Dogma by Lars Iyer

Published by Melville House on February 21, 2012

Lars and W., two friends last seen wandering through life in Spurious, return in Dogma. The end is still near. Lars is still the butt of W's scathing criticism and the recipient of his opinions on subjects ranging from courtship to capitalism. Lars' flat is still damp. Lars and W. are still loyal to their idealistic vision of an unspoiled Canada. They are still fond of Kafka and Plymouth gin. They are still trying to understand religion and Rosenzweig. They still embrace life while feeling defeated by it, no more consequential than "leaves swept up in an autumn storm."

New in Dogma: W. images himself as Diogenes while visiting Nashville ("the Athens of the South"), while deeming Lars "a Diogenes gone mad"; Lars and W. compare the British to Americans (who can't make true distinctions, particularly when it comes to gin); Lars writes poetry of despair; W. takes Lars on a pointing tour of Plymouth (where Lars photographs W. pointing at architecture he admires).

Also new is the intellectual movement that W. and Lars decide to christen. They call it Dogma. Dogma has rules. Dogma is spartan, full of pathos, sincere, and collaborative. Ironically, W. and Lars are none of those things, making them poor standard-bearers for the movement they invent. They are, however, according to W., "the last friends of thought." It is up to them to keep thought alive. That effort is slightly hampered by a new rule: "The Dogmatist must always be drunk" because "who can bear the thoughts that must be thought?" Fortunately they think just as much, and about as clearly, when they are drunk as when they are sober, although after drinking they have trouble remembering the other rules (not that it matters, since they add new rules on a whim).

In my favorite section of Dogma, Lars and W. travel to America on a lecture tour (their lectures, unsurprisingly, are sparsely attended). As the best and (mostly) worst of America rolls past -- novelty motels, "huge crosses looming over nowhere," miniature golf courses -- I was reminded of Humbert Humbert in Lolita. W. is as acerbic as Humbert but funnier; his commentary provokes chuckles and occasional belly laughs ("They've made a Disneyland of Armageddon!").

When a sequel is more of the same, a reader probably shouldn't complain if it is a sequel to something wonderful. Dogma gives us more of the same biting humor, more of the same maddening characters, more of the same nutrition for our minds. Still, one of the things I loved about Spurious was the sense that I'd never read anything like it. That magical feeling was missing while reading Dogma, because I've read something exactly like it: Spurious. And that, really, is one of my only two complaints about Dogma: the feeling that I was reading outtakes from Spurious. The second is that Dogma has more philosopher in-jokes than Spurious (at least I think they're in-jokes; not being a philosopher I can't pretend to understand them). I think Spurious is a bit more accessible to those of us who aren't intimately acquainted with the history of philosophy.

Those mild criticisms aside, Dogma is just as funny and provocative and stimulating as Spurious. These books are as much about friendship as anything else, and reading Dogma is like visiting old friends (albeit the kind of friends you want to keep at a distance lest they begin to annoy). I'll therefore look forward to the third book of Lars Iyer's trilogy, but with the hope that Iyer finds a way to differentiate it from the first two.

RECOMMENDED

The Technologists by Matthew Pearl

Published by Random House on February 21, 2012

In 1868, the navigational instruments on every ship in foggy Boston Harbor go haywire at the same instant, causing a disastrous series of shipwrecks.  Soon thereafter, all the glass along a Boston street liquefies.  The baffled authorities, fearing that “the darkest reaches of science and mechanical arts” are responsible for the disasters, need expert assistance to find an explanation.  Will that help come from venerable Harvard or its fledgling rival, the Institute of Technology?  The conflict pits a professor at Harvard against the president of MIT, and William Blakie, a leading Harvard student and pompous moralizer, against Marcus Mansfield, a working class kid who was plucked from his job as a machinist to become one of MIT’s first students.  Mansfield and two fellow students turn to practical science to solve the mystery.  The call themselves the Technologists.

At times The Technologists seems like an extended science lesson, but it is never dull.  There are moments of wicked humor; college students and pranks go hand-in-hand while making fun of the pretentious is always good sport.  The possibility of romance arises with each appearance of the frosty Ellen Swallow, MIT’s lone female student, although not with Mansfield; Agnes the chambermaid is more his speed.  Flashbacks to the Civil War add another layer of interest.  The novel eventually mixes elements of a thriller with an intriguing whodunit that invites the reader to puzzle out the identity of Boston’s saboteur.  Matthew Pearl employs misdirection to good effect, yet still plays fair:  there are subtle clues to the culprit’s identity planted along the way.  Shrewder readers than I might identify the villain before his or her identity is finally revealed.

The Technologists pursues a number of interesting themes, many centering around educational models that were undergoing a revolution in the latter half of the nineteenth century.  Harvard represents the “classic education” that values tradition and faith while upstart MIT favors factual accuracy and scientific investigation.  There is no room for the “new sciences” -- chemistry and physics -- at Harvard while they are the bread-and-butter of MIT.  Academics and politicians debate the wisdom of teaching science to women, of educating students who are not “morally fit” (i.e., are not devout Christians), and of waiving tuition for students from the lower classes (who, in the view of some, will never be the sort of gentlemen who can benefit from their studies).  Should education remain entirely in the lofty realm of theory or should students get their hands dirty performing experiments?  Although the reader knows which side prevailed, the debates offer a fascinating look at the evolution of modern education.

Sometimes the characters in The Technologists seem a bit too Dickensian, but that’s also part of the novel’s charm.  I prefer characters with greater depth and endings that are a bit less formulaic (even the last chapters are a throwback to Dickens), but I can’t fault Pearl for writing a novel that is exciting, interesting, and fun.

RECOMMENDED

Exogene by T.C. McCarthy

Published by Orbit on March 1, 2012

Germline, the first novel of The Subterrene War series, told the story of a journalist who became a part of the war he was covering, participating in battles and growing emotionally attached to genetically bred female soldiers called Germlines.  In Exogene, the second novel in the series, the focus is on one of the Germlines, a genetic named Catherine.  “Faith and death” is the genetic creed.  Combat is a test of faith; death is the welcome reward, the entrance to a promised afterlife.  Yet the reality of war changes people, even people who have been nurtured in vats and programmed to kill.

Catherine is a perfect killer. At 16 1/2, she is the finest genetic soldier ever produced in America.  Yet Catherine begins to feel an unnatural (for a genetic) will to survive, a fear of death that may or may not be an early onset of the “spoiling” that awaits her at the end of her service.  We know from the first novel that Germlines begin to rot away when they turn eighteen.  We also know that despite being conditioned to accept that fate (while craving a more meaningful death on the battlefield), genetics occasionally try to run, to escape the war before reaching their expiration date, an effort that will prove to be futile -- or so they are told by their human creators.

Catherine’s story initially centers on her attempt to escape her makers and her engineered fate.  She eventually falls into the hands of male genetics bred as Russian soldiers.  The Russians are working on something new -- an Exogenic Enhancement, a hybrid of human and machine -- and who knows what the Chinese are doing (not to mention the Koreans).  Hating Americans and Russians about equally, Catherine must make a choice about her future, and it is that choice that drives the novel’s second half.  Since Catherine is handicapped by hallucinations in the form of flashbacks as her mind begins to erode, the second half blends Catherine’s present with snatches of her gritty past.  Yet as the story unfolds and as Catherine’s conception of her purpose evolves, we begin to suspect that Catherine’s moments of superficial clarity are unhinged from reality.  Whether due to spoiling or the drugs she was given or religious rhapsody, Catherine sometimes seems a tad crazy.  That, of course, makes her an interesting character.

While T.C. McCarthy writes combat scenes that are as vivid and exciting as nearly any I’ve encountered in military science fiction, he also writes with poignancy that is too often missing from the genre’s war stories.  McCarthy imbues his characters with greater depth than is common in action-driven stories.  His vision of the future is interesting and more credible than most military sf novels I’ve read.

McCarthy makes impressive use of religion as the force that motivates the Germlines.  The belief that killing is the path to salvation is a common feature of religious zealotry, a point that has been made often enough in fiction, but McCarthy takes it a step beyond the ordinary:  What happens when a zealot begins to suspect that she is not serving God but is killing to serve secular masters? Or, in terms of McCarthy’s story, what happens when a genetic begins to worry that she is not a perfect instrument of God, but a flawed creation of man?  When a genetic who is conditioned to hope the war will never end begins to long for -- not exactly peace, but a chance to kill on her own terms, to destroy an enemy of her own choosing?  There is something both intellectually and emotionally engaging about Catherine’s redefinition of her life’s purpose.  Perhaps Exogene is about the true meaning of freedom (nothing left to lose?) but I think its meaning is open to other interpretations, particularly in light of an unexpected ending that made me question my understanding of Catherine.  That’s one of the things I like about Exogene and Germline:  the novels work as high energy action stories but they operate on other levels as well, giving the reader political and philosophical meat to chew upon.

I felt for the journalist in Germline more deeply than I connected with Catherine, but I think Exogene is in many ways a more cohesive work than its predecessor, and the better of the two novels, albeit only slightly.  Both are worth reading, and I look forward to the next installment.

RECOMMENDED

The Detour by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Published by Soho Press on February 14, 2012

Ten years after leaving Italy, Ernst Vogler returns to the country where he spent five eventful days. To tell the story of those days, The Detour returns to 1938. Vogler is on the curatorial staff for the Sonderprojekt, acquiring art for the Reich, particularly art that is pleasing to the Führer. His mentor, Gerhard, has been seized and taken to Dachau, imprisoned for the crime of having opinions. It is unwise, in this era, to ask the wrong questions, particularly if one questions the wisdom of concentrating all of Europe's most valued art in Germany and Austria, and so Vogler keeps that question to himself. In Gerhard's absence, Vogler is next in line for an important assignment: travel to Rome to transport a priceless sculpture, Myron's Discus Thrower, back to Germany.

Vogler begins a cross-country trip to the German border, accompanied by the sculpture and the brothers Cosimo and Enzo. As the miles fly past, we learn more about Vogler's life: his difficult relationship with the father he continually disappointed; the "strange variation" that set him apart from other children; the source of the scar that makes him so self-conscious; his loss of passion for anything but art, "itself a substitution for other losses." As the trip continues, Vogler learns that the route has been planned so that Enzo can make a romantic detour. One detour leads to another until Vogler meets the brothers' family, including their sister Rosina.

The Detour tells a story that fascinates in multiple ways. On its simplest level, the novel builds thriller-like tension as the reader wonders about the fate of Discus Thrower and the men who are bringing it to the border. The tension builds to a dramatic climax that I didn't anticipate. The Detour also works as an unusual love story in a time of war: "War takes away nearly everything, but perhaps not that final illogical tendency [the possibility of romance] that allows us to continue living." Actually, there are two love stories: one, involving the brothers, is told obliquely; the other, involving Vogler, is eventful but a bit predictable.

From a more intellectual perspective, The Detour looks at pre-war Europe through the lens of art as Vogler and Rosina argue about whether Discus Thrower represents an ideal: the German loves the sculpture's physical perfection while the Italian despises its failure to represent emotion and individuality. Vogler admires the perfection of the human form -- a notion of the Übermensch that the Nazis recast in racial terms -- and seeks it out in art, yet he was raised with an acute understanding of his own physical imperfection and has carried the shame of that defect throughout his life. Rosina, of course, sees things quite differently.

At its best, The Detour is a character study that illustrates the conflict many German citizens experienced during and after Hitler's rise to power. Vogler sees things (like Gerhard's arrest) that he knows are wrong but does nothing to prevent them. He signs onto "the pact of silent paralysis that is to blame for everything." He maintains a sincere sense of duty and loyalty but resents "unity-building drivel." Ultimately the reader wonders whether Vogler can overcome his sense of obedience and order, whether he can make a decision -- the correct decision -- based solely on an emotional understanding of right and wrong.

The Detour is a sophisticated, sobering novel told in a compelling voice. There's a bit too much exposition at the end as the story circles back to the present. The final scene is too obvious; it detracts from the story that precedes it. The novel is well worth reading for the events that occur in 1938, not so much for the much shorter passages devoted to 1948.

RECOMMENDED

Oath of Office by Michael Palmer

Published by St. Martin's Press on February 14, 2012

The doctors in Oath of Office aren’t Marcus Welby.  They have problems.  Serious problems.  Dr. John Meacham, fearful of losing his license after yelling at yet another patient, kills seven people in his office before trying to kill himself -- a fairly clear violation of the Hippocratic Oath, to which the title refers.  Dr. Lou Welcome’s license was once suspended for self-prescribing amphetamines.  Having been helped through recovery by a physician’s wellness program, Welcome took a part-time job with the program in addition to his part-time position in an ER.  Meacham was one of Welcome’s clients.  Welcome is now in trouble with his boss, who blames Welcome for failing to demand more aggressive treatment of Meacham’s mental instability.  When the doctors treating Meacham all behave negligently, when Meacham’s widow endangers Welcome with her bizarrely fixated behavior, and when a chef at a local eatery sticks his thumb on a chopping block, Welcome begins to wonder whether the whole town has gone batty.

Developing alongside Welcome’s story is one involving the president, his wife, and a disgraced Secretary of Agriculture who resigned after being photographed with a naked teenage girl inside a motel room.  The First Lady rather bizarrely agrees to assist an unknown Mystery Man in an effort to clear the SecAg’s name and obtain his reinstatement to his former position.  To reveal how these two storylines converge would risk spoiling a clever plot; suffice it to say that you might learn more about agriculture than you knew before you began reading.

Oath of Office pairs a medical mystery with a story of political intrigue.  The plot is intellectually engaging and sufficiently fast moving to keep thriller fans happy.   The story seems plausible (an increasing rarity in the world of thrillers) although I’m not a scientist and might be easily fooled.  The source of the bizarre behavior isn’t much of a mystery; it’s fairly obvious by the novel’s midway point.  There are times when the villains do remarkably stupid things for the sake of moving the plot along, but those lapses of logic are forgivable.  An improbable romantic subplot neither adds nor detracts from the story.  A couple of plot twists toward the end are nifty if not entirely unexpected.  One of the final scenes will appeal to fans of gruesome.

Michael Palmer’s characters are adequate if not particularly memorable.  Characters who attend AA and reverently recite the serenity prayer are standard fixtures in thrillers.  Like many of those characters, Welcome is a bit too self-righteous about his day-to-day sobriety.  However justified it might be in the real world, pride is a deadly sin when exhibited in fiction.

The dialog Palmer gives to members of the medical community is convincing.  Dialog spoken by streetwise characters suggests that Palmer has spent more time in an office than hanging out on the streets.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Palmer’s best scenes showcase Welcome’s skillful response to medical emergencies.  Those passages are captivating, filled with tension and urgency.  The rest of the novel is written in a capable if unremarkable prose style.  One of the primary action scenes is unoriginal:  any thriller set in the heartland seems to feature characters running through a cornfield while being chased by a thresher.  A couple of times the narrative gets bogged down in discussions about the efficacy of AA versus psychotherapy as a treatment for substance abuse.  Recovery wonks might find the discussions fascinating but I thought they were distracting.  Fortunately those shortcomings are more than offset by Palmer’s creative story.  On the strength of its plot and its fast-moving action, Oath of Office is a novel that most thriller fans (not just medical thriller fans) should enjoy.

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