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Gloucesterbook

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Gloucesterbook by Jonathan Bayliss is the first volume in his vast Gloucesterman trilogy, which is certainly one of the most ambitious literary undertakings by a contemporary author. Bayliss writes in a very erudite manner with a staggering vocabulary, and also deliberately avoids gratuitous pop culture references. However, it is not his aim to create a sentimental, old-fashioned entertainment. An explicit protest against the degradation of our language, his lack of compromise is intended to counteract the banality with which the powerful have so successfully anesthetized us to their machinations. No other American author has explored so fearlessly and completely the damage capitalism has wrought on our society.

The setting is the East Coast of America in 1960, but we see our recent history through a camera obscura with which Bayliss projects a bafflingly different image of New England onto the page. Geographical features and place names are altered to echo literary and mythological references. Even historical figures and events are distorted and disguised in the theater of Gloucesterbook. This strips away the familiarity from our reality, allowing Bayliss to ascribe several layers of meaning to phenomena whose significance conventional wisdom has long since effaced.

Gloucesterbook describes a time and place scarred by physical, political, and economic forces. The glaciers have receded, leaving bedrock exposed to the sea. Gloucester's boom times have also ebbed, its forests cleared to build fishing boats that have left the ocean barren. The town itself is in a state of disrepair, a dilapidated theater in which the locals act out meaningless rituals for an audience of cynical tourists. Gloucester is renamed Dogtown, in tribute to the saintly hounds whose loyalty and affection stand in marked contrast to the cruelty of the self-proclaimed gods who have hunted them to the brink of extinction. The fisherman's netting needle has become the town's symbol, representing an active, meaningful past through an archaic image that most people cannot even identify. The populace itself is lost, unable to discern between the natural and manipulated causes of their desperation. The church has abdicated any role in giving hope to the victims of monetarism: they perpetuate the Lenten tradition merely to keep the processed-fish industry afloat, and use the meaningful ritual of Mass only as a cover for their stock-market speculation.

Into this thorny tangle of vested interests comes businessman Rafael "Rafe" Opsimath, intent on exploiting the region's economic slump for his benefit. He panders to the town's movers and shakers in order to gain information on the shadowy Parity Corporation, a prospect for acquisition that may be too good to be true. To manage his scheme in his absence, he appoints sensitive local boy Caleb Karcist. Though na?ve in political matters, Caleb has an analytical method that may unravel Parity's Gordian knot.

Unfortunately, Caleb is lost in a world where fascism survived WWII after all: corporate filings are the new Scripture, resistance is stigmatized as treasonous, and every form of endeavor is judged by a cost-benefit analysis that excludes inefficient considerations such as human concern. He finds himself a target for deceit, seduction, and betrayal by those whose personal or political stock may suffer from the success of his method, as well as those who hope to use his analysis to facilitate further exploitation of Dogtown's social and psychic desolation.

I can't hope to convey the verbal power and imagination at work here. This is literary ambition at its boldest, a gift from an immense talent to readers hungry for something substantial as well as original.

I am on my second read of the Gloucesterbook by Jonathan Bayliss. What strikes me first is the author's wry approach to business, cultural, geographical and other --- you name it! --- matters. Gloucesterbook is not an easy read because style sometimes overweighs substance ... Bayliss, or his narrator, suggests form determines content, which means whatever you want it to mean. (As Yeats puts it: "How can we know the dancer from the dance?") Long passages of dialogue seem to be displays of learning --- often made-up - or wit that has outworn its surprise. For an ex- Gloucesterite there is novelty in guessing the origins of the fey words Bayliss uses to describe the layout, history and some of the people who vitalized Gloucester. Except for Ipsissimus Charlemagne, also known as Charles Olson, historical ascriptions are unclear. Finding prototypes is, however, a guessing game that adds nothing to the novel. As with other writers, readers should take everything at face value and ignore or wrestle with symbolic implications . . . such as the archetypal creation of Ibi Roi, a Viking shepherd dog who is the center of a pack of dogs who do strange things at Vision Rock (read Whale's Jaw) in Purdeyville (Bayliss's name for Dogtown, which name he used to designate the real Gloucester.) Jack London gave Buck in The Call of the Wild some extra-dog (but not supernatural!) characteristics, but his canine was not as lovable and did not thump his tail as roguishly as Ibi Roi..

The average reader may be willing to ignore the problem of sources. (Who cares how much Shakespeare took from Holinshed?) Bayliss is, however, generally honest about acknowledging his indebtedness to previous writers Herman Melville gets several nods, as does George Borrow, Laurence Sterne, John Keats, William Henry Hudson, Jack Kerouac, Hesiod and Virgil. As far as I can discern Plato and Aristotle function as a source for jokes and puns. (Does St. Paul fare much better?) Without finding direct collaborations, one is tempted to find echoes of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Francois Rabelais, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Walt Whitman, D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot and countless others.

If the book didn't interest me, I wouldn't be re-reading it, while also trying to extend my vocabulary and acquaintance with quantum physics and anamnesis by looking up scattered references. The book begins by describing the problem of a business executive who is intent on writing a thesis to qualify for an MBA by way of a correspondence course conducted by Ipsissimus Charlemagne. (This Olson did not do!) Then it skips to the philosophical and sexual dilemmas of Caleb Karcist a Gloucester native and sojourner, whose chief motivation has to do with homunculus erectus. Caleb is selfish and calculating and, like Bayliss, a master of saying many things simultaneously, He is involved with an Anglican-Benedictine Order as an altar boy (while he may or may not agree with the two ordained priests who are its main and only representatives in Gloucester.) Both priests make money on Wall Street (the Graveyard) with Caleb playing a supporting role.

I take the theological parts seriously as, I suspect, does Bayliss. Maybe there is such a thing as counter entropy. Caleb, however, can't see beyond his phallic tumescence . which apparently is not formidable though he is circumcised and, on one occasion, a recipient of fellatio. His turn down of a homosexual overture by one of the priests comes across as a magnificent defense of heterosexuality.

From consulting the Internet, I find that Jonathan Bayliss is a Democrat (Catholicrat) in politics who can write clear and short expositions using simple Angle-Saxon words. His or the narrator's criticism of Republicans (Protesticans) in Gloucesterbook is lighthearted. His critique of the changing economy of Gloucester is tongue-in-cheek. Surely there is much unemployment and grief among formerly hard-working, self-reliant Atlanteans. Ipsissimus Charlemagne takes the weird tack that Dogtown (Gloucester) is a stinking slum, but developers and tourists would only make it pretty and (possibly) pay people better wages.

Maybe readers may find sarcasm in Bayliss's use of Gloucester doings and scenes as a foil for Caleb and his mistresses, priests and drinking companions, but it eludes me. Perhaps in other parts of the trilogy mans' inhumanity (or indifference) to man will get a going -over. Aside from abstruse flights into philology and joyful vignettes into sexual hanky-panky, glimpses into nature's change of seasons, and the thrill of being a passenger on a commercial airline, I found the descriptions of factories, wharves and machines to be exhilarating. Bayliss goes where few --- even technical writers ---dare to go. ( I recall Communist writers who in Stalin's Nightmare specialized in this sort of thing.) The mechanical depictions of hoists, gears, bridges and iron works may not be transparent (some knowledge of geometry and trigonometry is required), but they convey an image of industry at rest and at work in soaring and wrenching terms. The furor is the essence of Sturm und Drang. There is much to like and to marvel at in this book. It is worth a third read.