Customer Reviews

The Medusa Frequency

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

 

 

Since first reading Hoban's Riddley Walker almost twenty years ago, I have searched for other books that spoke as well to the cynical, questing artistic soul at the end of the twentieth century. They have been few, and rare, and mostly out of print in America. I approached this work with trepidation, fearing that it could not match the charm and spirit of this author's seminal masterpiece. I was wrong. From the first NNVSNU TSRUNGH, The Medusa Frequency establishes a new paradox of myth and machine, leading its reader, and its hero, through a humorous quest for true love, true work, and the meaning of life. The hero, Herman Orff, is a novelist without profit who writes classic comics for a living. After a late-night conversation from his computer monitor puts him in touch with a primordial reality, the comfortable fabric of his reality begins to unravel. His visit to a musician of his acquaintance leads him into another electronic encounter, with subsequent and unpredictable visits from the drowned head of Orpheus. His job writing comic books is terminated when the editor decides to "go glossy," trading the comic series for an x-rated magazine of classical Greek themes. Throughout, Herman is enticed by curiosity about the fate of his lost love, Luise, although he eagerly pursues the the prospect of a new love in one Melanie Falsepercy, whose legs speak to his soul. Vermeer's Head of a Young Girl and Eurydice of the Orpheus legend also compete for Herman's attention--and understanding. Herman's quest and the resolution of his contemporary dilemma remain quixotic--and strangely satisfying. As one might expect, Hoban's love of words and language give richness to this tale and extend its influence to the subliminal pleasures of certain sounds and rhythms. While this work does not surpass Riddley Walker, with its masterful re-creation of the English language, it brings a delightful, and humorous new perspective to life in our times.

Although Russell Hoban will always be listed as 'author of Mouse and his Child, Turtle Diary and Riddley Walker', books like Medusa Frequency (and Pilgermann as well) give evidence that Hoban is not merely an author with a few great books up his sleeve but one who continues to hammer out a treatice on the heart of human experience, and it is one which becomes more precise with each outing. Though only half the size of Riddley Walker, The Medusa Frequency examines universal/archetypal themes through dark humor and mythological allegory. Because Hoban is a real master of language, not stopping with where the meaning of words cut off, but moving beyond them, he seemingly accomplishes more then Jung does over thousands of pages. It feels weird to be comparing fiction to authors like D.T. Suzuki, but the quote in regards to the latter: "he combined the innocence of a child with the holiness of a saint." could easily be applied to Hoban; easily one of the best authors still writing.

A friend recommended Riddley Walker, but I couldn't find it so I picked this book off the shelf instead. I had no idea what to expect, the first few pages of a book are always a little hard for me to invest in, but I tell you I'm so, so happy that I didn't walk away.

I'm amazing that such an incredible writer has not gotten more attention. This book is beautiful, infused with mythology, and so incredibly poignant. I haven't read Riddley Walker, but even if The Medusa Frequency doesn't meet those standards-- it definitely breaks the lukewarm standards of books of thousands of lukewarm books that are in print right now.

It feels like the universe, existential human worries, and the most beautiful love all coming together.

Why is Russell Hoban not better known as a remarkable adult experimental novelist, and cultural thinker?

In The Medusa Frequency, the protagonist receives messages on his Apple computer from the Kraken, who, naturally for a creature of Scandinavian myth (a sea monster, as alluded to in John Wyndham's sci-fi classic "The Kraken Wakes"), begins to tell a mythic story about a cryptic "hero".
This is eventually turned into an adult superhero comic, printed on the back panels of cereal packets - art as down-to-earth as marmalade and bran!
Hoban has no illusions about the dubious significance of high art within a world dominated by popular low culture.

FAR, FAR DOWN IN THE DEEPEST DEPTHS OF THE HURGO MURMUS LIVES NNVSNU THE TSRUNGH ...
ALONE IN THE BLACKNESS, THINKING, THINKING IN THE BLACKNESS OF THE ULTIMATE DEEP ...
THINKING VIOLENTLY ... OF GOING AFTER WHOEVER PULLED THE GREAT SNYUKH ...
THE BLUG OF NEXO VOLLMA ... NEXO VOLLMA IS THE BLUGHOLE OF THE UNIVERSE ...
THE DEEPLY BAD ONES DID IT ...
THEY WANTED TO HEAR THE BIG WHOOSH ...
THE BLUGHOLE IS WHERE THE MOTHERCODE IS TRANSMITTED FROM AND THE TRANSMISSION MUSTN'T STOP ...
IN THE BLACKNESS NNVSNU THE TSRUNGH TRANSMITS THE MOTHERCODE;
SPINNING HIS MIND LIKE A PRAYER WHEEL HE REVOLVES CONTINUALLY THE NUMINOSITIES AND NEXIALITIES THAT COMMUNICATE THE UNIVERSE TO ITSELF ...
WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE IS A SPACE-TIME SINGULARITY WHICH IS IN FACT A NEURON OF THE COSMIC MIND TO WHICH THIS UNIVERSE HAS OCCURRED
(pp 130 - 132 - capitalised in the original).

Fictitious children in a Hoban CHILDREN'S story invent a character called Bembel Rudzuk (who reappears as a major character in Hoban's adult historical novel "Pilgerman") and an edible earth's core (a great pun in the childrem's book!):
-- the mythical Kraken in the adult story invents a character called NNVSNU THE TSRUNGH and a "blughole" of the universe, "transmitting the mothercode".
Hoban's work, whether for adult or child, is of a piece with his other books, such as the post-holocaust Riddley Walker with its Alice-in-Wonderland distorted language, and Pilgerman, speaking with Death in a Medieval children's crusade, and seeing his own death as a young man, a son, meditating on Vermeer, Bosch and the Fall of Antioch.
Lavinia Bat's winter dream, in which night is "a lantern-globe of sound ... lit with the color of the wind, the rolling of the earth, the starfires of crickets ... [making] a gentle hissing as it turned in space and all its skies turned with it", from which she hears the whispered message, "Pass it on ... the something from the other ... the other dream".
This is the same trance-vision in which Herman Orff, in "The Medusa Frequency" speaks with the head of Orpheus, and reads messages from the Kraken on his computer screen.

Alas, too late for a Nobel: they aren't awarded posthumously!

John Gough -- Deakin University -- jagough49@gmail.com