Ever since I started driving as a teenager, I used my car as a vehicle for thinking. If I had a problem late at night, go for a ride. By the time I got back home, I'd have an answer. Maybe not always the right answer, but an answer which was usually better than when I started. While I didn't particularly like this book (as I have previously discussed I'm a fan of subtlety and this story wasn't), Jack Ketchum in Joyride employs the same tactic, using his characters as a proverbial night drive. His characters work through issues and explore ideas that aren't necessarily plot appropriate but they do reveal a lot about the characters, and most likely, Ketchum as well.
Susan, at the beginning of the novel is thinking of Wayne, and how sad and lonely his life must be. She believes he is depressed over the loss of his mother. She has this thought, "It occurred to her that life was only measured time, really, and you were the only measure. Like people were all a bunch of clocks each set to a different time, each fatally winding down" (Ketchum 16). What a beautiful image and turn of phrase. People as clocks, tick-tocking through life until they eventually stop. It's not a necessary thought to the novel. It does play into death which the novel deals with heavily but it's a thought provoking sentiment. It gets the reader thinking about life off the page. Time is a sensitive issue to many people. Not enough of it, too much, not enough left, etc. Time is an obsession. And this example exposes that and reveals it for it is. Running out at all times.
When Lee and Carole are in the car with Wayne, Lee recalls parts of his past. He thinks of the Summer of Love, a summer in 1967 Boston where "flower power" was in full swing and hippies were going to change the world with love. He recognizes that they lost this war of peace and it had changed him. His optimism for humanity faded and he filled that void with drugs and women. He stopped teaching and started selling. And then he says, "The problem was that he'd found out along the way, through a pretty long string of lovers, that you could burn out on passion and romance the same way you could burn out on bad dope or optimism or any other damn thing. It happened. And once it happened it was forever. So that then, even when something undisputedly good came along, you maintained a kind of reserve" (Ketchum 94).
Wow.
Talk about exploring human behavior and understanding. Dr. Al once posed us the question at orientation: what can we do, as popular fiction writers, to explore the emotional connection between reader and author? If only I'd had the above quote as an answer. Ketchum in a very short amount of words doesn't just sum up Lee's character, he also breaks down the fourth wall. It's a lecture of human consciousness that doesn't read like one. He opens up a dialogue about idealism and the human spirit that ends with Lee recognizing he doesn't have anything to lose because he's already lost it.
What Ketchum is doing is reminiscent of what I posted last time regarding what Alan Moore said about The Killing Joke. That stories (or any form of art) should connect people on an emotional level. Moore says his story failed because it didn't say anything interesting. It didn't pose any new ideas or ideologies that would make people think. It wasn't relatable. Moore argues (and I agree) that art is not face value. It's deep and poses deep questions on an individual level. And that is what Ketchum is doing. Ketchum's novel is about a mass murdering car ride. That isn't exactly relatable but the characters are. They live and breathe as all characters should. But they also pose questions to themselves that actual people want the answers to. And it's presented so subtly it's as if the characters are helping the reader answer them.
That's not just popular fiction. That's art.
No comments:
Post a Comment