Customer Reviews

Going to See the Elephant

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I can empathize with Rodes Fishburne, I really can. San Francisco is the most magical, whimsical, passionate, and beautiful city I've ever lived in. I hate to write, and even I could wax rhapsodic about this place. However, a great setting does not a compelling story make. At least, not always.

Going to See the Elephant (and it is a great title) is essentially the coming of age story of San Francisco newcomer Slater Brown. No, he's not a teenager. He's in his early twenties and he's come to SF to be a Writer. His dream is to write... something that will endure the ages. It's an immature dream, and Slater has a lot of learning to do in the course of the novel. First, though, he needs a job.

That he finds at the fourth-rate newspaper, The Morning Trumpet. Slater aspires to be an ace reporter. Instead, he is summarily fired after submitting his first article. That is until fate, or something like it, intervenes. And here there is a bizarre, supernatural plot device that is never really explained--although I kept waiting for something more, right up until the end of the novel. Anyway, suddenly young Slater has all the scoops any reporter could want. He's a powerbroker, a man-about-town, beloved of the people, and hated by those with secrets to hide. Most notably, he has made an enemy of the Mayor of San Francisco.

Along the way, he meets a beautiful and mysterious girl and a brilliant and mysterious inventor. He pursues both. You can pretty much guess how the girl subplot goes, and I really don't even know what to say about Milo Magnet and his incredible weather experimentation. I didn't really see the point at all. In the end, our hero learns his life lessons and has grown up a bit.

So, as I said above, I really wanted to like this novel. It had so many elements I love: humor, romance, San Francisco. But it never really worked for me. The humor wasn't really that funny. The satire--if that's what it was meant to be--not that sharp. The romance, frankly, not that interesting. The protagonist, I'm afraid, not that interesting.

I'm glad this novel speaks to many people. I sincerely wish I was one of them because I was really looking forward to reading it. Mr. Fishburne has talent. Perhaps his next novel will be more to my liking.

Rodes Fishburne's novel Going To See The Elephant is part comedy, part love story and part fable, all set in present-day(ish) San Francisco. Our hero, Slater Brown, arrives in the big city with a few dollars in his pocket, a steamer trunk full of books by the greats and an ambition to become a great writer himself. We know nothing of Slater before he comes to San Francisco and the reader wonders what it was, exactly, that led him to choose the City By the Bay as his destination. On a personal note, I was pleased that this wasn't another New York tale.

Slater is soon out of money and his best efforts to write the great American novel come to nothing, despite days- days, I say!- spent tucked away in the back corner of a seedy tavern scribbling madly in notebooks. He cons his way into a job at the city's black sheep newspaper and through a chance meeting with an odd mystic soon learns all the city's dirtiest secrets. Slater's modern muckraking resurrects the dying Morning Trumpet and establishes Slater as a celebrity, as well as the sworn enemy of the Boss Tweed of a city mayor. Add to the mix a maternal landlady, an exotic chess champion, two old school newspapermen straight out of the thirties, and a not-so-mad scientist who can bend the forces of nature to his will and you have what must be described as a fun read. This is Fishburne's debut novel, and promises a bright future for the author.

It is hard to believe that this is Rodes Fishburne's first novel; Going to See the Elephant possesses the wit, wisdom and exceptional prose of a veteran writer.

What I Loved
- This novel is set in modern times, yet often takes on a feel of something set more in the 20s or 30s. This can be attributed to many things, including The Trumpet's (the newspaper the main character Slater works at) resistance of technology, Slater's attire, the cast of old-fashioned characters, and lack of pop-culture references.
- The magical realism aspect of inventor and genius Milo Magnet's character. Some would argue that it's not magical realism, it's just an acute understanding of science. Whatever it may be, Milo's inventions and scientific visions are fascinating and fantastic.
- The love story between Slater and Callio is endearing. It's not a love story saturated with sappy sweetness or unnecessary graphic sex scenes, it's a love story about two people that truly are meant to be together.
- The mayor, and his staff, are hilarious. The man is determined to bring down Slater and The Trumpet, in the process becoming morbidly obese and paranoid.
- The writing is superb. There really is no other way to describe it; Fishburne draws you in with his smooth, descriptive (but not overly so) style.
- Fishburne doesn't fall into the trap of making a coming-of-age story cliche, as so many first time writers do. Slater is undoubtedly on a journey of self-discovery, he is trying to find his place as a writer and in relationships. He tastes success and failure, he feels confused and he learns. Yet there is no sense of complete closure at the end; he is still discovering what he's meant to do with his life.

Problems
- It ends
- There are no other Fishburne novels to currently read

Amusing, smart and entertaining- definitely worth it.

I have lived within fifty miles of San Francisco for half my life and it has always been one of my favorite cities--picturesque, glamorous and exciting--so when this author introduces me to Slater Brown who is in love with San Francisco and life, in general, he eases me into this story with natural grace.

And then to find that Slater is a well-read young man nurturing the dream of being the best writer in the world, well that did it! I was captive to Going to See the Elephant from the minute the bicycle-taxi driver deposits him and his "250-pound trunk" in front of a bar in the Mission District.

From this humble introduction to TK's Bar and Simmer, which happened to host a bevy of misfits only interested in baseball and beer, Slater starts his journal. Ignoring those around him, unwilling to share his dream for fear they'll think he's a "fruitcake," he wanders all over San Francisco...always seeking the elusive story that will make his words "live on forever."

As his funds dwindle, so do Slater's spirits, forcing him to make a sensible decision, to forget his "words living forever," and write something commercial.

When he eventually lands a job at the lowliest paper in the city, he's thrown in with some of the most colorful characters in modern literature. Told to "go out and get a story," Slater is back to wandering The City.

His first article gets him fired, but he persists with his dream. That's when this story takes a bizarre supernatural twist that leads him to so many blockbuster stories that he's soon the talk of the town...the darling of the press...a powerhouse who lets success go to his head...

Slater's meeting with the "Answer Man" in a Mexican taqueria on an out-of-the-way street starts the process rolling. Just what did the mysterious man give him that led to finding these headliner stories? How does the Mayor figure into the plot? And Milo Magnet, a successful, eccentric inventor?

Who is Callio and will she help him find his way back to his true self?

This is where Rodes Fishburne gets off-track in his astonishing debut novel, IMO. A convoluted plot gets even more convoluted when Callio enters the picture. This is where he lost me and I lost some interest in the story. It was an unsatisfactory ending for me.

Due to Fishburne's masterful use of prose, realistic dialogue and clever supernatural ploy--I easily suspended my disbelief because I wanted to believe--this story should have been a five-star. But since he seemed unable to sustain everything for a realistic, satisfying ending, I chopped off one point.

I look forward to more from this author; he does, indeed, have a rare talent.

ENDNOTE: Be sure to read the author's note on the title before reading the book. I failed to do that, so kept waiting for the tie-in to elephant, thinking the San Francisco Zoo would figure into the story at some point. For those of you who may not read the book: Since the elephant symbolizes luck, "Going to see the elephant" is an old expression used in some regions when someone went off to seek their fame and fortune.

Reviewed by: Betty Dravis, July 2009
Author of "Dream Reachers" (with Chase Von)

This book beckoned for two reasons: it is the story of a young man reaching out to find his place in the world, and it takes place in San Francisco. It was a disappointment because the young man finds his place in a fantasy world, but in a novel that doesn't use the fantasy to tell us anything we couldn't have learned otherwise, and because its setting in San Francisco is anchored with the flimsiest of references to the locale. Though the author lives in San Francisco, apparently, it would have been possible for him to have constructed a more richly detailed and believable setting for his novel from any number of published sources: for example the columns and books of Herb Caen and Armistead Maupin.

When I first saw the title of this book all I could think of was that old song about "going to see the elephant, elephant, elephant, jump over the fence, fence, fence." Turns out that my initial idea wasn't that far off what the author meant-"Going to see the Elephant" was a kind of a code for going for the ultimate experience.

Slater Brown is descending on San Francisco to make his career. For you see, Slater is the best writer in the history of the world-he just hasn't written anything down in the correct order yet. But after aimlessly wandering around the city, spending money and waiting for inspiration to strike Slater wises up: until he manages to become famous and gain the wealth that corresponds to that, he needs a job.

And he lands on at "The Morning Trumpet" a failing newspaper with a history of pulling out of dead-end situations and always marching on. Then, quite by coincidence (or maybe its fate) Slater is given a literal key to the secrets of the city-a means by which to eavesdrop on all kinds of conversations around the city. Naturally, he turns what he hears into stories and soon is a Phnom and loved by all. Except the mostly corrupt major who believes he is out to get him and is overeating to deal with the stress.

But at the same time a genius-nay, the genius of the world is a funk. The only thing he can think to get out of it is weather-specifically controlling the weather. Not for any evil-genius reason, just to do it (for there is no doubt he could.) And Slater is falling in love with a chess master-and love is making him think of what it really means to have a story to write...

This is a cute and quirky novel. It's a lot of fun to read. The only major thing (its not really a problem, more of an oddity) with it is that the stories happening alongside each other, Slater and the genius and the mayor and the city, all seem to be coming to this huge climactic event and then they just kind of spiral away from each other and it all ends.

It is quirky. It is cute. It is odd. It is annoying at times. It is also an excellent way to spend two hours.

Four stars.

Rhodes Fishburne is an excellent writer. That's not the question. His descriptions and way of phrase is quite nice and pleasing to the senses.

However, I found it hard to keep with the story. I've been reading too many mystery and suspense novels, I guess. I kept waiting for something to happen. After toughing my way through 90 pages, I thought, "Finally. Ok. Here we go." But alas, it stalled again- back into the lovely phrases and descriptions. I'm afraid I need more action than I found here.

Slater Brown, the protagonist of Rodes Fishburne's debut novel, Going to See the Elephant, probably would have brought Tom Wolfe to my mind even if there wasn't a blurb from Wolfe on the book's front cover. Brown is desperate for success. He has included that the authors regarded as great had published something important by the age of 29.

Brown had published one poem -- in a special issue of the Bartelby Review devoted to dyslexic writers. He arrives in San Francisco with enough money to devote days to writing the Great American Novel. He jots down reflections on how to start a novel, but doesn't start one. Like many, he aspires to be a writer (indeed a great writer) without actually writing.

He finds lodging with Mrs. Cagliostra, a empowering maternal landlady who believes in her tenant and who seems cut from the same cloth as Armistead Maupin's Mrs. Madrigal. And Slater Brown is hired as a reporter on what has become a weekly newspaper. The Daily Trumpet has survived from the 19th century primarily because it owns a building. With typical sloppiness, the address of the office building would place is inside the venerable Palace Hotel (now the Sheraton Palace).

Brown finds that in riding electric busses around the city, his transistor radio picks up phone conversations. This is a sort of interesting idea, though it seems to me that as with government surveillance, the signal-to-noise ratio would be impossibly low. That is, any scandalous revelations would be difficult to pick out of the cacophony of banalities of hundreds of thousands of phone conversations.

Also, there is something very old-fashioned about (1) the conversations going through overhead phone lines rather than cellphones, (2) getting the news scoops out in a newspaper, and (3) the bloated mayor-for-life. Mayor Oswell seems positively 19th-century a figure of fun, though in "Sunny Jim" Rolph, San Francisco had a mayor for nineteen years (Rolph resigned to take office as governor).

The Daily Trumpet has too little revenue before Brown's scoops boost circulation to have a website. That and a move toward solar-powered busses suggest that the novel is supposed to be set in the present day. This makes it very odd that there are no cell phones. And even decades ago, Maupin put Mary Ann on tv (even as his tales were serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle, as 19th-century novels often were...)

This is particularly remarkable when Slater is locked out on a roof by the father of his inamorata, chess whiz named Calliope (Callio for short--not Cali?).

Yes, there is a romance along with the sudden success story that allows Slater Brown to dress like Tom Wolfe and be invited into Social Register parties as Truman Capote once was on the other coast. And there is Milo, a possibly mad inventor who wants to become literally a weather maker.

The romance is formulaic, the superinventor a caricature of a caricature. The plots interlock. Alas, none of them is plausible to me. And the "local color" is so often off that I wonder if Fishburne is familiar with San Francisco.

I picked out the book in part because it is set in my hometown, but the implausibility of Fishburne's San Francisco details was far from my only disappointment. There were some bits that amused me (more promoting snickers than belly laughs), but the ending is particularly flat, especially for an attempt at screwball comedy mixed with political satire à la Preston Sturges's "The Great McGinty."

BTW, the title is an expression originally applied to the Gold Rush of 1849. The elephant was fame and fortune there for the picking for those going west.

This is a fun book. Part fantasy, part romance, part science fiction. The lead character, Slater Brown, is the young man with grand ideals about being a writer. He arrives in San Francisco with a trunk of books, finds a place to live, scribbles in his notebooks in the corner of his favorite tap room at T.K.'s Bar and Simmer. Down to his last half dollar, Slater finds his way to The Trumpet, a newspaper on it's last pica legs. Landing a job as cub reporter, the young man soon takes the city by storm. With the help of a mystic, he is able to listen in on all the goings on in the city. Love walks in in the form of Callio, a world-class chess champion and muse. There is the genius inventor, Milo Magnet, who creates and unleashes weather storms on the city. The egocentric mayor and a whole cast of other characters. All in all, this is a light, fun read. A great first novel.

It took me a long time to get into this book. I found the beginning a bit tiresome and the main character, Slater Brown, a whole lot weird, if not downright dumb--almost Gomer Pyle simple.

The book overall, seemed confused. It seemed to want to be history, fantasy, mystery, love story . . . oh, and implausible rags to riches story.

But, I kept on reading and once I got to a nice, mellow place where I could totally suspend disbelief, I began to enjoy the story somewhat. I love the character of Callio, and hoped through her eyes maybe to see something redeeming in Slater, but that never happened. I chalked their romance up to the fact that her father had such a tight grip on her she was a bit desparate at this point.

The ending of the book is a little like the movie "Rocky"--when I saw Rocky, I thought it sucked until the end and then, I fell in love with the movie. I almost fell in love with this book at the end, too. Almost.