The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?

Just as trivia: Powell's gotten increasingly experimental over the years and his new novel is nothing but questions. He reads it:

Miscellany

Here's some other stuff worth discussing, mayhaps:

• the absence (but at the same time presence) of Theenie
• The Baby Grand and its underage-serving inhabitants
• the "ludicrous as all get-out" (68) faculty party the Doctor throws
• the Ali-Frazer boxing match
• the use of the word "jake" throughout
• race relations, representations of race through location and language and dialogue
• significance of mullet
• custody junkets and their import
• the (confusing?) beginning
  
• the (rushed?) ending
• and a bunch of other stuff I'm not thinking of at the moment.
  

The Dutchess, Taurus, and The Progenitor

Simons' relationships with the above three concern the great most of Edisto, as does:

• the Doctor's "paramarital twinings" with both,
  
• the stand-in father figure that Taurus becomes,
  
• the reconciliation of Mom and Dad,
  
• who gets the say in the "books vs. baseball" parenting debate,

and some other stuff that I thought I'd leave unsaid in the hopes of inspiring an open thread.

So have at it.

Call Her My First Love, Fine By Me

Two girls worth exploring here in terms of Simons emerging manhood:

1. Diane Parker, she of the draws-dropping "field trips" (92).
2. Snug Harbor's Altalondine Jenkins Jenkins (133).

These two harbingers of our narrator's puberty--a puberty he's smart enough to know is coming but not mature enough to prepare properly for--sort of punctuate the B-story of Edisto, if you will, and adds to the coming of age story with its frankness. One's the backwoods girl who'll give you immediate answers, Two's the girl that makes those answers emotionally manifest, both of them pull an important curtain back on the mystery of the opposite sex Simons has become aware of.

Show you mine if you show me yours. Kissing underwater. Floating tits. Do kids even have to live these sorts of things anymore to learn about sex? Doesn't Google (and worse yet, 4chan) do all that heavy lifting for them?

The slow burn that was Simons complementing his very grown up adult mind with an increasingly adult body felt to me like a eulogy for the act of simultaneous sexual discovery. Maybe more like an Irish wake--it was fun to watch Simons smooth familiarity with the world betray him in this oh-so-important way.

As kids didn't we all "worry about round, wonderful girls [boys for Mags] with their edges ruined by life's little disasters, who remain solid and tough in their drive to feel good--to themselves and to you--and offer a vison of snug harbor" (137)? And wasn't the arriving at that motto half the fun?

The Paste of Life

"You try to put the world in simple terms when it's complicated" (47).

Who the hell is Simons kidding?

Edisto gets all sorts of things right--things I hope we discuss--but first and foremost this book is a celebration, a luxuriation of syntax. The way syllables form words and words turn into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into chapters and chapters into story and story into themes. Powell practically wallows in the possibilities of the English language.

I'm not sure how discuss-able the language of Edisto is, but I am sure I want to share my favorite passages:

• "And one of the ways to prolong pleasure is to not chop up time with syllables. [Dudes at the Baby Grand] go for something larger than words, but no essays" (9).
• "...I the homunculus..." (46).
• "...that he moved like a fish in cool water because I stocked the tank" (49).
• "TV and the law are both these large things that are technical and controlled by white people, so it nerved her out" (56).
• "I'd heard enough. The good old days were on a respirator. A boarding school and landed gentry snot-nose college prep buggers for Simons Manigault" (151).
  

The Boy Act

One of the ways Edisto skewers reader expectations, I think, is not just by affording an impossibly adult sophistication in such a young man, but by making Simons aware of his precociousness and able to switch it on and off with varying levels of success. Early on, page 17, he decides that "The Boy Act is the best thing when in doubt," and in subsequent encounters, he relies on it when he:

• sizes somebody up,
• gains more information on a situation,
• helps Taurus out.

But does it work? The Boy Act doesn't seem to fool anyone, really. Most of the adults just seem to appreciate the efforts Simons is putting into making them feel more in the company of a child than of a man-boy with perception beyond his years, but his efforts at The Boy Act seem to buttress awkward situations just enough.

So we juxtapose this way. Anybody notice any other such stark differences?