The Books: “Mortals” (Norman Rush)

mortals.jpgDaily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction

Mortals by Norman Rush

Years ago, on my old blog, I wrote a post called Waiting for Norman Rush and what I have written below is an edited version of that. Mortals (Rush’s follow-up book to his spectacular Mating, which came out over 10 years after Mating) was an intolerable bore to me – but still: the story behind that book (at least from my experience), and my expectation of it – is pretty cool. I sound very sad to myself in the post below. I must have been really sad when I wrote this. 2003? Yup. That’s when I wrote it. Still recovering from 2002, my annus horribilis. 2003 is a wash, I was just stepping carefully, trying not to step on the cracks, doing my best to not attract the attention of the universe.

But it’s interesting nonetheless. NATURALLY, when I talk about the book I first must talk about myself. Mating was that kind of book, and it left me wanting more. It really made a difference in my life.

A couple interesting things about the post below:

1. It dovetails very nicely, at points, with my post about A Woman’s Face – the part where I talk about hope always coming hand in hand (for me) with sadness. Because of all that has gone before, the years of exile, whatever.

2. I just hung out with “my Nelson Denoon” for a couple of days. So it’s odd, in general, that we would get to the Mating books now, of all times.

Now for the spoiler:

SPOILER:

The last section of Mating, a kind of epilogue, is called “About the Foregoing”. It is very mysterious. She has left Africa, and has left Denoon, her great love. Things have fallen apart. She is now trying to get her life together when suddenly she gets a mysterious message, telling her to come back to Africa. It is not Denoon who calls her. It is a woman. She does not know who this woman could be. Or why she has been summoned. She obsesses about it, wondering what to do. Should she return? What would be waiting for her in Africa? If Denoon did not summon her, then perhaps she would not be welcome anymore? The book ends with these two lines:

Je viens.
Why not?

I have been haunted by this. Then what? Then what? It has been so long since Mating came out. I have tried to reconcile myself to the fact that I need to, a la Rilke, “live the questions”.

The fact that the book ends mysteriously, that it could go either way, confirms for me one of the essential tenets of my life: You just never know what will happen. Things can always go either way. Also: Things never really end. Not really. They transform, they morph. Love never dies. Ever. I’m not a “love/hate” kind of girl. Sometimes I wish I were. It might be easier if love turned readily to hate, but for me, it does not.

So alongside my relatively quiet life now are the vibrant exciting love affairs of my past. They make me who I am today. They do not go away, or submerge into the past for good. They are still very much with me, late and soon.

So literally last week, I became obsessed again by the up-in-the-air ending of Mating. What does it signify? What is the message, dammit?

And more than that, on a more literal and literary level: What happened when she returned to Africa? Are they together now out on that alternate plane for fictional characters? I always liked to imagine that they were. It made me happy to imagine so. It made me happy to fantasize that on that alternate plane, all turned out well. Eventually.

It’s a sort of “Somewhere over the rainbow” sentiment. Things may be lonely here on this plane, but somewhere — even if it’s just for characters in a book — things might work out. And this alone gives me reason to hope. Things just might work out — because the ending of Mating doesn’t make it clear whether they do or no. This is the degree to which this book affected me, and the degree to which these characters LIVE on in my imagination.

On a personal note: I used to have these old crazy fantasies about “my Nelson Denoon”, fantasies which felt more (to me) like getting a glimpse of an alternate path, a very real future. I comforted myself, after it was all over, by imagining that on that other plane, down that other path, things might have worked out. Or in another lifetime, although reincarnation and alternate lifetimes are not quite in my belief system.

So I digress. All of these crazy thoughts are very tied up, for me, in Norman Rush’s Mating.

All of this came up to the foreground again, in the last week, (it all began dovetailing), and I thought, impulsively: “I should just write to Norman Rush and ask him what he’s up to … if he’s working on anything …” He hasn’t published anything else since Mating, so — I wondered — is he chugging away at a sequel? Is he dead? I needed to know desperately.

“Mr. Rush — are you just going to leave me hanging with the end of Mating? Do you know how important it is, how essential it is in terms of my understanding of how the world works, that I know what happened with the two of them? Will I ever know the outcome?”

Wanting to write to Norman Rush was a random fleeting thought. I have written to authors before, so it wasn’t too far-fetched.

Then, a couple of days ago, I stopped off at a computer place to check my email. While there, I visited my Statscounter, to check in on my traffic. I saw that someone had gotten to me by typing “Norman Rush” into Google. It led this person to a post of mine. And this piqued my interest. Somebody else is looking for Norman Rush right now? Why? Is something going on?

So I blatantly Googled the man.

The first thing that came up was a Village Voice article dated May, 2003. I opened it, and lo and behold, it was a review of his new book. The man has a new book out. Mortals.

I hope I have conveyed how important this is to me.

It would be like hearing that JD Salinger had suddenly come out of hiding and published a new novel. While Salinger is still alive, there is still hope that he may write again. He just might. And the book might be crap, but that wouldn’t matter. At least not at first. It would be a miracle. To hear from that writer again.

So Rush has a new huge novel out. And again, it takes place in Botswana, Africa. Botswana! The country that Rush made live for me.

Mortals (and I just skimmed the article feverishly … I didn’t want to read any spoilers, no give-aways, nothing that would ruin the experience) is NOT about Nelson Denoon and our unnamed narrator. It is another couple altogether, although Rush again tackles romantic male/female relationships, only this time in the context of marriage. It doesn’t seem to be so much about finding the right mate, and how arduous that process is, how it can break your heart. Rush now goes into the realm of established intimacy, and … what happens then?

And here’s the thing: (WARNING: SPOILER ALERT)

I raced through the book review excitedly and could not believe my eyes: Nelson and “she” DO show up in this new book, peripherally. They ARE characters on the outskirts. And, oh so casually, Village Voice reviewer states: “We learn that they have married.”

What? They married?? I almost shouted out loud for joy. I’m not kidding. I freaked out.

I didn’t read the rest of the review, I signed out immediately, paid my bill, and hustled my ass down to Barnes & Noble to find the book, which had been published THAT WEEK.

(Okay, let’s just take a moment to reflect on how weird that is. I randomly contemplate writing to Norman Rush, pestering him to write a sequel, and dammitall if he doesn’t have a new book published on almost that same exact day. What?)

And there it was. A huge book. Hardcover. With a map of Botswana inside. I got a chill of excitement. I felt voracious. Almost sick to my stomach, actually. I wanted to download the entire book into my brain immediately. I glanced through and saw that there was a chapter called “The Denoons”, and I had to restrain myself. Prolong the anticipation, more pleasure that way.

And as I was walking down the street, with my booty in my bag, I suddenly got weirdly emotional.

It was as though I had heard that real friends of mine had finally gotten married after much strife.

There have been times in the past couple of years when life has been the cliched howling wilderness. “My Nelson Denoon” remains a kind of monument, a sort of goal. I have tried to knock him off that pedestal, but I have finally accepted the fact that he actually deserves to be up there. Whether I am with him or not. When things did not, to put it mildly, “work out”, my baffled thought was: If that didn’t work out, that which seemed so damn right, then what the hell will work out? For quite a long time, my answer to that question was: Nothing. Nothing.

But then … here … years later … walking down the street, knowing that she and Nelson got married — after all that —

I suddenly felt an upsurge of hope. Not for me and “my Nelson Denoon”, because like I said earlier: that is no longer possible. But what I mean is: hope in general.

A word on hope:

Hope for me, now, always goes hand in hand with a bittersweet and vague pain. Hope never ever comes by itself anymore, the way it used to when I was a little kid, or a teenager. I suppose that’s indicative of age and experience. It seems so to me anyway. That’s life. I am not saying this exactly as I wanted to. Basically: Hope no longer comes alone.

The sadness and hope I felt, walking down the street, wasn’t about Nelson and the narrator of Mating being married… at least, not only about them. The sadness and hope was also from how I see life now. In terms of mating. I feel like I had my run. It was a good run. I had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs. But that all has stopped now. And that’s why hope never comes alone anymore.

I still feel hope, occasionally, but never ever by itself.

So I got overwhelmed by this weird sense of sad hope — a feeling that STILL, after all THAT, “things” might “work out”. For me, in my life. It’s awful when one becomes afraid to feel hope anymore, protecting oneself against the inevitable disappointment. This is a constant balancing act.

I am in my 30s, and I’ve been through a lot. Not all bad. Of course not all bad. Like I said: a lot of laughs. Much fun. But now, I just find it easier not to hope … at least in that arena … and focus on other things. My work. My ambition, my plans.

But … but ….

They got married. They got married. What does that mean? For me?

(This is the level to which literature can affect me – if I let it! The Shipping News had a similar impact.)

I am so used to the state of affairs I live in now, since I have lived there now for about a decade. I mean, I have changed and grown, of course, I have moved from city to city, I got my Master’s, I’ve made new friends, it has been a very full existence. But I have been alone the entire time. THAT has not changed. Not even close.

Perhaps a breakthrough is approaching. A breakthrough in how I see all of this. And the appearance of Norman Rush’s Mortals is the harbinger of something good. Or, something different. Something exciting, unforeseen, challenging. That’s what I was feeling as I walked down the street, too. I’m scared of it … and yet. Perhaps it is time. I don’t know. Even as I write that, the logical side of my brain, the side that has all the experience, that knows the let-downs, etc., says: “Yes, but you have felt this before. You have felt this so strongly before. And you were never right.”

But maybe … maybe … Maybe this is it.

There is SOMETHING weird about how all of this has come about:

Mating
The book being wrapped up with “my Nelson Denoon”
Wishing the main characters well — hoping they are happy in another reality
Holding onto a weird strange hope that things worked out well, at least for them
Wondering if a sequel was coming
Studying the book over the last couple of weeks
That book, for me, is the monument, the goal
Wanting to write to Norman Rush
Someone coming to MY blog, through Googling Norman Rush …during the very week I was obsessing about Rush, and where he was, and whether or not he was writing
Finding out that Rush has written a new book … published last week … in which we discover the Denoons have married

And so:
Things are not what they seem.

Back to the old painful belief: You never ever know what will happen. You can never tell what the future will hold. Your predictions will all be wrong.

I have tentatively and slowly begun Mortals, forcing myself not to browse ahead, looking for references to the Denoons. I want to savor every word.

I have waited for this day for so long.

Thoughts on MORTALS

Mortals was a huge disappointment, although I read it at the speed of light. Ray and Iris are a married couple, living in Botswana. Nelson Denoon and “narrator” from Mating are not involved in the story at all until far into the book. So you have to stick with Ray and Iris. And God, what bores the two of them are. I couldn’t past it. Many people found the narrator of Mating so unlikable that they couldn’t move on with the book. I was the opposite. I adored her. I would read 10 more books narrated by her. But Ray and Iris were insufferable. I know that Rush was going for a study of marriage – but my God. There are so many structural problems with the book – and there are (of course) moments of high genius … that typical Rush language … but because it’s all in service of two people that I kind of despise (and I’m supposed to love and find charming) … I found it REALLY hard to get through it. I stuck with it, though, because I was determined to find out what happened to Nelson Denoon and “her”. I love those two, flaws and all. Iris appears to be having some kind of affair with an African doctor. Ray works for the CIA but since the fall of communism the entire agency has been in flux, and problematic … the focus lost. I found all that CIA stuff fascinating, naturally … it wouldn’t surprise me if Norman Rush had been somehow “in intelligence” – but that’s neither here nor there. The main point of the novel is what goes down between Ray and Iris … but they have got to be the most annoying married couple in the history of married couple. They make George and Martha look like relaxing companions. Ray, first of all, is obsessed with Iris. I think Rush is trying to say something else here … something about paying attention, but there is a fine line between paying attention to your partner and being fucking creepy. Ray is fucking creepy. Everything – everything – is under a microscope. Maybe that’s a side effect of being a spy – but again, I don’t think Rush handled the problem of this well, because within 5 pages I was sick of Ray. The whole being married to an intelligent agent plot is potentially fascinating but becomes flabby and uninteresting here – because Ray is such a drip. And I feel that Norman Rush is so in love with Ray and Iris that he could not discern the flaws. Perhaps he had more distance with Nelson Denoon and … whatever the heck her name is … they feel more obviously alive and unprotected. But here, in Mortals, Rush keeps telling us what we should perceive – how funny they are, how interesting their conversations are … Meanwhile, i was so irritated I could barely stand it. I would have said at one point, if I was married to him, “You know what, Ray? Love ya. But shut the fuck up. It’s 2 in the morning and I have no interest in parsing my childhood for you because you’re so fucking creepily obsessed with me. I’M YOUR WIFE. If I wanted a stalker, I’d be dating again! It’s no fun having a stalker for a husband. Leave me ALONE.”

So. Oh well. It’s a bummer. I read the whole book – and it has its fans – and I do not want to throw the bath out with the babywater or whatever the hell … As a matter of fact there is an X-rated 30 page sex scene (in line with the rest of the obsessive description of the book) which actually is very hot. You don’t need to describe sex for me to get hot (I think Hemingway’s line from For Whom The Bell Tolls is pretty damn hot – they get in the sleeping bag together and the line is something like, “and then the world moved.” That’s hot). But still: for explicit sex scenes, the one in Mortals is a doozy. Would have been nice if I hadn’t been so irritated by the two characters. I’m happy when two characters I love have hot sex. I am happy for them. But two irritating characters … I find myself begrudgingly happy for them and almost jealous, “Oh well. You’re assholes. Congrats on having hot sex.” And the whole picture of the intelligence work done in Africa, the almost imperialistic interest that Christians have in Africa, and how this one doctor (a very interesting character) is determined to keep the Christians at bay. Want to know what’s wrong with Africa? It’s the Christians. (That’s his view. So calm down.)

So. Bummer.

And reading my burst of hope from 2003 is sad for me now. Because it was an illusion. It meant nothing that Nelson and “she” get married. It meant nothing. Nothing made a difference, nothing changed … Delusional. I sound delusional to myself.

My love for the book Mating is untouched, however. Perhaps that was Norman Rush’s one story. Some writers only have one tale in them. They may try to do more, tell other stories – but they fail.

Perhaps Rush is one of those writers.

EXCERPT FROM Mortals by Norman Rush

They were together in the kitchen. He was being companionable while she got the food onto the table. The lights were on in Dimakatso’s quarters. Ray had a feeling the meal tonight might be vegetarian. They seemed to be drifting that way, which was ironic in a country with the healthiest, best-tasting grass-fed and cheapest beef in the entire world. Botswana beef had an odd taste. It was sweet.

The light in the kitchen was a trial for both of them. The room was lit by a fluorescent donut that belonged in an industrial museum. The house was all-electric. The fluorescent fixture emitted a fizzing sound from time to time that suggested it was about to malfunction. It would capture their attention and then the sound would quit and life would go on.

Iris said, “Everything spoils so fast in Africa, I hate it.” She made a face as she unscrewed the lid of a mayonnaise jar she’d just taken out of the refrigerator.

“This needs to go directly to the Mayo Clinic,” she said.

“Haha,” Ray said, stating the laugh to show he was less than amused.

She looked at him for an explanation.

God damn me, he thought.

“What do you mean by that Haha?”

“Nothing.”

“What, though?”

“Well I just wondered if you’re trying to be funnier than usual for my benefit. I mean are you trying to be funnier?

“You don’t have to, you know.” God damn me, he thought.

“What are you talking about, Ray?”

“I don’t know, I felt for a minute that maybe you were trying to mimic my brother. I mean he presents himself as such a wit. His letters to you are all about what a wit he is. What I’m saying is you don’t need to be more amusing than you already naturally are. You can relax. You don’t need to keep me amused.” He thought, Anyone would hate this, I have no right to do this, But I had years of his wit to live with and that was enough.

She stared at him. Plainly he had hurt her in several ways.

“Oh boy. I’m sorry. I think this is what it is. I think I’m aggravated about Rex’s sudden interest in writing to you all the time. His sudden desire to be your pen pal. You don’t know him. You may think he’s clever but there is, believe me, nothing there, he’s useless, he …”

She broke in. “Well, you remember the potato salad I made last week that you praised to high heaven?”

He was in the pantry, searching for a new jar of mayonnaise.

“Can you hear me? That salad was made with baked potatoes instead of boiled potatoes.”

Ray emerged from the pantry with the new jar of mayonnaise, which he handed to her.

“You mean now Rex is sending you recipes?”

“It isn’t a recipe just to comment on a potato salad he had at a fancy buffet somewhere. He thought it was delicious so he asked the host what there was about it, that’s all, and he passed that along, and you enjoyed it, I’m pointing out.”

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4 Responses to The Books: “Mortals” (Norman Rush)

  1. The Books: “Mortals” (Norman Rush)

    Next book on my adult fiction bookshelf: Mortals by Norman Rush I wrote an enormous ranting post awhile back about Mortals and what a disappointment it was to me, after the spectacular reading experience I had with Mating. But there’s…

  2. Dave E. says:

    This post struck home to me. As I thought about it off and on today, I tried to figure out when certain situations that I used to approach with hope and fear had turned into more like hope and sadness. And you know, I’m not sure. It really doesn’t matter anyway, I guess. Underneath all of that(not that it’s insignificant) is something that’s not situational and is much stronger, and that’s faith. I don’t mean that in a strictly religous way. I mean I have faith in my family, my friends, people in general, myself, and yes, God. Everyday holds the opportunity for delight and yeah, hope/sadness in some things. Maybe I’m a dumbass or a fool for thinking that way, but so be it. Life is definitely happier this way.

    BTW-I had hoped the excerpt was the hot sex chapter, and now I’m just sad. :)

  3. red says:

    Dave – I am impressed you read the whole post. It was even too long for ME to read!

    Speaking of long – just so you know – the sex scene in Mortals starts on page 700 – SEVEN HUNDRED – so seriously, that’s a long book to get thru to wait for a hot sex scene, so if you wanted to flip thru a paperback of it in Barnes & Noble head straight for the 700s, you can’t miss it … sex sex sex for an entire chapter.

    I have now spared you the misery of having to read the whole book!!

  4. The Books: “The Catcher In the Rye” (J.D. Salinger)

    Next book on my adult fiction bookshelf for the Daily Book Excerpt: The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger Like most people, I had to read the book in high school. I read it in 10th grade – the…

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