Mosaic Man - Softcover

Sukenick, Ronald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573660795 ISBN 13: 9781573660792

Publisher: Fiction Collective 2, 1999

Synopsis

A novel modeled on the books of the Old Testament retells traditional Jewish narratives, such as the Golem story, with a modern spin

About this title

Reviews

Like a classic rock band's 10th comeback album, Sukenick's latest avant-garde fiction invokes predictable precursors, leans heavily on outdated machismo and seems designed to show readers how hip, and how persecuted, Sukenick thinks he (still) is. Mosaic Man reads much like an addendum to Sukenick's memoir, Down and In, which traced the demise of Village bohemia in the '60s and '70s. Most of the new work tracks "Ron"'s search for his Jewish roots; section titles allude to those in the Hebrew Bible, where the Five Books of Moses (here, "Genes," "Ex/Ode," "Umbilicus," "Numbers," "Autonomy") are followed by "Prophets" (here, predictably, "Profits") and "Writings" ("Hand Writing on the Wall"). "Ex/Ode" alternates a Robert Crumb-like fantasy about Captain Midnight with pages of rather sweet transcribed and taped conversations among "Ron" and his mother and relatives. The later chapters brood on anti-Semitism and Jewish identity. "Numbers" evokes the residual bigotry Sukenick encountered when he lived as a student in Paris, and throws in some repellent, misogynist anecdotes. "Autonomy" brings Sukenick through modern Poland, where he meditates on the Holocaust, and then (in the book's high point) to modern Israel, where a spooked Sukenick cluelessly wanders about seeking the Golden Calf, which archeologists have (supposedly) just unearthed. The final sections return to cartoonish and Vonnegut-esque fantasy, with left-wing sermons about poverty and crime. After the rapes and gangbangs of Sukenick's Paris, these straightforwardly moralized arguments seem out-of-place; meant, perhaps. to counter Sukenick's narcissism, such passages simply demonstrate it again.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"Personally, being Jewish is just an advanced case of being human, and being human may be a personal disease that's run its course." This novel by one of the most significant writers and editors of postmodern fiction explores what it means to be human in an often-inhumane world. The book is structured very loosely after the Bible, with chapter names like Genes, Ex/ode, Umbilicus, Numbers, and Autonomy. Sukenick employs graphic symbols, transcripts of tape recordings, and other metafictional techniques, but this is primarily a thinly veiled autobiography for the first 200 pages. His tales of womanizing and debauchery support his claim that "Freud didn't invent the id, he just dropped the Y," but this book is far more than a drunken roll in the literary hay. To paraphrase an old rye bread ad, you don't have to be Jewish or postmodern to love Mosaic Man. Highly recommended for both academic and public libraries.AJim Dwyer, California State Univ. Lib., Chico
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Fiction Collective 2
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1573660795
• ISBN 13: 9781573660792
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 261