Customer Reviews

Arc D'X

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Arc D'X" is formally and thematically in the tradition of William Faulkner and Ishmael Reed -- the novel pounds down traditional versions of history, sex and race relations, and serves up what remains in a chaotic vision of culture at the turn of the 21st century. The scale-shifting and looping narrative(s) of the book are enough to cause vertigo in readers unaccustomed to the style, but the Jefferson/Hemings tension is rich enough to interest anyone concerned with the kind of private obsessions that have their fruition sometimes in the history of a nation, or in the history of an idea such as "the pursuit of happiness."

Even if you don't believe the hyperbolic Pynchon
cover blurb, check out this extraordinary novel.
Erickson takes us to Paris, where Thomas Jefferson
rapes his young slave, Sally Heming. Sally then becomes
the weft of the novel, weaving together
the theme (the relationship between love and freedom) and the diverse time-locales, including turn-of-the-millenium Berlin and an unspecified
dystopian city at the foot of an active volcano.
Erickson's prose is razor-sharp, and his fictional
universe is both complex and internally consistent, making this novel a rewarding read.

"Arc d'X" is conceived as the buildup to a sort of melding of different time periods, which a physicist, in a throwaway sequence, discovers will happen at the end of the second millenium. The major characters spend most of the movie living in separate and discrete centuries, then, at the end, their time periods mingle and they can come in contact with each other.

The three major periods depicted are 1999, the 1780's, and sometime during the Ice Age. Author Steve Erickson makes himself a character in the 1999 segment and at first we think this segment will be about his adventures, but a shocking twist deprives the reader of this. The main characters in the 1780's period are Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Much has been written about their relationship, but I think the reader will find Erickson's take on it (and what it could have led to had Jefferson been just a little more devoted to Sally) quite fresh.

The most interesting by far of the three major stories is the one set during the Ice Age. This is not a story about primitive hunter-gatherers but rather about a technological, urban civilization and the life and loves of one of its denizens, named Etcher. I was first made aware of the existence of this book by an ex-girlfriend in 1994, and Etcher's life story was sufficiently compelling that I gave the book not only to her, but to another woman I loved before her. The Erickson character in the 1999 sequence briefly refers to the "Big One" hitting California and unearthing remains of this civilization. I have spent a great deal of time thinking of other ways in which its existence could be discovered. For example, a computer program could be made to prove that a 10,000 year old hunk of corroded metal halfway between Siberia and Alaska is actually a railway car. That would be a fun story to write; but probably not as fun to read as this one was. Five stars.

This is a creative work than spawns further than the imagination will typically allow. This is an exuberant blend of creativity to come to the truth about the soul, and the reality of that wich posseses it, or vice versa. A must read, if your willing to be exposed to the insane chaos it may reveal. 5+

This is a creative work than spawns further than the imagination will typically allow. This is an exuberant blend of creativity to come to the truth about the soul, and the reality of that wich posseses it, or vice versa. A must read, if your willing to be exposed to the insane chaos it may reveal. 5+

Very surreal, with a lot of sex (but most of it used for atmosphere) and a continuously changing narrator that sometimes left me lost. But I loved it. My biggest piece of advice is that if you get bored in the middle, keep reading. Erickson ties everything up in the last 100 pages rather spectacularly.

Don't expect everything to make a lot of sense in this book. People suddenly end up in different times and different places just by walking down a hallway or into a field, characters are found dead in the middle of the novel and then show up in the end as a kind of flashback. Like I said, very surreal and dreamlike. It's not really sci-fi although some of it is set in a somewhat futuristic, noir dystopia.

A previous reviewer ventured the bold opinion that Steve Erickson cannot write.

This authority has a point. Steve Erickson cannot write in the same way that Bob Dylan cannot sing.

If you care to be somewhat challenged (Mr. Erickson has a reputation as one of those difficult writers, but he's not really that difficult, if you're in the habit of paying attention to the book that you're reading), and you ache to understand both your nation and your soul, I suggest that you read this book. It will lead you down a path you do not expect.

Perhaps the most profound American novel of the 20th century.

How was it that the man who wrote one of the world's greatest documents for freedom was, at the same time, a slave-owner and a rapist? These troubling conditions intersect in Erickson's fascinating novel. The book is a work of vast creativity, and the prose is well-wrought. At times the cyberpunk feel of the book is awkward, but the novel manages to hold together. An important, undervalued novel which will be rediscovered in years to come.

Half a dozen books in, and the pattern is going strong:

1. One (1) mysterious, sexually-charged, rather mute young woman.

2. Up to Three (3) tortured men (all haunted by lots of ghosts from their pasts).

3. Several stylized sex scenes, in all of which the woman should exercise her blase magic.

4. Travel, but it must be to someplace in the very near, very erotic future: post-nuke Tokyo, post-apocalyptic L.A., &c.

5. Some sort of natural disaster: fire in L.A., tidal wave across Japan, lake in L.A. (as I believe the new novel, "Our Ecstatic Days," has opted for), etc.

Half-bake until prose reaches the proper level of bloated "lyricism."

Steve Erickson writes puerile, sex-obsessed pulp for readers who don't like to read, a la Chuck Palahniuk or Sylvia Plath. Since the late '80s he's been coasting on a few jacket blurbs from Thomas Pynchon and Tom Robbins (Erickson's publishers keep recycling quotes regarding his first two novels; no one seems to still be reading him). Apparently nobody has told him that having your heroine stare fiercely or brandish a knife or treat coldly her clientele at the strip club does not necessarily make for a novel about sexual liberation.

His stuff is what a highly-intelligent college freshman who REALLY wants to get laid and has some Anais Nin under his/her belt might write. Don't give him your money (SuicideGirls.com subscriptions just keep getting more expensive, you know, so you've got to budget).

This book is incredibly trite. Pls, do not bother to read it