Customer Reviews

Kings of Infinite Space: A Novel

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

 

 

Paul Trilby has come a long way down, from a teaching position at a prestigious university to an office temp at the Texas Department of General Services. He has made every mistake in the book, and so he finds himself divorced, alone, barely making enough to live on, his life in shambles. Worse yet, he is haunted by Charlotte, the ghost of his ex-wife's cat, the cat he drowned because...well, it's complicated.

Well, cubicle hell is bad enough, but then strange things start happening. Strange pale men appear and disappear mysteriously. Strange post-it notes appear on Paul's computer. People know things about him they couldn't possibly know. Tiles in the ceiling move strangely, suggesting someone--or something--is up there watching.

Amusing as all this may be, it will soon get personal for Paul. He will be asked to make some terrible, serious decisions. Does he have what it takes? And is all this real? Or is Paul going psychotic? You will have to read the book to find out.

Author James Hynes is absolutely brilliant. His writing reflects his vast erudition without being the slightest bit pretentious. It flows along easily, and you find yourself unable to put the book down. At first it is humorous, but then it becomes alarming, enthralling, unvelievably suspenseful, as you race through the last hundred pages. I recommend this book highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

I gulped down this book in a single afternoon, it's not just that good but that thigh-slapping funny. And, oddly or perhaps not, that useful in thinking about examined lives and such. Of course, Hynes, can write bloody well ... or bloody well write, whichever, but lordy knows he gives awfully good book and then some. This one, "Kings of Infinite Space," is finest kind and a worthy counterpart to his earlier "The Lecturer's Tale" which also made sore my laugh muscles.

Folk who have read Hynes' earlier novela trilogy ("Publish or Perish") might recognize a character or two, not all entirely human. Hynes reprises these and gives them a fullness of life that anyone would envy.

If this guy ever writes a sententiously serious novel, he'd be in great danger of earning one of those prestigious prizes -- you know, a Pulitzer or an NBCC or some such. Because everyone knows you can't write a marvelously FUNNY brilliant book and win squat. Or rather, squat is what such a brilliant book wins.

Have you ever worked in one of those huge soulless offices --- the kind that is full of row after row of gray cubicles and harsh fluorescent lighting? Then perhaps you know how mind numbing the days in these environments can be. But for Paul Trilby, who works in just such an office, life in a cubicle, so he thought, was the least of his concerns.

James Hynes's latest novel KINGS OF INFINITE SPACE, tells the story of Paul Trilby, a temp worker employed in the General Services Department of the Texas Department of General Services. Trilby didn't always work as a tech writer in a government office. In fact, he was once an English professor at a prestigious university. But he was fired from his job there and when his wife Elizabeth found out about his girlfriend Kymberly, he was divorced as well. After Kym and Paul moved to Lamar, Texas (a thinly veiled Austin), their relationship also falls apart. Paul now finds himself typing away at TxDoGS, an office filled with eccentric and creepy characters, and living in a run down motel, haunted by Elizabeth's dead cat, Charlotte.

It soon becomes clear to Paul that the problems of working at TxDoGS are bigger than dealing with the snotty Olivia or his clueless boss Rick. For example, who is leaving cryptic Post-it note messages on his computer screen? Why does he feel like he is being watched? Is the recycling bin really a bottomless pit? Why are people afraid to be in the office after dark? And, finally, who are the mysterious Stanley Tulendji and Boy G, and what do they want from Paul?

KINGS OF INFINITE SPACE is office life taken to an absurd, but unique, extreme. Hynes's satire has a bit of the supernatural thrown in for good measure. Paul Trilby is a classic everyman down on his luck (granted, his current predicament is entirely his fault). He is grumpy and arrogant but still actually likeable. And, as Paul becomes more and more enmeshed in the bizarre world of TxDoGS, we cheer for him more and more.

The mysteries and secrets of the Texas Department of General Services finally become clear to Paul and at the same time dangerous. Hynes asks Paul (and readers) to think about how much he is willing to sacrifice for a work-free life, a life unaffected by gray cubicles and mindless busy work. Hynes also questions if a person is defined by the work they do.

KINGS OF INFINITE SPACE is at turns frightening and laugh out loud funny. Hynes has captured many of the realities of office work while contorting them to nightmarish fantasies. From office politics to bloodthirsty zombies, from classic literary references to a steamy love affair, Hynes erases lines between genres by putting it all in one quite readable novel. Smartly written, this is an entertaining examination of nine to five America. While it doesn't offer many revolutionary insights into postmodern alienation and the costs of productivity versus creativity, you will never look at the ceiling tiles above your desk the same way again.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

Think Mike Judge's "Office Space" as being re-written by Stephen King, paying homage to "Night of the Living Dead." Throw in some H.G. Wells (the author frequently alludes to "The Island of Dr. Moreau," and the relationship between the Eloi and Mordocks in the "Time Machine") and add some steamy love scenes, and you can get an approximation of James Hyne's off-the-wall "Kings of a Infinite Space."

Paul Trilby, a failed professor with a troubling past (especially with women and a cat named Charlotte) finds himself as a temp at the Texas Department of General Services, with some of the wackiest co-workers you will ever meet. Along the way, he finds a fiery lover in Callie, the mail room girl. Almost right from the start, Paul notices that things are not quite what they seem. Paul attempts to distance himself from his unsettling surroundings, but gets increasingly drawn into it, especially by the bogus "Colonel" who, at one point, forces Paul to paticipate in a surrealistic Karaoke contest.

I felt that the author's frequent use of allegory was sometimes heavy handed, and the last portion of the book seemed too far over the top, as if Hynes were trying to convert a generally humorous novel into horror. However, Hynes is a fine writer who has created something truly unique (although Stephen King and Clive Barker, to name two, could probably have written a similar book). Therefore, I recommend "Kings of the Infinite Space," and suggest you hold on tightly for the ride.

James Hynes "Kings of Infinite Space" is one of the most creative and hilarious books I have read in a long time. Hynes captures exactly what it's like to wake up every morning and face the endless maze of cubicles,coffee cups and telephones. Only he makes it a horror story as well. There are moments in the book that will scare the bejesus out of you and two sentences later you're laughing. A genius novel that deserves to be read by many.

There's a whole slate of academic novels out there - from as old school as The Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy to the last ones to catch the public eye: Straight Man, Wonder Boys, and Moo. James Hynes' Kings of Infinite Space blows the all away. It may actually be reductive to put this book in the academic ghetto - it's not as self indulgent as the other texts that have sprung form the world we've created where the only way to be writer is to teach and once one is safely ensconced in academe the only thing one has to write about is the University.

It's the story of Paul, a man who (although, as he rants early the book "I was almost a Fulbright, I was a finalist for a Guggenheim!") has sunk to level of temp worker at a Texas governmental office. Texas is played for laughs here but in the same kind way it's portrayed in Mike Judge's animated TV series, King of the Hill (in fact, it's hard to not to see the character JJ played by a King's hunched over, chain smoking, Dale Gribble). Paul has wound up where is through a series of bad choice - he slept with a student, drowned his wife's cat (whose feline ghost then haunts him), and then was cuckolded himself by the student/girlfriend/weathergirl that he followed to Texas. He finds himself in a cubicle, driving a battered Dodge Colt, and living at a residency hotel he names The Angry Longer Motel.

When the terminally ill tech writer in the cubicle next to his dies, Paul's life takes a turn for the better. He gets promoted, with a raise, and falls in with a group of three men: the aforementioed vitriolic JJ, Colonel (his name not his rank - although he's loathe to admitted he was a pastry chef in Korea for his service time), and Bill, a overly proselytizing sort who attempts to sell everyone on a hodgepodge of deals - including Fundamentalism and homegrown version of Agway. While spending time with the men, the secret of The Texas Department of General Services is revealed - the homeless men dressed like demonic engineers that Paul keeps seeing are real and play a very real role in the work that JJ, Colonel, and Bill do, or don't do as the case may be. In the end, Paul and the mail girl he falls in love with (Callie, a girl who clings to the Norton Anthology of Literature like a life preserver in stormy seas) face down, apathy, love, and demons in a Texas sized finale - complete with BBQ.

Kings of Infinite Space is wide ranging, funny in the same way A Confederacy of Dunces is funny and scary the same way Being John Malkovich was funny. It's impossible not to read this text without a mental movie playing in your head. Drawing upon Shakespeare, HG Wells, and the Metaphysical Poets, it's smart, but throwing in a healthy dollop of B movie, it doesn't take itself too seriously. This book is overwhelmingly recommended, even if you don't spend your time slaving away in the Ivory Towers like myself. And since I don't have tenure yet, if they need a good screenwriter, I'm available.

I sort of doubt that all the reviewers that have commented on this book actually read the whole thing. I say that because there is no way one could finish it, (and review it) without noting the dramatic fashion in which the climatic scenes are written. I won't spoil it here, but just know the last 50 or so pages ARE NOTHING like the rest of the book.

Yes, there are great points of recognition about cube office life. Yes, there is laugh out loud humor ( the text book lessons with vertically arranged double meanings are brilliant, as are the descriptions of various people at the library book sale -complete with a Strawbs reference- to name just two of many great and hilarious examples). But the tone changes so much at the end, that the light Kafkaesque look at office bureaucracy and the slices of Texas life so well depicted earlier are a distant memory.

A lot of times you hear people say a particular book 'can't be fit into any one genre' but trust me, here is a book that combines several styles and combines them well. The result is one of my favorite reads of 2004. I really enjoyed it on many levels, so I show up here to highly recommend it.

The first 2/3 of the book had me hooked, but then I started fading and wondering why it didn't continue to please. The build-up is very well done -- excellent characterizations, strangely mysterious goings-on, a love relationship that is very satisfying -- but once the weirdness starts taking center stage, it's just not convincing to me, and I found myself counting pages with 80 left to go, wondering if the whole remainder of the book would be a slog. It pretty much was, with developments there being too predictable and at the same time overly descriptive ("how many pages left?"). The very end rewarded the time spent to finish the book, and I can't help but feel that maybe this would have been a better movie than a novel. Three stars for a mostly fun and satisfying read.

Picked this up at the library yesterday and haven't been able to put it down. The plot alternates between harrowingly accurate descriptions of the mundaneness of everyday life and fantasy, and always keeps you guessing as to what will come next. I haven't laughed out loud this much since reading "The good soldier Svejk". This is the first time I'm writing a review of a book on Amazon, so impressed am I by it. Very highly recommended!

I've enjoyed Hynes's work for years. He unerringly hits the mark in his supernatural satires (Publish and Perish, The Lecturer's Tale), which are like nothing else being published today, although the influence of his literary ancestors M. R. James and H.G. Wells is clear. But he is also a master at plotting suspense, as readers of his first novel, The Wild Colonial Boy, will know. In Kings of Infinite Space these talents come together in the story of Paul Trilby, formerly of Publish and Perish, who has found employment at a Texas state-government bureaucracy. Hynes evokes the dreariness of office life with bitter accuracy and brilliant analogy. There is a particular kind of bureaucratese, Texas-style, for which Hynes has perfect pitch; and the quirks of office politics will be dreadfully familiar to all those who suffer in cubeland. However, rendered with equally deadly (as it were) accuracy are the vengeful spirits, human and animal, with which Paul must contend. In confronting them he attains a kind of redemption, via numerous hilarious yet hair-raising episodes-for the hilarity alternates with real, nail-chewing suspense. Not many authors can pull this off, but Hynes is a master.