Customer Reviews

Blind Speed: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

After this book and Beginner's Greek: A Novel, I'm going have to propose a new genre of literature - the OMGIWAB - or "OMG! I'm Writing A Book" since in both cases it appears that the writer was so enamored with the fact that he's writing a novel that he kind of forgot to tell a compelling story or pay much attention to his characters beyond the flat stereotypes. In the case of Beginner's Greek, you have a lot of telling without showing, a lot of internal monologues, impossible dialogue, stereotypical characters and an amateur writer's fantasy of a real writing life (sleeping with gorgeous editors, giving public readings to a roomful of fawning groupies, respect, etc.)

Blind Speed had all those elements and more. Instead of a cheesy love story on which to hang its hat, it meanders over the thankless life of a protagonist who becomes a stand-in for the writer. He's fat and he feels like a loser and he's sure that his position in academia is going to come crashing down on him at any moment. There's an impossibly hot and patient girlfriend (who marries him) and a couple of really successful brothers. There's also a kidnapping plot toward the end.

But what really makes this an OMGIWAB besides the internal monologues and the trite characterizations is the author's insistence on talking to the audience. He wrote one chapter during the Michael Jackson trial. He was thinking of something else when he wrote another chapter. Did you know that he had a novel that he finished as an undergrad that he's never looked at again? Isn't that fascinating? No. I see that he's trying to imitate Kundera, but despite Kundera's weird way of talking to the audience he usually has something to say. All the writer of this thing has to say is "Look at me! I'm writing a novel! Isn't that the coolest thing!"

And in a roomful of his best friends, sure. But since there are dozens of novels coming out every month, it's just wearisome for someone looking to read one of those novels for the purposes of entertainment and not the validation of a Creative Writing Masters degree.

Reading the book cover summary, I was intrigued that the novel starts off with the protagonist's fiancee getting shot at a Revolutionary War reenactment. It's difficult to think of something more absurd and the novel repeatedly looks at simulations of real events, like ecoterrorism and tourist traps. Baudrillard would love this novel and someone could do a great essay of the simulacra in Blind Speed.

I was though at the same time initially put off by the comparison to Delilio and Saunders, since such comparisons are too often thrown out there to sell an author that bears little resemblance to either. However, Barkan does owe something to White Noise, Blind Speed makes several great reflections about modern life in the mall food court and elsewhere, much like Delilio. Also the protagonist Paul, reminds me a little of Jack in White Noise. Saunders is at work here as well. I thought of his Civilwarland in Bad Decline.

I was initially put off with the author or at least a narrator intruding into the store, ending chapters with random facts, but after awhile I enjoyed his crisis of a chapter not working out or giving two different speeches at Paul's would be astronaut brother's funeral. This is a postmodern novel, which may be a turn off for readers who want some kind of thriller. Paul is an anti-hero, his life repeatedly seems to hit a low point and still manages to get worse. Many things like his relationship with Zoe get some resolution by the end of the novel, though I thought the ending faded too easily.

This was one the better novels I've read in the last few months and I look forward to Barkan's future work.

I finished "Blind Speed" a few weeks ago and I am still thinking about it, which is a sure sign of a good novel -- the ability to reverberate with the reader long after it's been put down.
Maybe it's because Paul Berger is such a loser, but a relatable one, an articulate, thoughtful, smart loser who is plagued by insecurity, and a paralyzing mixture of cowardice and laziness. He is surrounded by people who possess at least one characteristic he does not have: his brother Cyrus with his ambition, his girlfriend Zoe, the good looking optimist, the modern Cyrano (my favorite character) with his talent and ease, the Buffalo Man with his wisdom and practicality...
I don't think anyone can help but see a little of Paul Berger in themselves because his failings seem so genuine and his fears, honest. The writing itself is very forthright, pared down and light.
Barkan does put in author POV snippets at the end of each chapter which at first confused me, but later I started looking forward to them because they were intimate and serious--a nice contrast to the comedic plotline.

Paul Berger has been drifting through life, as the novel opens he is in his mid thirties, an instructor at a community college, only because his career as a rock star didn't work out. If he doesn't get something published and soon his teaching career will be next, and probably followed shortly after by his soon to be bride. To make matters even more depressing his two brothers are total successes, one, a high powered attorney has just entered politics and the other, a former astronaut candidate who became a national hero when he died 9/11. Paul though was not surprised by any of these events, all had been predicted years before when he had his palm read and now all that seemed left to happen was for the final prediction to occur. Unfortunately that final prediction was Paul's early death.

This is an odd novel. The main character Paul has very few endearing qualities, he is lazy, irresponsible and whines alot and yet he is quite endearing. There are long stretches where not much happens and yet I found myself turning page after page to find out what would take place next. And even though much of the action that does take place centers on tragic accidents, alienation and other depressing topics there is a sort of black humor that emerges that will leave the reader smiling at the absurdities of life.

The author also uses an unusual technique to speaking directly to the reader in little asides that seem almost like notes written on a rough draft of a manuscript. While it is interesting to see the another point of view injected into the story these added notes break up the story, taking the reader out of the action of the narrative by reminding the reader that this is only a story.

Still, this is a most interesting and unusual novel, one that holds promise that there will be others from this author, or that may even have more to say about Paul Berger's life.

The attraction of this book is hard to define, the random musings of a man given to detailed speculation and an unwillingness to take anything at face value, especially after an unsettling palm-reading that threatens to come true in spite of the protagonist's resistance to suggestibility. Outrageous as Paul Berger finds the reading, he is blind-sided by the events that occur in spite of his natural skepticism. A former drummer who has found a temporary niche as a teacher in a community college, Paul is fighting a severe case of writer's block, publication necessary to keep his teaching position. In his case, publish or perish is no idle threat. Soon to be wed to Zoe, Paul is thrown off balance when the bizarre predictions begin to manifest in his life: a random shot sends Zoe to Mass General at a reenactment of a Civil War battle; Paul's brother, Andrew, is one of the victims of 9/11; and his troubled relationship with older brother, Cyrus, a ruthless and successful lawyer turned politician, turns sour when Cyrus demands Paul's cooperation in family matters.

Paul is faced with an existential dilemma: is his future in the hands of fate? Is he helpless to change it? Never a great achiever, Paul is, nonetheless, a student of the arcane, the random detritus of the world he lives in, his mind a roiling potpourri of people, places, and the significance of human experience, an encyclopedic gathering and filtering of information in every situation that confronts him. Fueled with edgy satire and a gift for cutting to the heart of obfuscation, Paul carries on a running dialog with his daily life, albeit tainted by a poor self-image and a tendency to undervalue himself. But with recent traumatic events weighing heavily on his mind and the other incidents that occur along the way, Paul's imagination goes into overdrive, a loop of film that plays over and over as he witnesses not only the vagaries of his own life, but the more worldly issues that impact modern society: government corruption, race relations, immigration, global warming and eco-terrorism, to name a few.

Barkan offers a wild ride-along through the convoluted passages of Paul's thought processes as he navigates the troubled days of his current circumstances, observing and dissecting, brilliant and satirical, cutting to the heart of society's pretensions and hypocritical posturing, the extravagance of material goods, a country's unassuaged grief and a personal life pock-marked with his brother's ambitions and his own shortcomings. Blind Speed is both unique, free-wheeling novel and wacky adventure, not for the intrepid, as bold as the impulse-driven American psyche, riddled with the contradictions of a world mired in acquisition but yearning for truth. An extended acid-trip rich with insight, this is a book for the unconventional, acerbic wit and poignant observations embodied in the dilemma of a refreshingly human character demanding an answer: is life chance or choice? Luan Gaines/ 2008.

If, as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Blind Speed by Josh Barkan is a testimonial to the works of Terry Southern/Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove), Kurt Vonnegutt (pick any work by him) and Milan Kundera (The Incredible Lightness of Being). Barkan tries for the tempo and flavor of the aforementioned gentlemen but his attempt at the sardonic wit,a philosophical outlook and black comedy that were the hallmarks of the works produced by these men seem somehow to have escaped him.

Blind Speed attempts a satirical and sometimes esoteric exploration of a variety of subjects from prophecy to global warming to sibling rivalry, but all it really manages to do is subject the reader to the prosaic prose and meandering musings of the author.

Perhaps I am not astute enough to plumb the inner depths of this story. All I saw while reading was not an attempt to entertain but rather the authors attempt to impress me with his erudition and to utilize the flashes of insight experienced by the books protagonist to "educate" me so that I will be worthy to receive the pearls of wisdom being bestowed.

By now I am sure you can tell......I didn't like this offering. 11/2 stars

Paul is a current professor at a community college facing an ultimatum to publish or be refused tenure--emblematic of the rut his life has gotten into. A drummer in a band that came close but failed, a brother in a family with one astronaut and one famous lawyer about to run for Congress, a fiancee in an engagement heading for a marriage he isn't sure will work out, a writer who hasn't been able to get past a few dozen pages in his book on American culture--his life seems to have spun out of his control ever since he received an odd palm reading from a Midwest guru at a retreat where he met his fiancee, making him question whether he ever had control of his life or if fate did.
The book opens up well enough with a good set piece where his fiancee is accidentally shot at the same reenactment of the battle of Concord where his brother announces his Congressional run. Unfortunately, the opening scene may be the book's best part. From there we go back and forth in time, watching how Paul's life has unspooled. One problem is that none of it is very compelling. Paul himself isn't that interesting a character and the side characters, especially his rich, conniving, hypocritical lawyer brother never feel real--they're too broadly drawn, too purposely quirky, too obviously there as a prop to play off of. There is lots of commentary on american culture, some of which isn't too bad, but they tend to fall into the novel as info-dumps--randomly intrusive entries that don't feel an organic part of the story. The attempts at satire/humor are just too easy, too broad to fully succeed. And then there is the metafictional aspect of the book, with the author stepping in to discuss his other works, intentions, etc. This is tough to pull off and unfortunately, Barkan doesn't do it here. It just feels unnecessarily gimmicky without adding anything to the impact of the story.
Blind Speed has its moments, one can see flashes of talent, but they come too few and far between. I'd give his next novel a shot just to check out the improvement, but wouldn't recommend this one.

No one should be allowed to read Josh Barkan's Blind Speed: A Novel, unless they are certified as having a mordant and somewhat raucous sense of humor. Feckless protagonist Paul Berger, a failed musician, was born "a little bit ugly." Like Al Capp's character Joe BTZFLK, who had his own personal storm cloud that traveled with him, Paul was born to lose. In Paul's case, the storm cloud is represented by an ominous prophecy concerning his life and fortune as foretold by an Iowa guru named Buffalo Man.
Early on Paul is a drummer in a nearly successful rock band. Though he loved the drums, he eventually gives up on music, believing that "love is not enough...the notes came out only as good, not perfect."
Blind Speed is a risky novel in its form and structure. It is nonlinear in that the author deftly uses a series of flashbacks to flesh out the story. It is also metafictional, reminiscent at times of the work of John Barth of Giles Goat Boy and The Sot Weed Factor fame. There is a fine balance between word play and postmodern self-consciousness and the page turner characteristics of more traditional genres. One finds, for instance the insertion of expository material along the way. In the "Coda" following chapter 3, author departs from the fictive narrative as follows:
"Two other things I found while researching this chapter: The limestone of the Pentagon all comes from the same quarry in Ellettsville, Indiana. I thought it might be made of granite, but it's not. After 9/11, they used the same quarry for reconstruction, with 2.7 million pounds of variegated clear limestone, 18,000 square feet cut into seven hundred pieces transported on forty-eight flatbed trucks....

One of the conflicts that drive the narrative to its satisfying conclusion is the rivalry between Paul and his two alpha male brothers. Andrew was an astronaut who died on September 11, `01 in the attack on the Pentagon. Cyrus is a Harvard trained lawyer of boundless ambition and the ruthlessness of a cobra.
Paul, suffering from writers block for over six years, is unable to finish the novel on which he has written a mere 45 pages. Because of his failure to publish the novel or even a brief journal article, he is one the verge of losing his job as an instructor in a community college when the tenure committee meets. He is told by the department chairman, Kominski, that he must publish something in the next two months to be considered for continued employment. His mindset is permeated by such a sense of failure and lostness. In a fit of self-abnegation as he left Kominski's office, he characterizes himself as an "idiot," a nincompoop, and worse.
In his chronic despair, he makes the following observation at a "BATTLE REENACTMENT OF THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD" in Concord Massachusetts:
Nixon, that goofy Vietnam War mortician was right: the silent majority ruled (not the rebellious, pacifist fringe); the majority killed for their property; and there was nothing really revolutionary about the Minutemen, who won a war and took over an entire country to build fast-food restaurants and Disneyland while abolitionists, pacifists, hippies, and environmentalists were left to make well-intended flatulent noises--write poems such as Ginsberg's "Howl"--in books for other defeated noisemakers.
Paul's angst is not simply directed at politicos of one persuasion. He inveighs against whoever and whatever is at hand; hippies, his attorney brother. The world, in short, is too much with him.
Paul's fiancée Zoe was shot at the Concord reenactment when a reenactment soldier accidentally left the ramrod in the barrel of his musket. This episode is further complicated by the appearance of Paul's pompous super-achiever brother, Cyrus, who is running for congress.
One nearly finds redemption for Paul at the moment of his wedding to Zoe. "He hadn't expected to see her so much more beautiful than he usually regarded her...he felt, perhaps for the first time, beautiful himself as he stood next to her." The novel includes pitch perfect descriptions of Boston area neighborhoods: "He wandered first through the Chinatown gate, gilded with yellow paint that was supposed to look like gold and bring good fortune to every poor Joe who passed between the concrete pillars, and then into the herbal medicine store, and then into the store where he was offered but declined a massage...."
Paul's saga continues, his life lurching from one disaster to another, yet taking a surprising turn when he must deal with "ecoterrorists" and his brother's vaulting ambition.
The narrative of Blind Speed is at times piercingly satirical, but the author builds in the ironies and insights that make it all worthwhile. And in the denouement, the reader is left with the belief that Paul found grace and redemption in an unexpected and appealing way; a way, in short, to be in this world.

The description of a "rip roaring read that will propel you to the next page until you laugh your way across the finish line" made me snatch this book up in the hopes of a light entertaining read. Sorry to say, it was not "rip roaring", maybe more like "muddling", there was no "propelling", more like "dragging" and as far as laughing my way across the finish line, that was only out of sheer joy that it was over.
Blind Speed's protaganist, Paul is a pretty likeable guy. Overshadowed by his more successful brothers, and largely ignored by his parents, its easy to see how his vision of himself became clouded and doubt-filled. The author has created a good base for the book, someone I wouldn't mind knowing. Its not Paul's fault I struggled with the book. There are plenty of secondary characters, but none are explored enough to make me want to hate them or love them. Passive indifference is the best I can do. At no point did I want to get through a chapter so I can find out what happened to anyone.
Barkan's writing shows flashes of brilliance. There were entire chapters I enjoyed. The premise of the story was even pretty good. Perhaps some serious self-editing is in order here. The book does not flow. The author's intrusions don't enlighten.
All in all, I think Barkan has a lot of promise as a writer. Next time, I hope he develops more than 1 character. I haven't given up on him, but can't give this mediocre read more than 2 stars.

I was skeptical about this novel going in. On the one hand, I like cultural critiques (Boston Legal - Seasons 1 - 3 "Boston Legal" is adept at this), and watching a writer, the hero of this novel, one Paul Barkan, struggle to do one article and a book about inadequacy to secure his tenure at a community college that (like the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novelists) has a blanked-out name. Seeing Paul Barkan find excuses not to write makes me feel better about my own writer's blockette. I like the quirky set of characters, even though glib beating-up-on-America feels all too familiar in fiction. I like the descriptions and the comedic situations. Josh Barkan is clearly a writer with a talent for observation through a skewed lens that manages to be tragic, funny, and real. Paul Berger, in his fight against a grim prophecy made by a yogi guru named Buffalo Man, reminds one of William Shatner in the Twilight Zone episode "Nick of Time". Twilight Zone: The Complete Definitive Collection. Buffalo Man manages not to be a caricature. There's so much richenss of information and things you'd think could never go together (a political campaign, Walden Pond, a ghostwriter named 'The Modern Cyrano'), but amazingly coexists in this novel.

On the other hand, metafiction is very difficult to pull off with a narrator intruding with phrases such as "(Now to the less serious, less manipulative, more sarcastic, funny part.)" The sardonic narrator intercedes in the action like a one-man Greek chorus, saying, "If even I, as the narrator, am skeptical about all these unusual events and people whom the character Paul is meeting, well then I at least want to get the whole story." So do we as the readers, and clearly Josh Barkan has anticipated one arrow the critics might lob his way. While intrusive narrators are a staple of many classic novels, the modern reader tends not to trust the "breaking of the fourth wall." On the other hand, "Boston Legal" has done it plenty of times. The self-referential commentary of the novel is in itself a commentary on our self-referential culture, our need to insert ourselves into the narrative a la YouTube and blogs. It is postmodern satire not just on politics (Paul's brother Cyrus is one of the most self-serving political jerks ever to appear in a novel) but on culture and modern thought that travels, well, at blind speed.