After three series focusing on a central author, Short Stop is taking a bit of a turn for the next run. Sometime last year, I found a copy of “The Vintage Book of Amnesia” which was compiled and edited by Jonathan Lethem. The theme is simple. He looks at authors throughout time and explores how they approach the subject of memory. Whereas previous series focused on exploring a writer finding their voice, I thought that it would be interesting to try and find something more thematic across the centuries. It’s a lengthy ordeal and one that will probably have more highs and lows than ever before. The hope though is finding a few diamonds in the rough that are worth committing to memory.
For as much as I’ve enjoyed digging into specific authors and discovering the way that they’ve found their voice, I felt pigeonholed if I continued to only do those types of anthologies. While I plan to return to them one day, for now, I need a break from the familiar and to enter something a bit more challenging. Over this project, I will be exploring 31 short stories that I have differing familiarity with. I’m a bit nervous because memory is such a fickle concept that stands to go off the rails almost immediately, but I’m hoping it gives me insight into a more sensitive way to approach our thought processes.
Which is why I’m a bit dismayed at how Lethem has chosen to begin things. Thomas Palmer’s “Dream Science” is arguably the worst short story that I’ve covered so far in the three years of running this column. I know that art is subjective and there are ways to argue this is well-written, but if judged solely on style and execution, I couldn’t be more disinterested in what he’s doing here. There’s a common notion among fans of different media that one of the worst tropes is having a protagonist who has amnesia and spends the entirety of the work trying to overcome it. This differs from a similar approach that I explored in my Alice Munro series where she withholds information in ways that could be seen as forgetfulness. In my opinion, Munuro’s work is because the indirection informs the emotional drive of character and creates this study that builds to something more provocative once the whole picture is seen. She encourages you to stop and think about what came before, creating a puzzle that I love to sit and contemplate.
I can’t say the same for Palmer. It should be noted that this 18-page entry may be devoid of a larger context. When doing research on “Dream Science,” I was informed that it was actually a 1990 novel and that it’s relatively obscure and hard to find. There’s not a lot of information out there on Palmer either, making it difficult to fully assess any greater sense of what this text is supposed to mean. So, without additional information, I am forced to judge “Dream Science” as its own work of beginning-middle-end style fiction. Forgive me if this isn’t thorough enough.
Lethem’s proposition for making “The Vintage Book of Amnesia” was that it felt like a distinctly American phenomenon. Everyone is struggling to hold onto a sense of identity and history. There is a need to remember who we are and rebuild our lives into something stable. This isn’t a terrible concept and I get where I think he’s going with “Dream Science” as an opener, but the ultimate reality for me as a reader is that I felt like it was too reminiscent of other texts. Before any major reveals, I was thinking of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and assumed there would be some psych ward patient story for why he was trapped in the room. I also thought of potential stories of kidnappers trapping their victims in a basement. There had to be some greater purpose that emerges, like maybe he has a dangerous mind that the world cannot handle.
The mind runs rampant when trying to understand what “Dream Science” could be about. The story follows Poole, a man who is introduced in his perpetual state of wear: blue pajamas. It’s a kooky enough way to open a story and immediately question one’s sanity, but I don’t know that there’s a lot else that Palmer does with it. He exists in this room where he wanders around looking for some sign of the outside world. He looks for a crack in the wall that reveals light. He can’t find a door or window that could free him. The only thing he can find is a dark hallway that is winding into nothingness.
There’s that, and Mac. From the get go, the reader is left to assume that he is a caretaker of sorts. He provides food for Poole and is forced to supervise him. He sits quietly in his corner behind a machine that Poole spends most of the story as his only talking companion. The reader doesn’t come to know much about Poole or Mac, but this sense of division makes Mac seem like the final boss. If Poole can defeat him, he can escape to the free world. Then again, Mac has his own ways of escaping, though it’s never expressed how. Everything exists in this ambiguity that may work as style but does little to build a satisfying narrative.
Because I am not reviewing the perceived novel, I can’t be sure what greater plot exists around this chapter. Instead, I am left to try and build my own assumptions on an emotional instinct. The first half of the story is about Poole wandering the room and looking for clues that never arrive. Any attempt to attack Mac causes him to be punched in the stomach. There’s a submissiveness that works as an establishment, but the prose goes on for so long that the mundanity stops becoming a feature and turns into a bug. It’s mind-numbing how little happens in the first half of the story. Maybe it’s intentional, but the reader longs for something more than Poole’s banal observations.
Some clues emerge, but without a greater text, they feel meaningless. Some could be tipped off by how Palmer writes about Poole’s curiosity that he isn’t totally brainwashed. He understands complex thoughts, like not taking this room for granted. He has a cleverness that allows him to rebuild some sense of imagination. The story emerges that he has a successful career, including an MBA degree, and a loving wife. There are things about him that could be useful character-building if the story was addressing any of it elsewhere. Sure, it gives the readers relief that he’s a sympathetic character with realistic motivations, but what else is this saying?
I think the other issue with the opening is that the wandering mind of the reader fills in so many gaps that could be more interesting than what Palmer gives us. At the end of the day, I was still convinced that he was a mental patient who was stuck there for reasons that the author didn’t want to share. It’s maddening because it feels so predictable and never reaches an “A-HA!” moment where suddenly you get a twist. Nothing about him impacts his placement in the story. Sure, it builds paranoia and tension, but what is it all for?
The second half begins to establish an idea, but again it’s not all that useful in the short run. Poole finally gets to answer a phone where he talks to the forces that be somewhere else. They won’t answer his questions, but they do offer him a job that will give him some unknown opportunities. There’s the suggestion that it’s one of self-destruction, though there’s no surety that it’ll be anything worthwhile. Instead, he stays in the room and ends the story by talking to Mac. At one point, Poole accuses Mac of being a ghost. Nothing is confirmed. I think the ambiguity is forced to allow the reader to determine just what is going on.
For as much as Palmer does a good job of establishing environment and tone, I still think that this story fails to be something on par with the indirectness of Munro or the dreamlike hallucinations of John Cheever. What we get here is, out of a larger context, the most gimmicky look into how audiences think of memory and amnesia. Outside of giving Poole a backstory, there is nothing that actually happens here except having characters say various forms of “I don’t know.” There are endless lines where Poole is simply told that nobody knows what’s going on and they don’t know how to help him. Sure, this in theory can build something interesting, but it has to lead to something useful. The helplessness that I felt as a reader isn’t enough to make me like this. It’s tonally erratic, but not in a way that drops clues on the real truth hidden inside. Poole ends the story still stuck in the room while Mac says that he is going crazy. What does it all mean?
Again, I don’t want to discredit the potential for this to be part of a larger story. Provided the context that surrounds it, I don’t think it’s a bad chapter. I just need something more from Poole in order to feel connected to his arc. What we have here is absent of intent. For all I know, Lethem will build on this idea in the stories to come and make me understand how uncertainty and inconclusiveness impact our sense of memory, but for now, I’m left underwhelmed, hoping that something comes soon that really digs into the preciousness of memory as it relates to amnesia. For now, having everyone around the protagonist say, “I don’t know” isn’t helpful as a narrative device. It may be the thesis, but I so desperately hope there’s a better source to cite.
Coming Up Next: Julio Cortazar – “The Night Face Up”
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