Registration Caspar*
J. Gordon Faylor
Ugly Duckling Presse
2016
$15.00
Reviewed by Clara B. Jones
“...or were they rather the one
imagining things big bag village that I'd place Caspar, as if they
went along courting local parents, fat diaries, birds, celebratorily
unleashed dogs, the farm to table staff service tracing Leah's house
in their panting endurance, thinking they were remote to this
incisional social horror about them, only to learn they were already
its ostensible illusory fixtures?” Registration Caspar, p 28
Experimental or avant garde
writing is a heterogeneous sub-genre of American literature.
Generally, these classifications are identified by their approaches
to innovation, form, language, technique, composition, and/or method.
Among the notable figures of these sub-genres are writers who are
found outside the boundaries of mainstream publishing (via
Matias Veigner), though some authors have entered the canon (e.g.,
Gertrude Stein, Alice Notley, John Ashbery). The critic Paul Stephens
suggests that “experimentalism” shares “a rejection of a
romantic lyric ego, either as a model of artistic creation or
critical judgment. Experimentalism has consistently been viewed as a
brake upon an unexamined or solipsistic subjectivity.” Stephens
goes on to say that “'experimentalism' derives as much meaning from
its social and institutional contexts as it does from its
transhistorical basis in the analogy to scientific method” and
“experimental literature was often knowingly written for limited
audiences—not out of snobbery, but out of esthetic and political
principle.” Related to Stephens' views, the critic Natalia Cecire
quotes poet-critic Lyn Hejinian as stating that “an experimental
tradition in American poetry [has] sources in Pound's imagism and
Stein's realism.” The present review of J. Gordon Faylor's [Editor,
GAUSS PDF] new book, Registration Caspar, is an attempt to
convince the reader that it is an extreme and extremely compelling
tour de force of experimental literature in the tradition of
associative writing and, possibly, epic [“long form”] poetry.
Registration Caspar exemplifies
serious writing exhibiting a significant degree of linguistic play
characteristic of many experimental works. Ugly Duckling Presse's
media statement about the book provides an entry into the novel with
the following information: “Caspar, a non-gendered entity, only has
five hours left before it is executed by its employer. Though it
remains to be seen if this execution is biological and programmatic
in nature, it's clear that money needs to be made for the two
partners Caspar leaves behind.” One concludes from this description
that the book is a dream or fantasy or delusion or “new world” in
the tradition of psychological realism [Conceptual Psychology] since
prisoners convicted of capital crime are not [in a “real” world]
released to tie up unfinished business before they are executed or,
better, erased [sic], from society. Further, in actuality, a
subject cannot go back in time; thus, regrets are irrelevant when
faced with erasure. “What is, is.” in the words of Joe Guidice,
an imprisoned star of the series, Real Housewives of New Jersey®.
The publisher's “blurb” provides the reader with the novel's
architecture, hinting at the ending before we engage with the text's
complex narrative elements and identifying the writing as
metafiction—fiction about fiction. Further, Caspar is described as
an “entity,” instructing the reader not to assume that
he/she/they/it is a character in the conventional sense though he is,
somehow, registered, classified, and, thus, duly noted.
Faylor's book can be placed in a
Postmodern tradition whereby meaning is surrendered to the reader
him-/her-self [them-selves]. Some concrete elements are clear from
the publisher's statement characterizing the novel as “form-play.”
Indeed, like many examples of experimental writing, Registration
Caspar is accessible and humorous, in great part because the
author invites the reader to participate in the act[s] of creativity.
It would be a mistake, however, for the reader to attempt to decode
Faylor's meaning, a process that would be necessarily presumptuous
and, ultimately, disrespectful to the author, as well as, a form of
appropriation [of the author's aesthetics, perceptions, and ideas].
On the other hand, if the book is all play, it is nihilistic. As some
critics have said, however, art requires a moral stance, and,
following the summary provided by Ugly Duckling Presse, we might
assume that Faylor's book is a form of surrealism or futurism,
minimalistic because of the “story's” truncation of the temporal
dimension [five hours until erasure]. The interpretation of
Registration Caspar that I advance in this review represents
my subjective experience as a reader of the novel. I do not claim to
understand Faylor's serious or playful intentions; however, I am of
the opinion that the book is both serious and playful as a work of
art. Related to this, I did not form the opinion that the author was
attempting to manipulate me, the reader, or to exhibit his superior
skills and intelligence. Like the best literature, Registration
Caspar left me feeling that my world-view has been expanded and
that my investment of time was productive.
Some experimental works are codified,
and I think Registration Caspar is no exception. In my
opinion, Faylor permits his readers to play with words and their
potential significance[s] through the interchange, addition, and/or
deletion of vowels and consonants [see Wikipedia®
entries for possible interpretations]. Nowhere is this more evident
than in the protagonist's [main entity's or Registrant's] name,
“Caspar,” which might be transformed into Caesar [an overseer of
the transformation of a republic to an empire (oligarchy as in
present-day America)] or Castor [mythology; a constellation; a New
York art gallery] or Cortázar
[a writer associated with Kaiser (sic) Wilhelm II; a
contemporary fashion designer] or paradigm or parametric or Casca [a
messenger in Shakespear's play, Julius Caesar] or Paracelsus
[diease/disorder as psychological phenomenon]. In addition to other
re-iterations [“scried”/screed; “Caspar”/”Cezary”/Caesar/Kaiser;
“y”/yes; “x”/unknown entity (sic); “n”/unknown
number], numerous neologisms occur throughout the text
[Chrysalidocarpus; snowwphhpiles; yato], perhaps, signifying the
unknown or unknowable or the inadequacies and limitations of
language. I read these various conventions as reminders not to try
too hard to decode Faylor's intentions or meaning[s]—not to treat
the novel as a puzzle to the exclusion of other purposes or
non-purposes, a major contradiction embedded in the text.
The novel is a
puzzle, however, though I think to view it solely in that manner
would be to miss a profound conceptual framework. The unknown and
unknowable are about our future which the rapid pace of the “story”
indicates is a fate we are racing toward. Seemingly random placements
of references to time and to money suggest that Capitalism and
materialism have doomed us to a meaningless, unknown, dark end
[erasure]—to be or to become, like Caspar, voided as individuals.
But, here lies another contradiction: the word, “execution,” can
be defined as “to die” and, also, “to act.” Thus, the book's
vaguely-defined “entity,” Caspar, may not be without agency [or,
hope?], assuming that the seemingly inevitable “execution” or
erasure is unknowable and not determined. However, I may be
over-thinking the novel, particularly, since its paragraphs and
chapters can stand alone—apart from any interpretation that might
be advanced for the whole text. Ultimately, whatever Faylor's
world-view may be, Registration Caspar
should be received as an example of carefully crafted associative
writing deserving to be read by all consumers of exceptional,
exciting, and serious innovative art.
*Originally appearing in Yellow Chair Review, 2016
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