MGN-AFRICA»» pin:2A123D88 10:04 by Ben Lerner review – a great writer, a great novel: Ben Lerner’s second novel is just as revolutionary as his debut Ben Lerner’s first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, was a surprise 2011 hit, its unprincipled, truth-bending narrator barely keeping his balance atop the fact/fiction divide. In that novel, as in his new one, Lerner aspired towards what WG Sebald described as “poetic truth” – “What I’m striving for is authenticity; none of it is real.” This line of Sebald’s, describing his own explorations of the generic hinterlands, might be the epigraph for 10:04, a work of fiction that never quite believes in its own fictitiousness, a novel that fails and fails again at being novelistic. 10:04 is bookended by two storms – Irene and Sandy (although they are never named). The equally unnamed narrator has just been diagnosed with Marfan syndrome, which can lead to an aortic dissection, almost always fatal. He is trying, more or less unsuccessfully, to produce his second novel, after an excerpt in the New Yorker has prompted a rush of interest in his work. He’s neurotic, Woody Allen-ish, both confiding and mysterious, charming and dastardly. In many places, – and this is one of the problems of works in this mongrel genre, where the self is laid bare, and we expect either Knausgaardian earnestness or the comedy of Geoff Dyer – Lerner seems uncertain as to whether the narrator of 10:04 is merely a continuation of Leaving the Atocha Station’s amusing if odious protagonist, or something rather different, more authentically emotional. Continue reading... bit.ly/1kcSHfb pin:2A123D88
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 14:09:06 +0000
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