THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409190238
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY LENORE HART
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
MR. VERTIGO
PAUL AUSTER
Viking. 293 pp. $21.95
Paul Auster is known for his postmodern existential thrillers such as City of Glass, in which the narrator's identity is the biggest mystery. His new novel, Mr. Vertigo, likewise begins in the downtown underworld. Speaking is Walter Rawley, now in his 80s, whose life peaked in one magical accomplishment before he reached puberty.
In 1927 Walt is a cocky orphan begging change, running errands and hustling cabs for ``swells'' in pre-Depression St. Louis. Auster's opening is arresting: ``I was twelve years old the first time I walked on water. The man in black clothes taught me how to do it.'' At age 9 he is plucked from the mean streets by creepy Master Yehudi, who sees potential. The Master promises he will teach him, by his 13th birthday, to fly.
Walt follows warily: This sounds better than life with his aunt and uncle - mean, smelly Slim and silent, doughy Peg. But visions of doom dance in his head, cautionary tales about ``solitary drifters with evil designs, perverts on the prowl for young boys.'' Hungry, he refuses to eat anything the Master gives him on the train, assuming it's poisoned.
Walt arrives safely in Cibola, Kan. His new household includes a former bareback rider in Buffalo Bill's rodeo named Mother Sioux and a hunchbacked 15-year-old genius named Aesop. Walt does chores, misses the Cardinals and repeatedly runs away while the Master puts him relentlessly through serial torture. He's buried alive, flogged with a bullwhip, thrown from a galloping horse, struck by lightning. He even amputates an upper joint of one of his fingers.
This pain and humiliation, the Master says, will make him great. And lo, by age 13 he can levitate, coast like a flying fish. The two hit the road, doing carnivals and vaudeville shows until Walt the Wonder Boy is a household name. Money showers down, but disaster strikes when one day Walt can't lift off without suffering torturous migraines that hospitalize him for weeks. At 15 he's washed up, a has-been with the rest of his life to endure.
Blurbs tout Mr. Vertigo as a ``mytho-historical tale,'' ``an extraordinary, exuberant novel that captures the aspirations and excesses of a country ready to soar.'' It leads one to expect a flying Billy Bathgate. All of the myths are in place: the 1920s carnival-vaudeville world; the Ku Klux Klan and gangsters; Lindbergh and Babe Ruth. This colorful backdrop invites a Doctorow-like tale of an individual as vigorous and opportunistic as the evolving nation. There's even a Candide-like series of ordeals: Walt lost in the desert; kidnapped by thugs.
But hero, friends, enemies, even landscape feel curiously flat here, lacking vividness and believability. Mr. Vertigo is flat-out reporting, rarely showing us anything. Characters never live, except in the most rudimentary B-movie sense.
There's vintage slang, so much of it so often that it becomes a meaningless drone, and the limited first-person style has a mere whiff of narrative irony. There's a tendency to speed past significant events, as when, early on, Aesop and Mother Sue are murdered by the Klan, but less detail and angst are devoted to this than to descriptions of the era's automobiles.
The talented Auster took a risk but made some bad choices here. Ray Bradbury became famous for such whimsy, presenting his blend of fantasy and reality so skillfully that the reader could see, smell, hear, taste it. Even Harlan Ellison has churned out more convincing magical realism, American style.
Sticking it out to the end with old Walt was uncannily similar to being trapped at a family reunion by my Uncle Gus, who rehashed his life history at anesthetizing length, until desperation forced me to escape by spotting someone across the room in need of emergency attention. Closing the cover of Mr. Vertigo, I felt that same nostalgic sense of relief. MEMO: Lenore Hart, the author of ``Black River,'' is a novelist who lives on
the Eastern Shore. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Paul Auster
by CNB