watch it but decided against it since I don’t want my memories of the movie to be challenged. Anyway, in Everett’s version, the James Bond “hero” is a brilliant mathematician, who refers to himself as “nothing” since he studies the concept of nothing. According to the author, Europe was has not been receptive to this concept because it undercut the notion of God and so it was “something” imported later in mathematical history from the Arab world.
Amid layers and layers of silly fun, the bad guy’s rationale for wanting to destroy the world, harnessing the power of nothing is that he is black and his beloved father was cut down by police and so, Dr. No wants to give nothing back to America since America has given nothing to him. The novel is a caper and the Professor's sidekick is a lovely mathematician who is also treated as a sex object of the villain. And there is a dog with only one leg and there’s two secret agents who are tracking the professor because they know Dr. No is up to no good —well, he’s up to nothing which is everything and one of them is called Bill Clinton it just goes on and on I was smiling or laughing the entire time I was reading this book!!
This led me to read Erasure—now a film! Like Dr. NO, this novel is bold and thought-provoking.
It is also hilarious! It had me laughing out loud.
I was reminded of Erasure earlier this year after reading RF Kuang’s Yellowface, which is also a searing critique of the US publishing industry (MFA industrial complex?) —and how race, like everything else in the world, is being commoditized. Something to curate, package and sell. This critique of white publishing people who basically pigeonhole artists of color to package them for general readers is an issue that goes back to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. One of my all-time favorite novels, Ellison was trying to push back against this stereotypical packaging of books written by people of color, and it is no coincidence that the protagonist’s last name is Ellison and the book is called Erasure (and more active form of rendering someone invisible).
In Kuang’s book it is a mediocre white writer who “borrows” the manuscript of a dead friend, who happens to be Asian. In Erasure, the black author himself—as a joke— writes a really bad and stereotypical work of “black fiction” that shockingly (to the protagonist) not only sells to a publisher but is then optioned for a film. Both stories become more and more surreal as agents and publishers are lampooned for treating artists as commodities.
Like his other books, this one is experimental—with quite a lot of content from the parody book (titled Pafology and later retitled simply as Fuck) included in the novel. Pafology takes off and poor Ellison slowly is made to become erased basically.
I loved both Dr No and Erasure but my favorite so far was So Much Blue. Like his other two novels,. I enjoyed the author's witty sentences that even turn in on themselves every so often. The voice is funny and fun and smart! It is a story about secrets. Three to be precise. And one of them is a teenager. I especially loved the first secret that takes place in El Salvador in 1979. It reminded me of a Tom Robins' caper —not unlike Dr No (wait was there a dog in this one?) The characters in this story-line were just brilliant… Bummer is hilarious. Richard is annoying (but his best friend so what can the POV character do?) I also loved Paris…. The secrets are beautifully intertwined in the form of a mid-life crisis and revelation.
Can’t wait to read more!