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STANDUP_TRAGEDIAN
Chaim Bertman's "Standup Tragedian" (2001):
This is a novel about a young man
wandering around the world trying
to get his act together as a
writer. It's pretty clearly
autobiographical, despite some
name switches and a prominent
disclaimer, and I find myself My apologies for the first name
calling the protagonist Chaim. bit: I'm not trying to act like
(pronounced something like Chaim Bertram is a great buddy
HIGH-em, by the way). of mine or something... he is
however a friend of some friends,
so I'm used to hearing his first name.
It's not entirely clear how he's
supporting himself at first: he's
either living on saved cash or
parental stipend... later he's
doing odd jobs. The book
actually covers a long span of
time, about ten years.
The settings:
Israel
Florence
Ogdensburg (upstate New York)
Chicago
Taos, New Mexico
San Francisco
He writes constantly, but
never really completes
anything... instead he
accumulates a large
stack of notes, fragments,
& life sketches, which
eventually get edited,
pieced together and fleshed
out into the book in front
of you.
This work might be compared to a
modern form of a Jack Kerouac
book -- a document of bohemia in
the 90s -- though it's a much
more sober book, with calmer and
tighter prose.
Chaim could not be further away from
Kerouac's spontaneous spew of words.
He wants to be convinced
of the absolute
perfection of anything (and if you've ever tried
he's working on. to really *write*
anything, you know how
hopeless a task that is)
But his perfectionism works
out to our benefit... (Not a given, unfortunately:
perfectionism is all too often
The story is told in a the death of art.)
collection of excellent
little bits
(sting-of-pearls format?)
with out any excess.
So, let me hit you with some short
quotes:
Martina had asked me the one
question that had dogged me every
place I had ever lived -- why here
and not some other place?
p.33
We pretended that our
audiences had studied
Brecht. They were
flattered: they quoted
us to get laid.
p. 73
There was a pentagon at
the foot of her bed,
with a candle at each
point. In a great feat
of restraint, I didn't
ask -- I regret it to
this day.
p. 96
Early on he tells a fable about a
man who dreams of treasure,
travels across the world and asks
another man if he can help find
it. The guy laughs at him and
says, hey I dream all the time
about treasure buried under some
guy's stove, but you don't see me
wearing out my shoes to go there.
The first man realizes that he's
the subject of this other man's
dreams, and goes back home home to
start digging.
I get the feeling that
there's some resonance
going on with this
fable, and the book as
whole.
Chaim goes off
traveling to focus on
writing a book, and
instead the travels So, you need to follow your dreams,
become the book. though the most important thing they
may lead you to is someone else's
dreams?
There are a lot of other funny,
self-referential things going
on with this book...
Near the end, he's got this job
schelpping around bad
psuedo-classical statuary for
upscale parties. The statues
get smashed in an accident
(tragedy ending in pratfalls?),
and then something beautiful is
revealed about some of the
pieces. Now that they're in
fragmentary form, they seem
worth preserving, possibly to
incorporate into some other kind
of art work?
The parallel to the work at
hand is pretty obvious,
especially when you consider
his editor's amused comments
about how he's apprenticed
himself to an archaic
storytelling style full of
symbolic references.
I find myself wondering what the source
is of the confusion in the main
character's relationships with women.
There's a long sequence in Florence with a
young Italian woman (Martina) who clearly
wants him to fuck her, but he's not letting
it sink in for some reason. "Oh, I wish you
were my boyfriend!" she says repeatedly...
is he hearing "You are *not* my boyfriend!"
when she says that? Does he have some
reason for being wary of sex with her?
Maybe he just doesn't like
the way she looks?
But then... what does
she look like?
Maybe there's a clue: there
are no physical descriptions
of people in this book.
Maybe he's being too polite?
And funny thing (or maybe it isn't), there are
remarks that touch on this subject in the book
itself:
At the time, it struck me He had one piece of advice for
as a cosmically unfair a writer: sodium pentothal.
principle that what one
wanted most to say should He told me that his life was
come out like the an open book. He did not hide
stammerings of an idiot. its pages from the world.
Toward the end of Oedipus, Mine, on the other hand,
the almost oracular poetry according to Karl, was the
of Sophocles devolves into darkness of a man who, by
a string of cheap puns on element and essence, was the
the protagonist's name. private man, who was
The ridiculous monster at parsimonious with his shadow
the bottom of _The and his profile.
Inferno_ almost spoils
Dante's poem. My father He had the magical ability to
might have been right. It lighten my moods.
was, at its very core,
embarrassing to be a Be naked. Do not be ashamed,
writer. he said -- and I was cured.
p. 16 p. 87-88
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