Customer Reviews

The Subject Steve

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Well, the other reviews here wrote there great synopses, but here's my two cents.

David Foster Wallace has this essay about the difficulty today's novelists have competing with mediated reality. Roth wrote this essay first, and Franzen's written it since (and has now written a novel following Wallace's advice) But despite W's literary catholicism, his fictions wallows in exactly the same stuff he abhors. And, of course, that's what makes it great, and it's what most fortysomething novelists spend a lot of time thinking about. I'd guess that Lipsyte's just get that this is stuff you learned in college--mediated reality is just a given.

This book is usually descibed as satire, and I guess that's true because it reminds me of Nathanial West--it manages to be scathing and poignant at the same time, and it's very human. It's also very--and I mean, <i>very</i>funny. It's like some sin not to be a realist today, but it's also not like the book is particularly difficult or anything (it's moving, but that's another story). I mean, it feels silly to recommend this book--you just want to thrust it into people's hands. On the other hand, this just might be a book that should have "this book is not for you" sticker slapped across the shrink wrap. You're always laughing at stuff that is real, which hurts. Which makes it so cool. Which also hurts.

I guess you all know this book is about a dying man whose condition is universal. Which is funny, because explains why something which reminds me of the best ever episode of the Simpsons has been reviewed as if it were an episode of ER. But it's not at all a morbid book. Steve-not-Steve (see? already it's confusing) really just has these poignant, hysterical adventures, told in these amazing sentences which read kind of like what street poetry would sound like if street poems were beautiful. Which is not to put down Franzen or street poetry or anything, but simply to say that if you have a good year you just might like this book. I did.

I was intrigued within the first 50 pages or so because of the direction it seemed to be heading. Then it got bland in the middle . It just seemed to be the same thing spit over and over to the reader. It did have its high moments in the middle. Then at the end of the book it got better, but it was hard to get through the 2nd third of the book, it probably goes deeper than i gave it. I really didn't get into it, so that may be why, also I am still a teenager but I did get most of the satire. My recommendation is that it's one of those books you have to read yourself to judge because you may take it a different way. It just wasn't for me.

... with a little Vonnegut leavening. (SAFE, for those not in the know, is a Todd Haynes movie from the mid-90's about a woman suffering from a mysterious illness.)

For those who are Palahniuk fans and have blown through all of his books (not a difficult task), THE SUBJECT STEVE may be a good followup. It veers a couple degrees farther away from reality (and closer to a Vonnegut-esque satirical future), and is potentially even more willfully transgressive than any of Palahniuk's work, without any of the underlying thematic logic that Palahniuk's transgressive bits seem to have.

But there's definitely something with potential here, and it's intermittently fulfilled. Perhaps the biggest problem is that it's attempting to be a satire, and the target (or targets) of its satire gets so diffuse by the end of the book that it's obscured entirely. Regardless, a quick read, and there will be those who love it, so definitely check it out if your tastes lean in the directions outlined in this and other reviews.

In "The Subject Steve," the main character - let's call him Steve, as everyone else erroneously does - is dying. From what? We don't know. What are the symptoms? Again, nothing. The only thing that is certain is that he is, indeed, dying.

And at 256 pages, he is not dying nearly fast enough.

In the technical sense of the word, "satire" could be a valid term of description for "The Subject Steve." However, the same logic would classify MAD Magazine as being a Social Studies / Current Affairs periodical.

But the catch is, it's not funny. As humorous a subject like terminal illness can be, Lispyte drops the ball on every possible occassion. Each quirky passage doesn't merely fall flat in delivery - it explodes on contact, taking the lives of little old ladies and brown-eyed puppiy dogs with it. And then, it returns to beat them further into oblivion.

The characters, too, are not sympathetic. They aren't even caricatures or symbols of humanity - they are more along the lines of shells torn from foreign B-Movies, reanimated in some lunatic's mind, lobotomized in a sinister dungeon-laboratory hidden therein, and finally rendered in crayon on the back of a brown paper bag. That's where the author discovered them, and created a story revolving around them.

But the question is, how much of the story is his own creation? the mysterious illness scenario has been done before in the third season of Monty Python's Flying Circus. The track-suit wearing friend of Steve's appeared in all his glory in "The Tall Blond With One Red Shoe." The bizarre notes and "doctors" are all revived from Terry Gilliam's "Brazil." And all of the above were much funnier in their original settings.

Satire works best when taken subtle. In this case, the reader feels just as bruised and broken trudging through the mess as the articles Lipsyte savages in his novel. Savages, yes - with dulled bloody teeth.

"The Subject Steve" follows the misfortunes and adventures of a middle-aged American named Steve--who claims he is NOT named Steve--who has just been told that he is "dying of something nobody else ever had." Steve stumbles through the media frenzy that erupts after the doctors name his disease PREXIS (Goldfarb-Blackstone Preparatory Extinction Syndrome), and eventually ends up at the Center for Non-Denominational Recovery and Redemption. At the Center, he encounters a half dozen wacky characters lead by Heinrich, a soldier-turned-guru, who is full of profane sexual parables and literally tortuous healing techniques. Steve eventually escapes from the Center to stay with his ex-wife and her family, only to be kidnapped and taken to a desert media bunker from which Heinrich's followers have launched a mass media entertainment assault dubbed "The Realm." Hallucinogenic, rapid-fire dialogue defines much of the action, as does high-stakes sex, drugs, and violence.

Personally, I found the book abhorrent. Central character development is inconsistent, and dialogue is filled with calculated non-sequiturs, monosyllabic questions, and frequent dead ends. If these conversational dead ends piqued the interest of the reader (as I can only assume they must be intended to), the technique could be interesting, but unfortunately the result is simply dizzying and dull.

To his credit, Lipsyte develops the adolescent media-paranoia of the first half of the book into what is almost a full-fledged social commentary at the end--complete with a FAQ sheet and faux web links in the text--but the character development of Steve has been so sparse that you simply don't care what happens to him.

The book could almost approach allegory level, but the Lipsyte's over-the-top attempts to evoke outrage are exhausting and distracting. While the social issues addressed are valuable--the medical industry, mass media, and self-help gurus are all attacked--the book's graphic descriptions of "water sports" with prostitutes, bestiality, incest, drug use, and torture are so obviously calculated to evoke disgust that they merely irritate.
Interestingly, however, one of the few truly engaging passages in the book was a story of a zookeeper having intercourse with a tigress.

"The Subject Steve" simply wasn't my cup of tea, but if you're into this sort of writing (ala Fight Club and Trainspotting), you might enjoy it.

Jonathan Swift he ain't. Somehow Lipsyte's satire here is too quirky and contrived to skewer human foibles or fates with any telling resonance.

I will, however, stay tuned--in the future he may find some story line worthy of his talents. As to craft, he is master of the one-liner, the joyously lunatic phrase, and the reading itself provided many, many laughs.

I'm a huge fan of Lipsyte's Home Land, which was brilliant, hilarious and original. The Subject Steve is also unique and funny at times, but somehow lacks the same punch. Lipsyte can write, of that there is no doubt. His prose is unique and he can turn a phrase like few others, but the flow of this novel just missed something. It's still worth a read, especially if you enjoy the authors distinct style

B.F. Skinner's Walden II and all I got was this lousy novel. Ok, it's not lousy. It's great. It reaches a bit more than Saunders' CivilWarLand and a bit less than any Palahniuk book, and seems to succeed more than either of them because of that balance. There are more than a few completely random or ribald passages, so it's certainly not to everyone's taste, but if you're in the mood for something a little nervy, you have reached your destination.

Some half-wit wrote: "Well, after reading the last sentance of this crummy but brightly colored book...." Well, to quote Boston's Mission of Burma, what could I say to that? Best to let the work speak for itself. To wit:

"Home, I threw away my watches my clocks, my clock-radios. I kept my Jews of Jazz Calendar up on the kitchen door. The knowledge of days was crucial, I decided, the marking of hours a mistake."

"I called up my daughter at the School for disaffected daughters."

and:

"I readied myself for the period in which I'd have to get ready. I waited for the time during which I'd have to get ready. I waited for the time during which I'd have to wait. I tied up loose ends, tidied up my accounts, put my papers in order, called old friends. I didn't really have any papers.
I did have friends.
I had Cudahy.
I called Cudahy.
'I'm coming to see you,' said Cudahy.
'Come soon,' I said.
I called my ex-wife, nothing if not a loose end, or at least a bit of untidiness, what with all we had left unaccounted for. .
'I knew you'd call,' said Maryse. 'I had a dream about you last week. You were walking through the pet food aisle at the supermarket and a kind of viscid bile was streaming down your chin.'
'It wasn't a dream,' I said. 'I'm dying.'
'I know, baby. I'm dying, too. But we've tried so many times already. We just have to learn to live with things the way they are. Things are not so bad. Truth be told, I'm not unfilled by William.'
'William's a very good fellow,' I said.
'He's not you,' said my ex-wife, 'but then again, you're not him.'
William had once been my hero. Then he whisked away my wife. Now he was a very good fellow, a f**cker, a thief. He deserved to die of whatever everybody had ever died of before, but with more agony, a heavier soiling of sheets.
'You may not hear from me again,' I said.
'That's probably a wise choice,' said Maryse.
'I don't think it's a choice,' I said. 'I really am dying.'
'Don't threaten me, said Maryse.'"

* * *

Well and so, I'd tell Mr. Sentance to go write like that, or, at least, to try and get his spelling down. It'd be a bit unfair, though-few of our best writers can write with such concentrated force, such compassion, and such humor.

Look: Each generation gets one or two, perhaps a few, writers this good--we should treasure them. Shower them with grants. Erect Town Square statues. Read them aloud to our lovers and lovers-to-be. Argue about them, heatedly. Sure. But not attack them, idiotically, anonymously, in the Rambles of Amazon Park.

It's sad that the work of a writer as extraordinarily gifted as Sam Lipsyte (and let's be honest: the man is a genius; there is nobody else on earth performing with his level of virtuosity on the page) elicits such responses of transparently bitter envy. We should be rejoicing that he's writing. I wish him a long, productive life. I look forward to the marvels yet to come from his beautifully generous mind and heart.