Ronald Sukenick's tenth book, MOSAIC MAN, poses difficult questions about the form of the novel and the creative act. Sukenick writes what he calls "heterofiction," autobiographical narratives that are opened up by fictional conceits. "Testimony," the first book's two unequal halves, is patterned on the Torah- Genesis becomes "Genes," Deuteronomy "Autonomy," and so forth. "Ex/ode" is presented in the form if a transcription, with gaps due to water-damaged tapes, of conversations with Sukenick's parents before his father's death. This first half of the book ostensibly traces Sukenick's familial development, but includes digressive commentary that fudges the question of whether the author's experiences are particular, particularly Jewish, or universal.
The book's abbreviated second half, "Writing," reads more like a deliberate fiction. Sukenick refers to this story as Raiders if the Lost Calf, as the main character, a Bogart-like Ramsey Shades, tries to hide the Golden Calf that Aaron made while Moses was talking to God on Mount Sinai. He must keep this calf from Mr. Huges and God. Sukenick has divided feelings about the calf and what it might mean to find it, and conflates the image to represent both the worldly success of fellow traveler Raymond Federman, and the risk inherent in creating any grave image, even one that imagines itself "art." That risk is present to Sukenick throughout the book, and writing "heterofiction" is only a partial safeguard against blasphemous creation; he warns us that all his previous books became novels while his back was turned.
MOSAIC MAN, as the above description should make clear, is not interested in the traditional pleasures of novel reading. The partial transcripts of the "Ex/ode" section are further fractured by a marginal real-time narrative about how the transcripts were attained, set off by ionic characters (the Star of David, a dollar sign, etc.) The "mosaic" of the title refers not only to the serial nature of the book's sections, but also to the law of Moses, the ten Commandments, in which God's injunction against creating graven images is second only to declaring himself God. An exploration of Mosaic law is at least as important to Sukenick as is his awareness that seamless prose is an illusion.
It's unclear what Sukenick found in rereading his previous books that made them, finally novels. But here I think Sukenick has finally written a book that will not turn into one behind his back. The variety of styles, genres, and concerns that make up the book's first half are too wildly divergent to hang together, and the two sections that make up "Writing" seem to belong to a different book altogether. But this failure is in itself an accomplishment; Sukenick's prose is rich and distinctive, with lyrical nods to the Beats and a Joycean ear for puns. While Sukenick's long reach is at times frustrating, it constantly makes the reader aware that he ir she is reading an object constructed by human hands. Perhaps it is here, in the book's unwillingness to cohere and in its wholehearted embrace of its human origins, that Sukenick escapes a charge often leveled against other authors: that of laying claim to divine, originative role.
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