Tennis rackets and angry trees

So we begin our adventure into A Bottle of Rain in the firm grips of the third-person narrative—the domain of the omniscient author—with the caveat that there are one or two chapters written in the first person.

There are few novels which can be both legible, enjoyable and deeply intelligent without the pretension of the modern penchant for artistry — the novel manages the same trick as Rembrandt's gammy eye: to observe the world just at a skew, and draw some meaning from it. Not only that, one of the cruelest and most entertaining. Every character is held up to a withering, uncompromising spotlight: I doubt there is a more incisive eye since Joyce in penetrating the idiosyncrasies of character.

There is also a near-painterly approach to his writing; as you have seen, it is a sequential novel, and he builds his characters vividly throughout the collective power of the series, while anchoring himself in the world which one believes exists, but is wholly its own place—a world in its entirety. There are few novelists in my mind, who can take this approach and make it work. Added to this are the clever allusive brushstrokes he employs throughout: a mention of Cezanne will spark a brief impressionistic moment in his prose; an allusion to Bukowski occurs in an improbable (for all those who have never experienced it) romantic liaison, which ultimately remains unfulfilled.

Harris' style is that rare joy of being delicately employed to engender powerful moments—the delicacy is in construction, the architecture...the effect is stunning.

It is written in sequences. Each sequence generally lasts no longer than six pages of 1.5 spaced letter. So we have an effective structure to develop the multiple voice.

Let's begin with our senior protagonist, Jacob, who operates in the following general style:

It was a cool morning. It would soon grow humid. Jacob sat on a park bench in front of the tennis courts. He tapped at the small bandage on his head. He looked at his tennis racket. It needed new blue wrap around the frayed handle. He was broke. And embarrassed. Knocked down by Debbie. And he was hung over. He twirled the tennis racket in his hands. Where was his daughter this morning? Jacob sighed and stared at his tennis shoes. He needed new tennis shoes too.

...

He set the tennis racket down. He opened Gogal's Dead Souls. He melted into it. "The history of comic absurdist fiction began with Gogal," he said. He glanced around the park, the paperback dropped in his lap. There were few souls in the park this morning. It was a large park. Grass sprouted through the cracks in tennis courts. The nets sagged. Across a large expanse of grass two children the size of peas played on a roundabout. Jacob saw his daughter appear suddenly on the wings, content. He took a deep breath.

Observe the spare wit of these descriptive paragraphs. Jacob's actions are akin to a Buster Keaton series of motions. The motion of language is so pared down as to become absurdist—the reader is lulled by the wit: "He set the tennis racket down. He opened Gogol's Dead Souls..."The history of comic absurdist fiction began with Gogal," he said. The narratorial voice has taken on absurdist tones—and the reference to Gogal either reinforces this....or catalyses the voice into being absurdist. We should not forget we have a conscious artist behind it all. This is metathesis. Our subject is Jacob. Our objects the park, the tennis racket—and Gogol. Imagine Keaton in a state of abject despair while rowing himself along train-tracks with a wooden beam. Or Chaplin staring mournfully with the sole of his shoe stuffed with grass. Even the nets sag—they have just sagged along with Jacob—shrugged a mournful shrug.

But then we have his daughter—"Where was his daughter this morning?" They never meet. He has gone to the park to play tennis, with a friend. He happens to see his daughter. Has he gone to the park to play tennis, or to see his daughter. Is tennis the excuse. We are aware that Jacob is in his mid-twenties and divorced. His daughter is a constant burden of absence. His wife is a bitter humiliation. Jacob is in the depths of despair and self-pity. He could not provide for his family. His ex-wife is with a wealthy man now. His abject despair has reached a level of self pity that can only seem absurd—to him and us. The narratorial voice reflects this. It has become this. It echoes and riffs on Jacob's despair. It catalyses his hands and mind—and in turn is catalyzed. We are lucky here that the author has provided us with a lodestone—Gogal (or Gogol)—that we are alerted to what is taking place. This metatextual device may seem obvious to the more skeptical reader—but for a new art, the metatext is a useful guide.

Jacob never does see his daughter—nor does he play tennis. The daughter is most likely a dream; the tennis a prelude to a strange day. His friend arrives and they blow off tennis to buy donuts:

Donuts. Emily wanted donuts. Leaping up, said she would buy Jacob a donut if he came with her.

....

"You have to help me pick out a gun," Emily said, as he followed her to her car. She had on purple and white hi-top tennis shoes with black crew socks.
       "Donuts," Jacob called out. The game could wait.

We notice something else—not just the gun (we can't give the story away too much), but the fact that the author in the first two sentences writes speech into the body of the text, without quotation marks, without that little French hyphen. "Donuts. Emily wanted donuts." The narratorial voice has the same voice as if Emily, Jacob and author were, speaking, hearing and repeating.

Then that last sentence, "The game could wait," leads us back to the traditional third-person. The author is stating a fact—it leads us out of the environment.

So we have seen our first example of metathesis. The voice is immersed in the scene to the extent that it takes on the attributes of it. It is still descriptive, it still observes the third person...except with those exclamatory "donuts." Yet it is wholly part of the scene. The author has taken pains to give a beautiful metatextual twist to the events: Gogal...a hint—the key to understanding his style.

There are many such absurdist elements in the novel-most are comic gems, but some have that insidious threat of violence or despair (such as the section quoted above), and all display a measured metathesis.

Let's look at a section from later in the novel: "No toys for Roger":

No toys for Roger. His mother was an artist. Here. Look at my paintings. Black pencil sketches of tortured sad, people. Bleak, stark, angry trees. Clouds thick and swollen with storms. Draw, she said. We all start simple. Stay simple, his mother told him more than once, glass in hand, cigarette in the other, faceless man stretched out on wooden steps leading up to the back porch. The man had the biggest, silent smile. You're a simpleton, his mother told him.

Roger is a National Book Award Winner. A poet and professor, he is having an affair with one of the other principles, Darla, a Native American college student—and Jacob's love-interest. In this passage, it is his mother who is having an affair—he can never see her paramour's face—it is a blind-spot.

Observe how the voice takes on its character. If we add line breaks to the sentences, we can see where we are heading with this:

No toys for Roger.
His mother was an artist.
Here. Look at my paintings.
Black pencil sketches of tortured sad, people.
Bleak, stark, angry trees.
Clouds thick and swollen with storms.
Draw, she said.
We all start simple.

Now we can see how metathesis operates—it is multiple. The parts of the molecules have been rearranged into new molecules. The voice has been restructured (it does not restructure itself), it has become, while remaining in the third-person, the scene. It remains descriptive, but has become an aspect of Roger, and Roger an aspect of it.

And finally, this from "The Rope":

Coal-black and downright velvety was the sky over Indigo. Sparse, minimal stars glowed so shiny and clear Jacob was certain there were five points on each and every one of them. The moon was so ripe and full it looked ready to explode. They stared out over a perfect field of prairie grass that rippled in the cool, summer night breeze as if it were being caressed by a huge invisible hand.

Jacob has literary ambitions. In this section we bear witness to Jacob's attempt at descriptive narrative. While the voice is again in third person, it is as if Jacob is writing through the narratorial voice. Or the narratorial voice is expressing Jacob's attempts. See how the tone contrasts with the overt poeticism of "No toys for Roger." In these last two passages, metathesis has taken an overtly literary aspect—but see how nuanced the style.

Jacob and the other characters are given so many of these scenes that it would be impossible to give an comprehensive example: this is the nature of metathetical writing.

Metathesis does not have to be overtly literary. The allusion to Gogal in the first example above was, as we have seen, a directive to the reader. It is as easy to create a scene of abject horror, devoid of wit and sympathy as it is to litter the page with allusions in a loquacious chapter exploring the psyche of genius.

It is mutable, scaleable and utterly reasonable as a device. Its only flaw, if it can be called such, is that the reader may be caught unawares, and complain about the lack of consistency of voice. Harris has avoided this potential "pitfall" by incorporating traditional narrative into his book. The style is new—it is not yet fully formed...yet Harris displays enough of the device to be the practical progenitor of this art.

So here we have it: an as-yet unpublished novel (though one which is in process of being misunderstood by publishers), which you cannot read yet—a revolutionary novel. A novel that remains readable while employing its device: hints at, but does not lecture the reader. A practical guide to the employment of metathesis, which this little text may have preemptively (read: prematurely) elucidated.