Customer Reviews

California's Over

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this in hardcover, and it's amazing. Jones is the only fiction writer I know of now who is truly driven to poetry, that is necessary poetry, not vague lyricism. Every line matters. I live in Saint Louis, MO, and Jones is here at a university to be a visiting writer and just gave a reading of his newest work, about Alaska in 1970, and it heads off in a totally different direction. There's no one writng today with his sincerity and poetry.

A gifted, stylish writer with something new and original to say. Even though the time (1973) and place (Marin County California) and subject (family of a deceased late Beat/early hippie writer) are far removed from my own experience, Jones has the gift of taking you there, spinning you around, getting you interested in the characters and leaving you delighted and enlightened.

As I could relate with the age, time and place of the main character's life, I took a ride on the depth given to her by Jones. What a trip! I'm still sitting at the table with them over cioppino wishing everyone would come home again. Well, things surely change as California's Over reveals. I'll have to accept this and jump into another ferment of this writer's cast of characters.

Louis B. Jones's California's Over is much more than a satire of the West Coast's Sixties legacy, though like all good satire it does have a deeply realized base of moral bedrock to put the clearly-observed human excesses and deviations in perspective, and like all good satire it is very funny without being cruel. But the book's real strength and beauty is in its tenderness, the sweet music of human peculiarity lucidly seen, and in its evocations of the loveliness of the sirens' songs that have drawn its characters toward their particular, poignant ruin on their particular rocks of reality. And the novel, like all of Jones's work, is ultimately a song of praise for the embattled decency, for the redemptive power in the feeble human longing for the simple human truth, for the humble beauty of the real, in the face of everything the world can bring of tragedy and temptation. Jones's language is astonishing, rich and lush and ever-inventive, a kind of sustained poetry. By all means check out his other novels--Ordinary Money, and Particles and Luck, which are also terrific. A beautiful writer, with hopefully a long and productive career ahead of him--a joy to read.

My real rating is 11 stars, not five. Most rating systems go to ten, but "this is 11."

After reading Louis B. Jones' other hilarious novels, I tried to read this novel in the late 90s when it was new, but at the time was still choking on Bay area counterculture and got annoyed by the characters, even beyond where satire could provide sufficient intubation. I knew then that these characters were too identifiable. This year I tried again and found that I could not put it down. Mr. Jones is one of the best living writers and this novel joins the ranks of not only the best California fiction (think Cannery Row or Saroyan), but with brilliant prose lays out the troubled American family with the feeling of a John Irving while maintaining a spareness of prose and satire as brilliant and sharp as Vonnegut or Pynchon. Wow, I dropped a lot of names there, huh? Here's another: Louis B. Jones is a contemporary Kafka who can make me laugh out loud with every work. It's a rare combination indeed.

These names are really not necessary; Louis B. Jones is in a class by himself (or if there are others, please e-mail me immediately!). California's Over is probably the best relatively undiscovered novel focused on the post post-modern era of malaise. The dark and sulfurous broth of James Farmican, while life sustaining, creates a kind of toxic imprisonment and a great metaphor of the American family, whatever that absurd beast may be. On another level, we keep eating the ash-laden soup of memory, reliving and recreating those hazy seventies as we wake up one morning having become the middleaged wine soaked Baelthon. Or we find ourselves like Wendy wondering what is missing (childhood perhaps?) and gorging on the junkfood our culture of exploitation has become. Absurd times and absurd situations. All great potential is spent shouting into the wind, collapsing into rot in the cold fog. The greatest minds of my generation wasted. This is what a family (and every other institution in our great pretend land of actor killers) is and finding a way out of this toxic soup is something we spend our youth doing and yet we keep coming back to the table, realizing it was the best soup we ever had. And when the house is emptied out and torn down, we go back to the images we create. The characters and scene are so brilliantly penned, that I found myself rereading entire sections and looking for every hidden edge in the prose. I've already ordered the new novel-- hey, it's ABOUT TIME, Mr. Jones!--and will probably reread the other two. Ordinary Money has had a the delightful lifelong effect on me of bringing an incipient smile and sometimes chuckle when I encounter a human using vague legalese. Mr. Jones, you make me laugh outloud in those moments when we all become K standing outside the castle. What a wonderful gift. Thank you, Mr. Jones, for so brilliantly keeping the gray matter engaged and reminding us about the signifying of nothing as we strut about the stage.

The wonderful thing about Louis Jones (I've read everything there is of his work) is the sentences observing everyday life. The lawn mower in "Ordinary Money" or the charcoal briquettes in "Particles and Luck." The really rewarding part about his writing isn't plot but love of everything. Can't think of a better way to phrase it: I finish his books more in love with everything.

Louis B. Jones seems to be our greatest living writer. No kidding. This is the third book of his I've read. His language is as deep as Shakespeare's, his people (i.e., characters) are Shakespearean in their complexity, but reading it is almost like reading porn, it's so sensuous and humorous. His other books are "Ordinary Money" and "Particles and Luck." But "California's Over" reaches whole new heights. Judging by the book jacket photo, Jones is young, so hopefully there's plenty more to come. "California's Over" is much more than a nostalgia trip about California bohemians -- that's just the cliched way the reviewers (above) seem to prefer thinking of it. It's a story about family forgiveness and cruelty, and about the American celebrity machine and its destructive influence on our culture, about the war between the sexes and the possibility of innocence. It's about a lot. The plot of the book is "gothic": it involves a dark rotten house in the fog, a house where a suicide has occurred. It's about the surviving children of a great bohemian poet who shot himself in the sixties. The plot involves the discovery and unravelling of mysteries within the house. It's too complicated to describe here, but absolutely delicious. Also highly recommended: his first novel "Ordinary Money," about counterfeit money -- but also about American values, counterfeit and very genuine. "Particles and Luck," his second novel, is about a physicist whose thoughts are mostly religious and adulterous. But my favorite is "California's Over." Louis Jones is a light in the world.

This is not Jones' best, but it's definitely his most ambitious. He's trying to mark out territory as an important writer here, bidding to be a Big Gun. Commentary on society, etc. People in the throes of crucial emotions in their lives, etc. He's more at ease with the metaphysical, as in "Particles and Luck." "Particles and Luck" is a truly beautiful little book. A classic. However, I must say, the looser structure in "Californias Over" (the wandering over three decades in several characters' lives, the multiple point-of view, the flash-forwards to warn reader of future developments) all allow a new complexity here. And Jones' poetry is present. I just happen to prefer the tighter structure. His earlier books are more like DeLillo -- seem to have been directly influenced by DeLillo -- whereas this is more touchie-feelie.