Page 10 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, November 2, 1988
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I
Unassigned
By Kern Nunn
Laurel
$7.95/paperback
Territory
Sun: Certif
hazardo us
*Gone the Sun
By Winston Groom
11oubleday
$18.95/dcover
At birth, we receive a birth cer-
tificate. At death, we submit to a
death certificate. But what happens
:in between? Where is life recorded?
'In his fifth novel, Gone the Sun ,
'Winston Groom proposes a "Life
Certificate" - "a brief statement for
,historical purposes that could ex-
plain how a person lived and what
:they accomplished and where they
failed and why."
In essence, Gone the Sun is the
"Life Certificate" of Beau Gunn,
recording his progress from an op-
pressive military school through
nightmarish Vietnam, New York's
theatre district, and finally to Beau's
hometown of Bienville, Alabama.
Through the narrative eyes of his
life-long friend, Pappy Turner, we
are shown the psyche of a frustrated
intellectual: struggling with past de-
cisions, thwarted by present ones,
haunted by memories, and unable to
escape his experiences.
Y The relationships Groom con-
=structs between Gunn's tragic man
;persona and the two groups of peo-
ple with which he holds closest
contact - the "Funny Five," his
most intimate schoolhood friends,
and the four important woman in his
life - are woven with acute preci-
'sion and often charged with moral
questions. These relationships are
oddly realistic in their lack of ful-
fillment. Yet by executing hard-
,racked emotional scenes with not an
occasional but a constant odd,
underbelly angle, Groom propels the
reader forward on a quest for hope
ied
polish,
structure
and truth, even though we already
know Beau Gunn is dead by page
three.
Even so, Gone the Sun fails to
skirt the devious pitfalls, hungrily
waiting to snap and devour any fic-
tion which purports to tell a "life
story." The first major problem
tripping up the narrative occurs pri-
marily in the story's first half, as
Pappy's narration travels through
Beau's life like a child on a play-
ground chain swing: back and forth
without moving anywhere. The
jumping between time periods inter-
twined with Beau's recurring Viet-
nam nightmare madness makes for a
somewhat jumbled series of events
that makes for a meatless hodge-
podge.
With a passive, laissez-faire
narrative tone provoking little reac-
tion and a noticeable lack of hardcore
action, Gone the Sun reads like a
manuscript in two sections. The first
is a long embellished introduction, a
foreshadowing full of detailed details;
only in the second is the real meat of
the story found - in the dialogue.
"Looking back," Pappy says, "I
don't think it had as great an effect
on me, either because I was too
young or because there was some-
thing in my system that let me blot
it out. But Beau was different. It
troubled him. He felt guilt, and an
inability to deal with how swiftly all
our lives had changed."
The characters' lives had changed
swiftly - as swiftly as this passage
from Beau's boyhood retreats to the
present which then dissolves into a
Vietnam dream. Storing all these
details and sub-chronological events
in the reader's immediate memory is
fine, but its purpose is hazy and al-
Unassigned Territory , the second novel by Kem Nunn, is an un-
usual blend of science fiction and mystery, with a Bohemian twist.
The twist comes in the shape of characters who have unusual
lifestyles or outlooks on life. Obadiah Wheeler is a minister with the
Friends, a fundamentalist religious organization. He is doubting his
faith and therefore in danger of losing his 4-D military classification -
the only thing keeping him from being sent to Vietnam.
Harlan Low is an Elder of the Friends church and is desperately hop-
ing to renew Obadiah's faith. Delandra Hummer is the young woman
Obadiah falls in love with after helping her steal a statue also known as
the "Thing." Rex Hummer, Delandra's brother, follows Delandra and
Obadiah in hopes of regaining the stolen "Thing."
The book begins calmly enough. The Friends divide the United
States into territories for canvassing - each under the jurisdiction of a
different Elder of the Church. Nye County, Nevada, is unassigned terri-
tory - the different elders share the duty of teaching the area about
Christ's act of love.
When the duty falls to Harlan Low, he believes that it might be the
perfect time to help Obadiah find his faith. But Harlan never gets the
chance. Obadiah takes a wrong turn off the freeway and gets lost in the
Mojave Desert. Not only does he get lost, but he meets Delandra and
helps her steal the statue called "The Mystery of the Mojave" (or just
"the Thing") from her father's "Desert Museum."
No one is quite sure exactly what "The Mystery of the Mojave" is.
The billboards lining the road next to the Desert Museum seem to give
some clue: "SEE THE THING! MYSTERY OF THE MOJAVE!
MISSING LINK? ALIEN BEING? MYSTERY OF MODERN SCI-
ENCE!" Delandra assures Obadiah that "the Thing"' is just another of
her father's statue creations. But Obadiah is more skeptical -
"Delandra, I've seen it, remember? He might have made it. But he did
not make it out of tin cans and hubcaps." Halfway through the book,
when Obadiah and Delandra try to sell "The Thing" to inventor Ceton
Verity, the science fiction begins. You see, The Thing isn't just a
statue after all; it's really a -
But Unassigned Territory is truly a Bohemian novel - don't expect
indepth descriptions or long narrative passages. Reading this book is
somewhat like watching a play - most of the plot has to be figured
out from what the characters say and do. Don't be surprised if you can't
put the book down simply because you're not sure what's going on -
hopefully, you'll find out by the end. (If you do, let me know, I still
haven't figured it out!
If you have ever wished that Jack Kerouac had written science-fic-
tion, you'll probably enjoy Unassigned Territory . If however, you
prefer more traditional science fiction, you might be tempted to put the
book down after just a few pages. Stick with it -the novel's unusual
mixture of science fiction and beat might surprise you.
-Troye M. Bailey
most unintelligible.
The second, more critical problem
which befalls Groom is his vision of
the "Life Certificate." The point of
contention here is the incapability of
a biography (vs. an autobiography)
to successfully communicate a per-
son's emotional substance without
becoming entrenched in the more
obvious chronological events.
"How do you take the measure of
a man?" Groom asks. "Do you con-
centrate on his virtues and vices or
do you try to explore the particles of
these: the warmth, the loneliness,
the passion, the love, and the poten-
tial for hatred? How do you truly
sound the depths of his obsessions
and depressions or mark the heights
of his glories? What of his fears?
How do you measure those? How
easily can you record a man's suc-
cesses and failures, his generosity or
greed?"
This paragraph realizes the ex-
treme delicacy and nearly impossible
equilibrium necessary to devise a
true "Life Certificate." Pappy's re-
flective narrative questions the feasi-
bility of collecting a person's life
story and its modes of presentation.
By extension, it seems that the au-
thor himself is uncertain if his
novel's foundational structure is
valid or conclusive. This suggestion
presents an underlying theme of un-
resolved problems, camouflaged yet
extending through the novel's en-
tirety. If the reader recognizes this
pervasive indifference, the idea that a
"Life Certificate" can exist is under-
mined, and the novel falls apart.
Fortunately, most readers will be
too taken with Groom's masterful
detailing and characterizations to no-
tice these pitfalls. As a craftsman
deftly putting puzzle pieces together,
Winston Groom proves talented in
presenting polished components, but
as a biographical "Life Certificate,"
Gone the Sun falls victim to subtle
but hazardous structural crevices.
-Beth Serlin
BETTER THAN THE BATHROOM WALLS!
1 ,__ ....
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- - .{ i
Give your message a
?O0Z§(2 % Touch.... .
--- Thursday, November 3rd, 9:30 p.m., Room 124, East
Quad
Six men and two women wanted to act in a short scene for soon to be
released Big Sister's Testament.
No big time commitment required.
Leave message at 668-0159 if you can't attend the audition.
Auditions and Opportunities is a weekly column of the Daily Arts
section, and it is seeking entries. If you have any auditions or other
opportunities in theatre, please contact Cherie Curry at 763-0379.
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