Customer Reviews

Going Native

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Stephen's Wright's third novel, Going Native, is written as a postmodern modular satire. Robert Coover very correctly described Going Native as "a sensational prime time novel...a pornographic twilight zone of beebee-eyed serial killers, drug-stunned pants-dropping road-warriors and 'marauding armies of mental vampires,' a nightmarish country of unparalleled savagery, where there is no longer any membrane between screen and life and the monster image feed is inexhaustible."

Going Native is composed of a seemingly unconnected series of vignettes of life along the road whose sole connecting factor lies in the presence of Wylie, a middle-class husband and father, and resident of Wakefield Estates. After stealing a green Fold Galaxie, Wylie transforms himself from everyday businessman into mass murderer. His chance encounters with a sequence of characters includes a suburban couple into drugs and kinky sex, a murderous hitchhiker, the runaway daughter of a desert motel owner, a voyeuristic porno moviemaker, a woman who sells jewelry and serves as a witness in Las Vegas wedding chapels and a California film industry couple who have just returned from a trek through the jungles of Borneo.

The only thing serving to connect these disparate narrative modules is Wylie, who, while on the road, operates under the name of Tom Hanna. Fate, chance or pure bad luck brings the life of each of the above characters (whose background has been filled in for the reader) into contact with the bizarre figure of Wylie. He thus becomes the one connective nomadic signifier that serves to link these disjointed stories as well as a metaphor for a fragmented and disjointed American reality.

The modular format of Going Native enables Wright to satirize various aspects of modern American life while bringing together, within a single narrative the contradictions of postmodern identity. Although the characters Wylie encounters randomly along the road may at first appear mutable, fragmented and even freakish, we come to realize in them a tiresome, almost cliched sameness and uniformity.

Going Native is a compelling indictment of the American postmodern culture. Wylie, himself, brings chaos, disillusion and death to all whom he encounters. In doing so, he comes to represent a form of estrangement that Wright so thoroughly critiques. He burrows into our images, forcing each of his victims to confront their status as temporal constructs and acknowledge their own mortality.

The point Wright seem to want to make is that we can't escape our own historicity, our own "hauntology," our own mortality; they are embedded in the makeup of our very lives. That Wright is able to portray this complex contradiction in disparate narratives disrupted and connected only by the figure of Wylie is testament to Wright's tremendous satiric talent. With Going Native, Stephen Wright joins that group of postmodern satirists (Pynchon, Gaddis, Acker, Elkin, Coover) who choose to diagnose a highly symptomatic postmodern culture and in so doing uncover the sheer radicality and absurdity of its connections.

I truly loved this novel, so much so that I have read it now completely through three times. The structure, presented as a series of fully self-sufficient short stories each interlinked by the presence of Wylie (or whatever his name may really have been), at first only peripherally, and then increasingly more emphatic, until at last we are completely inside his head (without much extra room, at that), is not only brilliantly conceived, but also spectacularly realised. The way Wright uses language is maximal, to say the very least; his leisurely pacing and complex sentence structure are almost reminiscent of Faulkner (as is the book's unrelenting darkness), but his hip appropriation of popular iconography is unique. His characters are every stripe of crackpot and schemer, and the way he contrasts the lives and thoughts of each, stretched out in thickets of languorously-phrased prose, with the brutal and abrupt way each is touched by Wylie's increasingly deadly actions forms, for me, the greatest appeal of the novel. The section on Borneo, in which the filmmaker and his wife "go native", is perhaps the most extraordinary of the pieces, although the entire book is stunningly written and as fine and unforgettable as anything I've read in years. It inspired a renewed interest in me in reading modern short stories, and I read both of Wright's other novels as well, although clearly this is his best to date. As David Lynch once described Eraserhead, it is a dream of dark and disturbing things. It's certainly well worth the effort.

"So I think that under this kind of vast superstructure of civilization is all this other stuff. And I suppose looking at it biologically there is that reptilian brain that the whole cortex sits on top of. It's just there. And it's part of our heritage and its inescapable and the fact that it is inescapable leads to some disturbing conclusions about what it is we're made of. I think that question is what the book's about. In that sense I think that Going Native means having these more primal desires and impulses just rise up and seize hold of you." so says Stephen Wright..

Stephen Wright believes that everyone is capable of murder. He doesn't have any doubt about it. Everybody. He guesses people don't want to be told this. He truly believes this, and as we start this magnificent novel; we learn early on that this is his truth. We are introduced to Wylie, who is unable to digest the killing he has seen, and who moves on; and who appears in every chapter in one form or another- the dark eyes, the gun, the glint, and/or the suggestion. The inverted structure form of storytelling introduces us to the people who are touched by these impulses of violence. The real consequences, it lessens the voyeuristic view, and we learn what really matters from the people intimately involved.

In a dark green '69 Ford Galaxie, Wylie Jones drives across America and into the heart of darkness. We meet Wylie, and his wife Rho, and their children and two friends who come for dinner. The All-American family until Wylie goes missing.
Mr. CD and Latisha , the burned out, doped up couple living from one fix to the next. The hitchhiker and the various and sundry people who pick him up. The dangerous and the deranged. Emory Chace, the motel owner and his crazed family, all of them unhinged just a little, and is that Wylie who has absconded with the daughter? Perry Foyle who resides in a "Fuck House", and videotapes the smut for sale. He sideswiped a dark green Ford as he tried to force his way into his parking place, a BIG mistake. Nikki and Jessie who work in an all -night wedding chapel in Las Vegas. The chapel somehow keeps losing some of their for-sale wedding bands. Amanda and Drake, my favorite couple, who go on a search for truth and reality in Borneo. Amanda, who, above everyone else, has the ability to reach redemption and to understand the truth. And then to the Babylon Gardens, the nursery to the stars, and to the woman who owns the business and the man who lives with her.

Finally, to the last scene, where we really don't see anything. It is all in our head. It is all dialogue, no action and simple prose. It is all our impression, and really isn't that what the road to life is,BK?

Stephen Wright is a magician with his pen. As he says "I think, when your sense of self becomes more and more fragile and more and more tenuated and there's less control then. What lies in the wake is a life of just sheer impulse and living for the moment, etcetera. This is where a lot of people going up to prison live. That's why they have problems. They don't know how to channel all this or even how to successfully repress it. This is what learning to be civilized is all about, learning how to deal with your anger, your rage that everyone has." And Stephen Wright has the right idea, we are all but a moment away from our next impulse. Scares the Hell out of you, doesn't it?

Highly, Highly recommended. Terrific book. prisrob 5-13-06

You've got to love Amazon readers! There were at last count, 580 reviews of Grisham's The Brethren, and 10 (counting mine) so far of this vibrant, challenging, tour-de-force novel. I think this state of affairs would put a sardonic smile on Wright's phiz. It comes as no surprise that the reader from New Jersey didn't like Going Native. One look at his "more about me" list of reviews will tell you why (no offense, guy).

If you love satire of the darkest variety and enjoy reading authors who don't rely on cliches or hack conventions in painting their portraits, then give this one a go. It's the most mordantly humorous book I've picked up since I last read Celine. If Wright's view of American culture is too jaundiced for you, then I would suggest you stick to the sugar-coated variety of fiction that meets your requirements. There's nothing sweet about this vision. If you're afraid of having a bad trip, avoid this book. Because if you open these pages, you are, in Betty Davis' vernacular, "in for a bumpy ride." If you can't handle the truth, look elsewhere.

This is one of the four or five books that are automatically on my list of recommendations whenever someone approaches me on the subject of reading. Absolutely more than five stars.

Wright's novel vastly transcends the savvy pop-cultural allusions and references in which it abounds. "Going Native," as well as his earlier stupendous novels "Meditations in Green" and "M31: A Family Romance," acutely articulates the fluid and associative trajectories of thought as they fall under the influences of contemporary modern American culture. At random, pick any page from one of his books and you'll discover that ubiquitous lapidary perfection of form that is a hallmark of artistic greatness. Wright is, as was Cormac McCarthy, a great unsung hero of American literature.

I read this novel when it came out, and have waited
impatiently ever since for a follow-up. Occasionally I
come to Amazon.com and check in to see if
S. Wright has anything on the horizon, but so far,
no go.

I remember starting this book, and I felt as every word,
every scene was lighted by kleiglights. If you are a true
reader, you will love this book. If not, buy a Robert Ludlum
or a John Grisham.

(I do want to disagree with one reader, who felt that
Annie Proulx's "Accordian Dreams" didn't add up to a
real novel. Novels, like houses or churches or human
beings, can be shaped in innumerable designs. Do
yourself a favor. Read both).

I have been getting very disillusioned with most of the male writers in this country whose perspective is invariably that of an adolescent male (no matter what their ages) but this writer is the real thing. He gets deeply into his characters in the most economical way and he knows them inside out. I haven't even finished this novel but already feel moved to write a testimonial. This book is about everything American. Its structure is a road book-cum-linked stories. Each one is a perfect, complete cameo of whatever life he is depicting, whether the loner hitchhiker harassed by cops on a freeway who is picked up by a trucker, his cab papered in glossy pictures of naked pin ups, or a debauch at a sex ranch whose reigning queen decides to film a sexually-oriented version of Christ's passion (her summation of the effort: "Blasphemy, I don't know, should be more droll") or a suburban couple entertaining another suburban couple or a couple spinning in a world conjured by crack cocaine, Wright is pitch perfect on details, on dialogue, on feelings, moods, atmosphere. This is a GREAT writer. He does what everybody is doing and yet he notches it up to the highest level. I don't understand why he isn't justly celebrated. In a hundred years when people want to feel what it was like to be alive in our time, this is the writer they will go to.

This experimental novel crackles and sizzles with intelligence and sardonic wit. As others here have pointed out, each chapter is a self-contained or modular unit, a complete short story. The shadowy figure of Wylie aka Tom Hanna flickers in and out of these chapters. You're never sure what lies or mayhem will follow. The prose style is hallucinatory. As someone else said, it torques up reality to an intensity that renders even the most banal act in poetic terms, while the sporadic violence is mind-numbingly intense and intimate.

I can't understand why this book is currently out of print. It is a towering literary achievement, one of the greatest novels of modern times. If you're ready for a blizzard of dizzying language, a breakneck narrative drive and the intricacies of a kaliedoscopic novelistic form, then you too will love this book.

And that's a good thing! This novel still haunts me to this day.I read it when it first came out and was blown away by Mr. Wright's way with words.In turns humorous,frightening,fanciful,frustrating,but always alive and in the moment;this is writing to inspire hope for the future of modern literature.The only other authors I can remotely relate to Wright's work are:A.M.Homes,and Lorrie Moore. I have since loaned this book to a friend and it was never returned,so I must buy another-although it is not the kind of book just anyone would enjoy(you have to love wordplay and experimentation),not just plot or character driven works.But if you are adventurous it's a hoot!Definetly 5 stars.

I don't like horror or slasher movies and I read this book with trepidation for that reason. Indeed, there are some brutal passages and there is a fair amount of tension building up to these moments. This book seems to imply that our contemporary culture is somewhat sociopathological. It's narrative focus is on the underbelly and on the shallower, more empty parts of the non-underbelly.

This 'novel' is structured as a series of short stories that have one character in common. This character often does not get a lot of 'screen time' (the prose feels cinematic), but is crucial to each climax. The identity of this character is enigmatic: you are never sure of his identity, but you become progressively more familiar with his nature.

I'm not sure if the author intends for this to be a representation of contemporary American culture or not. If so, then it is in the form of a cautionary tale. If not, then it may be a sort of egghead version of the slasher picture, which is artful, but odd. There is much rumination about identity here: its frailty, its mutability, its destruction. A scary book where light is the absence of shadow.