Mortals

Rating:
Summary: Death -dealing
Review: This sometimes briliant sometimes funny, sometimes fascinating novel. Is also sometimes boring and too complicated, too long and too rambling. You find yourself thinking you are in a Kafka novel trying to get out. I am afraid this book was a mortal blow to my desire to read any more of Mr. Rushes work.

Rating:
Summary: Mortals
Review: Whatever else might be said for or against "Mortals," its absolutely original, captivating prose is a remarkable achievement in itself. In an age of literature-by-cookie-cutter it's gratifying that "Mortals" got published at all, despite its being the long-awaited follow-up to a prizewinning novel that came out in 1991--practically a century ago given the speed with which, in today's fickle literary marketplace, next-big-things keep coming and, inevitably, going. Rush's endlessly observing, endlessly cogitating narrator, Ray Finch, might harbor a few unkind thoughts about James Joyce, but it can't be denied that "Mortals" is one of the most accomplished exercises in sustained stream of consciousness since "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." Although it reads at times like a novel that Ernest Hemingway might have attempted to write if he had felt the desire to one-up Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano," it has a voice all its own.

That voice is the sound of Ray talking--or, rather, thinking--to himself. His recurrent tic of groping for the right word, employing the phrase "a what" as a stopgap until he can find the noun he needs, is a perfect analogue for the uncertainty with which he navigates his two careers in Botswana (as college instructor and CIA agent), his marriage to Iris, and his unresolved relationship with his stateside brother Rex. The weakest parts of the novel are the scenes between Ray and Iris, whom Ray worships, but whom he also suspects is having an affair with Davis Morel, an American doctor recently relocated to Gaborone. Seen through the prism of Ray's uxoriousness and jealousy, Iris never comes off as a convincingly independent person, with a life and mind of her own. (Rex fares better, but perhaps that's because we get to experience him more directly, through extensive excerpts from letters he writes to Iris and from the manuscript collection of his aphorisms and anecdotes that he has entrusted into Ray's care.) Ray flagellates himself so often with the prospect of Iris's unfaithfulness that we are convinced it can't be true. It's an open question whether the solipsism is a weakness in Rush's authorial vision or Ray's tragic flaw; perhaps it's both. Either way, throughout much of the first half of "Mortals" most of the narrative tension derives from waiting to see whether Ray will implode under the pressure of his own worst imaginings.

But then, in the novel's gripping second half, Rush adds a healthy dose of political violence to Ray's existential despair. In his capacity as CIA agent, Ray is sent north across the Kalahari to track a grassroots agrarian movement lately taken to killing the cattle of the country's wealthy landowners. During this journey, a number of revelations occur that will forever alter Ray's connections with Iris, Rex, Morel, and the agency. And although once the revelations have occurred the novel plays itself out fairly predictably along the lines they suggest, in no way does this diminish the reader's pleasure in following Ray's clattering trains of thought all the way to the end of this very long, very rich, and ultimately very satisfying book.

Rating:
Summary: A notch below "Mating" but give it a chance
Review: While "Mortals" suffers in comparison with Norman Rush's masterful "Mating," it does generate considerable steam in the second half of the book. After a very slow start, it builds to a rousing conclusion, and even has elements of being an action-packed page-turner as it drives to an action-packed climax involving a prison escape and guerilla warfare with plenty of gunfire, explosions and other surprises. Very challenging, but ultimately also very rewarding.
The protagonist is an erudite Milton scholar (is there any other kind?) teaching at a school in Africa, which is a front for his spying for the CIA. He faces high adventure in the 2nd half of the book that tests both his body and his soul.
The theme of the book is redemption and the two-part arc of the book copies the structure of Paradise Lost, followed by Paradise Regained. If you are not a big fan of either Milton's poetry or his theology, no doubt you will lose the thrust of much of this parallelism, as it was lost on me. But, like "Mating" the book is a concoction so loaded with goodies that it is OK when not every one of them hits the bulls-eye.
"Mortals" features a self-deluding, middle aged male narrator who lives in Botswana and dabbles in espionage as a CIA operative on the side. Rush revisits many of the themes that color "Mating," including the southern African locale and another intricate dissection of relationship between the sexes. The twist here is that the protagonist -- a male one this time -- is so loaded with unsavory qualities that it is difficult to drum up any enthusiasm for his various complaints and obsessions in the early part of the book. And, as before, Rush's language can be difficult and borderline excessive. A patient Reader will ultimately be rewarded when paradise is reclaimed, but you really must persevere through dense thickets of prose to get there.
Although sometimes it is hard to see it through all Rush's florid and decorated prose, the book actually does have a well-developed plot, another contrast with "Mating." Book One dramatizes the drab and marginalized existence of the protagonist, who has been consigned by the end of the cold war and its moral certainties to a humdrum life in the capital of a small African country. Rush's hero here is distinctly creepy in his clinging to his beautiful, young wife as his sole source of redemption in this dreary purgatory. As his hold on the woman he loves so obsessively weakens, rounds of self-pitying soul searching begins. At this point in the book, you are not able to summon up much sympathy for this loser.
But if you are able to get that far, keep reading. Part Two of the book is, of course, about the re-making of the man, a new man and a better man to boot this time around. (I notice that when the main plot line is written down that way, the novel may sound more like something Tom Wolfe would conjure up, so please don't be mislead.)
Like "Mating" there is lots of word play. There are also a number of interesting subplots to distract you, including dissecting the hero's relationship with his eccentric and creative gay brother, who is suffering from AIDS (natch) and the brief appearance of the protagonists in "Mating" -- apparently back together again -- which gives the author an opportunity to treat the same political themes from a wholly different perspective.
If you admire "Mating," you will find much here to admire, too.