Mark Leyner should consider himself extremely fortunate. Few writers have been able to write completely self-indulgent anecdotal quasi-fiction which draws equally from their own lives and from the pop culture universe of celebrities and the media, swirl it all together in a dizzying and fragmented amalgam of anti-linear narrative vignettes and-here's where Leyner is unique, and damn lucky-actually sell books. I have no doubt there are plenty of writers out there who have done all of the above, with the possible exception of actually making a name for themselves in the commercial publishing world, as Leyner has.
Reading Et Tu, Babe, I was almost instantly reminded of two other writers: Richard Brautigan and, oddly enough, humor columnist Dave Barry. Indeed, Leyner's work often reads like a humorous essay, segmented into brief two- or three-page chapters and averaging about three or more punchlines per paragraph. Leyner has likened his readings to stand-up comedy and feels the skills and goals of his readings are the same as those of a stand-up performance. Perhaps even more notable than his frenetic storytelling style is his dissolution of whatever boundaries might exist between so-called fiction and his-or our-reality.
Leyner makes no effort to distinguish his autobiographical reality from the fictional surreality he creates in Et Tu, Babe. For Leyner, the motive behind appearing in his own story is the story itself: this is a book about celebrity and megalomania, and so Leyner really has no choice but to cast himself as the book's protagonist. He's not about to sit down with the reader and help him or her figure out where real life ends and fiction begins. In fact, he doesn't really seem to care where that boundary lies, if it exists at all. In one interview, Leyner says, "I've always been fascinated by ... the way the creation of public figures has hybridized fact and fiction. Or the way we promote idealized images of ourselves to acquaintances in our intimate life. The whole business of fact and fiction is never as clear as people make it. It's quite fuzzy."
By casting himself as a superhuman demigod in Et Tu, Babe, Leyner is exaggerating many of his actual traits, and adding quite a few extra ones. He is exploring his own fantasized identity, the idealized image of himself that he'd like to present to people every day. We all have idealized versions of ourselves we'd like to wow our friends with-but most of us don't get to write books about these versions. Leyner asks himself what he'd do if he were omnipotent. We ask ourselves this question too-although perhaps not as often in our adult lives as we did when we were younger. What would we do if we were above the law? What would we buy if money were no object? Which celebrities would we befriend? Which enemies would we eliminate?
When Leyner answers such questions, a tumult of chimeral hyperbolas blossom and crowd the 170 pages of Et Tu, Babe. But for all of the book's escapist fantasy, Leyner acknowledges that fiction doesn't always have to be quite so unbelievable, aggrandized, or fantastic as his novels might be. In fact-how do we even separate fact from fiction? The authenticity of "real-life" events-and their distinction from fiction-is often far more artificial than we'd like to think.
Leyner's style is often quick, fragmented, and extraordinarily heterogeneous. His writing is often compared to television and the short attention span to which it caters. Readers will probably be simultaneously annoyed and exhilarated by this rough and jumpy style Leyner has cultivated. He offers some enlightening reasons for developing such a style: "I think I really started coming up with these ideas when I was a sophomore or junior in college. When you'd read a long book like George Eliot's Middlemarch, for example, where if you're in a rush you can skip entire sections. If somebody visits a country home, there will be 25 pages describing the front lawn that the reader has to cross to get to the front door. If there's a test the next day, by all means get to the door. ... I didn't want to write books that include transitional passages which merely serve to move characters from room to room. I want every sentence to be unskippable, very intense and charged."
To hear Leyner explain it, this style does seem more legitimate than simply writing fiction that reads like television views. But his writing is nothing if not entertaining, and I feel he deserves more credit than simply being considered the creator of literary MTV. For a (slightly) more cohesive plot, try Leyner's The Tetherballs Of Bougainville, which in my opinion is even funnier than Et Tu, Babe.
