A review of Debut Novel, by Stefania Procalowska
Originally published in The Minnesota Daily’s A&E Magazine,
April 23rd, 1998
April 23rd, 1998
Debut Novel
By Stefania Procalowska
Manic D Press, $22
The
late Kathy Acker wrote in her review of Richard Grossman’s novel The
Alphabet Man, “I have dreamt a book, not a book that tells a story, not
even one that tells story upon story, all of them intertwining and changing one
another’s meanings, but a book that simply is everything.” As amazing as Grossman’s
novel is, it’s a shame Acker didn’t live to read Stefania Procalowska’s debut
novel, Debut Novel, which although just a slim 193 pages, contains more
and does more than almost any of the massive lexicon novels published this
decade.
Initially,
the most arresting aspect of the novel is that it’s written in first
person—from the reader’s point of view. It begins, “I just opened Stefania
Procalowska’s debut novel and found that I’m the main character.” Although this
recalls Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City, which employs a
gimmicky second person that doesn’t really do anything challenging, Procalowska
uses this innovation literally to project the reader into her novel’s insane
world—a world in which not just the reader but the words on the page and the
book itself are characters. And unlike McInerney’s gendered “you,” there’s no
indication of whether the reader is male or female, and as with Jeanette
Winterson’s Written on the Body, it doesn’t really matter.
After
a few pages of preliminaries, where “I” become acclimated to being both reader,
narrator, and main character, I’m unceremoniously thrust into a quest for
certain missing parts of the novel—parts that I as a reader require but
Procalowska, who jumps in every once in a while to remind me that it’s just a
book and not reality, refuses to furnish. In the course of “my” quest, I end up
taking a whirlwind tour of Procalowska’s cracked literary universe, which
includes everything from Biblical figures to altered historical accounts to
literary characters to television and ’60s and ’70s pop culture. At one point,
I find myself thumbing through the pages of Wuthering Heights with
Zechariah and Don Cornelius (Jesus’ second cousin and the host of Soul Train,
respectively, which makes for an interesting examination of Black/Jewish
relations), looking for a narrative structure that could rein in the
multi-layered, genre-hopping mess I’ve found myself in.
Certainly,
the layer upon layer of storytelling recalls Wuthering Heights, but it
does so in a way that recalls the way Kathy Acker’s Blood and Guts in High
School recalls The Scarlet Letter—that is, in a stylized and bent
manner that not just reinterprets the story, but revises it and incorporates it
into the story at hand. So after a while, Bronte’s two Catherines make their
way into the novel to help me along. And to further complicate the issue, I
also find myself sidetracked into reading Joyce Elbert’s 1969 trash novel The
Crazy Ladies (which in an utterly amazing literary confluence, I [the book
reviewer, not the character in the book] actually read as a kid), and the
characters from that book come alive to counter anything the Catherines say.
One
of the funniest things about Procalowska’s use of things literary is her
treatment of the self-reflexive trappings of the publishing world. In my search
through Procalowska’s imaginary bookshelf, I’m as influenced by the book
jackets as by the books themselves, so my understanding of my reading—and of Debut
Novel itself—is colored greatly by the blurbs on books’ back covers. My
favorite is the (presumably real) blurb for The Crazy Ladies, which
reads, “Philip Roth, bow your head. Irving Wallace, eat your heart out. Joyce
Elbert’s back in town.” So naturally Roth and Wallace enter into the book to
debate Joyce Elbert’s literary worth, which of course is colored by the
pejorative blurb about themselves. Procalowska’s wackiest blurbs, however, are
the ones she puts on the back of Debut Novel itself. Citing such bogus
periodicals as The Journal of Masonic History and Bug World,
Procalowska both praises herself and pokes fun at the ways novels market
themselves. And in a truly cool literary move, the blurbs turn out to be the
key to (almost) understanding the novel’s ending. So don’t skip them.
Debut
Novel isn’t all fun and
games, however. Embedded within the stories-within-stories is a deep concern
for the state of contemporary art and entertainment, and consequently for the
state of contemporary America. In using both literary and popular references,
juxtaposing the decadent with the ostensibly meaningful—or the sacred with the
profane—Procalowska creates a vast array of literary and ethical choices that
makes “me” explore my role as reader, consumer, and citizen—as well as
Procalowska’s role as artist. Because with so much fluctuating and
irreconcilable narrative madness, the question arises, is she in control of the
text? And do I have any real choices or meaningful work to do as a reader? And
is making me ask these questions part of her overall plan, making me think I
have some critical power while still asserting her true control over me as the
helpless reader? Because, let’s face it, this novel is a page-turner, and I
can’t help but keep reading.
The
obvious comparison is to an ironic television show that sells me a particular
point of view while making me think I’m in on the joke. While watching the
show, is there any way I can examine it critically, and is my detached critical
view just another layer accounted for by clever marketers to keep me watching?
So the ultimate question ends up being, is Procalowska putting one over on me
or is she truly making me look critically at what I’m reading? And does it
matter? It’s tricky ground she makes the reader tread, and the novel’s
ending—if you can call it that—gives few hints at what she wants “me” to
conclude about the novel. Maybe this is my only real freedom as a reader, and
it comes just in time. The 193 pages that make up Debut Novel, although
addictive, are exhausting reading, and even if I come to no conclusions, I
leave the book profoundly altered. Let’s hope Procalowska’s sophomore effort
(will she call it Sophomore Effort?) continues in this relentless vein.
—David
Wiley
