The Life by Malcolm Knox
Thrills: Reading a book that is
yeah, and but
willing to be poetic, to create its own language.
Really
no, forget it
it’s amazing. Giant barrelling six footers, eight footers, ten footers curling in from the edge of the page.
Forget it, forget it, FORGET IT!
Reading a book that is willing to tell a story through the language is fantastic. It’s energizing. It’s exciting.
Dennis Keith, DK, The DK, The Legend, as well as Den, Mo’s kid, the insular wave-obsessed genius who really didn’t mean to have it all happen the way it did: Malcolm Knox creates a language through which this life comes to life. DK’s life is uttered into existence through his broken, repetitive sentences curling in over and over like sets of waves, describing repetitive thoughts and journeys – waves, waves, waves, to the shop for a pine lime splice and a can of Tarax, to the secret spot, waves, waves, waves, establish order, keep things in order, get the diagonals lined up right, right handers, left handers, waves, keep everything in order.It’s a kind of brutal masculine mythic poetry but just thrilling to have someone write a story in this way. And the key to it is that the language tells the story, it isn’t a story told in a weird or difficult or fancy way. Great stuff. Thrilling.
Kicks: DK’s life is definitely not The Life, but it is.
Yeah… but nah.
The kick is the way the myth of The Perfect Surfer’s Prefect Life is set up then dismantled. DK is a fantasy living his own fantasy and of course this means Knox takes on the very idea of having a fantasy: of being a world champion, of riding the perfect wave and living right there in that moment forever. DK is “pure natural genius” and yet that isn’t enough, or is too much and he gets sucked into a life he never intended and suffers from keeping up with the momentum of his own image: of living the life that befits the legend of DK. It’s as if Knox is saying that dreaming big dreams is dangerous, or that dreaming small dreams is the only safe way to remain human, grounded, caring, aware of others and humane.
But maybe that’s too much kick; maybe Knox has other targets, all overlapping and knocking each other off like choppy, mixed up surf. DK is unable and unwilling to talk – and talking might have got him outside himself. This is Knox having a kick at masculinity, but is the deficit emotional, social or mental. Is it his upbringing, his place in a masculine social order, or the result of an actual mental illness – schizophrenia or asbergers? It’s hard to say, but Knox lets masculinity, the social structures that create and support it, and the fantasy of super-successful male genius all off the hook when he says that maybe Dennis Keith, DK, was sick all the time – that his “pure natural genius”, his social awkwardness and inability to see or reach outside himself might have been influenced by mental illness – and not because to be a genius you have to be a selfish dick, or because men are often selfish dicks without even needing to be geniuses, but just because we think we are and make rules about how others should treat us based on what we think we are… No, not that: maybe he was sick. Of course, Knox does also suggest that it might have been the drugs and stress involved in living The Life that gave DK a mental illness, but they just don’t know. It could have been. Not knowing leaves the kicks – to dreaming, to geniuses, to insensitive, inarticulate masculinity – out there, and lets The Reader decide. Which is nice. It also makes it just DK’s story and not an essay, which is great. And heavy.
Kills: There is a scene in a Paul Auster novel where the main character is out walking at night. He looks down on the footpath and sees something glistening in the moonlight. It seems to reflect the silvery light. He thinks maybe it’s a diamond.
He reaches down to pick it up.
Full of hope. A diamond. Here. On the footpath.
His hands stretch out for it, finger and thumb gently wrapping around this diamond shaped reflection of silver light.
Hopeful.
His fingers slip through the edge of the light, into liquid.
Spit. It’s a piece of spit.
Why do stories of great hope have to end up giving us spit? Or shit? A disastrous life.
I left The Life wondering why: why give me that? Thrilling, yes. Some challenging thoughts to kick around, think on and discuss: sure. But an end where I saw no redemption, just shit. And a whole novel of tension hoping that things would turn out okay for someone – anyone – resolved in such a way that I didn’t get it: I didn’t get hope.
Maybe that’s why I like kids books. I read an article once where a children’s book writer said that in young adult and kids books it’s okay to go to really dark places, as long as you leave them with hope. I wonder what it is I’m missing as an adult that I missed this transition to books where catharsis comes from reading books where it’s all okay because it all turns out shit for the people in the books, too.
Maybe I should get into romance. (Nah, the writing is crap.)
Sports hagiographies… er, I mean, biographies. (Nah, the writing is crap.)
Literary fiction and French films seem to have the top shelf in the library of media art, but I’m just not getting it.
Replies and suggestions welcome.
The Life is a GREAT book. Full of energy, brilliant writing and a portrait of deep obsessive passion which I found engrossing and exciting.
And then it’s shit. Loving, losing, dreaming, families, surfing: all the great things are also shit. Maybe it’s that drugs made everything turn sour. Maybe that’s the point, but no. Yeah… but no. The bigger statement resonating through the novel seems to be that having a life means letting go of The Life – the dream – and accepting that everything that’s great is also really deeply sad and lonely and corrupted and horrible.
I thought it was the blue pill or the red pill. Not the blue pill and the red pill.
Pine lime splice and a can of Tarax. Swells big, winds off-shore, have to get out there. Into it.