Passes Through - Softcover

Stephenson, Rob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573661554 ISBN 13: 9781573661553

Publisher: Fiction Collective Two, 2009

Synopsis

In language that is frank and uncompromising, Rob Stephenson's debut novel, ""Passes Through"", moves forward in a rare and daring manner. Part journal, part meditation on aesthetics, part dreamscape, ""Passes Through"" investigates experience, identity, beauty, and sexuality, while provocatively complicating such distinctions as writing versus revision and imagination versus observation. It is a narrative of and about language, a narrative of and about narrative. Can we truly experience the present, the novel asks? No, we cannot, ""Passes Through"" suggests again and again. Stephenson throws to the wayside all of the traditional elements of fiction and in doing so composes a sort of musical composition of obsessive consciousness and selfhood's slippage. This haunting novel never takes the easy route and baffles and confounds on its way toward a stunning yet inevitable finale.

About this title

About the Author

Rob Stephenson is a writer and composer living in Queens, New York.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

PASSES THROUGH

By Rob Stephenson

FC2

Copyright © 2010 Rob Stephenson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-57366-155-3

Chapter One

No one could stay in the gallery for more than five minutes. The heat and humidity were merciless. I was still collecting pictures. I would look at two of the photographs and go back out into the rain. I went in and out five times. Outside, I stood on the curb. I am always standing on the edge. Never pulled in for long. I can't be pulled into the center. There were newspapers arranged by topic and tucked into folders. Everything old and reused. Lovers on a bed. Chairs everywhere. Blood and anger. The bodies completely asexual. They came from a time when sex and magic were connected in people's minds. Red. Red. Red. Circles within ellipses. Not enough thinking about thinking. The strategy of drawing in piecemeal. Even the landscapes were on a budget, as if they were wallpaper. Everything subdued. All this sits in my guts as I write, making my regimen soft. He had this rare opportunity to focus on a part of life most of the population was trying not to think about. He talked about their glorious empire of fear, the wonder of their ingenious war machines, and their gods' love of bloodshed. A drunken king reclines with his queen. Attendants fan them. The heads of his enemies are hung from nearby trees. He emitted the scent of boldness and decay. The white clothesline looked good against his skin. His balls hung so low I wound the rope seven times around the wrinkled skin above them. Rodeo horses with their testicles tied tight to make them bucking broncos. But he was quiet and adorable for a few seconds. I miss that kind of intimacy. We made a scene in the grocery store. Gummy bears. The struggle for power and identity. Spun around by the forces of attraction and repulsion. Two magnets hanging on strings. Two cats staying in separate rooms. Wary of how story and design shape each other. Not ready to get along. No one sleeps. Afterwards, a small but significant reversal. He wins by a hair. I am appalled. For a minute I thought he was going to get out his ruler. Home becomes uncomfortable. There is no air. There is no center left except for what I've imagined inside of me. Only when I'm traveling can I find that center.

Initially, I felt this story was encompassing too many ideas. I keep changing as I go. I had hoped to stay true in some sense to what I started. But then I began to wonder if a writer's instincts should be disregarded. Maybe I should let them go. These little documents of my personal moments. Should I be writing down my everyday thoughts? The ones that don't strike me as important. The invisible repetitions. The underlying pitter pats. The recollections of corresponding numbers on the face of an irrelevant clock. I continue to find beauty in unusual places. Some of which are still unspeakable. Blurry edges. Wonderful images that sit in the mind. Made rich by the variegated detail retained and amplified by review. Art should have enough layers of meaning so that you can come back to it over and over again and find new things. But muddled things are not the same as things that have depth or multiple meanings. None of this is news. Some art you can appreciate better when you've acquired a certain way of seeing. Learning another language so you can translate it back into your own. A stasis in the interval. Secrets that stay underneath. In the dark. Stay beyond the corruption of analysis. It is the hidden things that drive him on. A fuel that works in tandem with the part that is not out there in the open. A long side. Parallels make a fiction that reminds him to live. There is life beyond the rhythmic impulses of key tapping. I let a character think something he really didn't have the capacity to think. But then again, imperfect objects may become catalysts. He was high in every scene and knew where he was in the world. He returned again and again to a particular place. A calm reverie prior to traumatic experience. I disliked the oversized parrot that talks to him and runs his spaceship. He said he was into the new age religions. I said I would slap the gods right out of him. I lose interest as soon as they appear. That is my own bias. I must be the most contaminated sign in my own language. Maybe that's a shortcut to the sacred. Light bulbs in a circle behind the images. Not just an ordinary flower can take on implausible aesthetic radiance. So tall and skinny. Big fucking fingers point to the sky. Black sweatshirt with a burning skull on it. Shaved head. Wing tattoos inked on the back of it. Cryptic squiggles dip under his shirt and ride down the ridge of his spine. Taciturn features. High-tech cropped goatee. Kiss. He's too drunk. Kiss again. Damn. What is so great about not knowing what country you're in at the moment? The gods are all and everywhere he said. In that sunset over there and in your shit. They derive a peculiar pleasure when they pass through unrecognized. At the end of an episode, life has lost its ongoing character. Our perception of succession it seems is dependent on the possibilities of organization.

I sat down at a table with an older man. Macaroni and cheese. He lived nearby. A tall young man sat down next to him. Peach cobbler. The fattest thumbs I'd seen in ages. The older man spoke of how he had killed chickens at summer camp. A broom handle on the neck. A foot on either end. Jerking the body back to snap the head off. Oh ick said the young man. The old man said there was a baby calf that he named and adopted. It became dinner at some point. The young man interrupted to ask him if he'd eaten it. The old man wasn't sure, but said he should have spent more energy on the camp counselors. I said that could lead to a lifetime of cannibalism. The older man said he always enjoys what he eats and stared at the young man. I get the urge to destroy things. I bite my knuckles instead. I stuff myself into pockets of rage. The smallest movement triggers it. Walks along the boulevard. Lilacs, dogwoods, tulips. It's crucial to determine how each one manifests itself. Mostly, the voices are supportive, even witty. Occasionally, they are cruel. They swear and tell him to hurt himself. It's funny, the different ways people protect their personal space. I was never at home there in his place. One time he put on the coat his mother had sent him. Inside out. We laughed until we were sore. Some little rapture. And them some more. I dragged him outside in his underwear. Night-blooming jasmine. The first summer rain on hot pavement. Strange isolated moments. Equal children. Boys again. Enjoying the boy things together. Sweet fleeting peace. Two lilies sticking it out in a field of weeds. And then the corny way he channeled a room full of famous fucked-up women. It had a cantankerous charm. Tough bitches who've seen the wars. The inner wars. Different from mine. The pills helped him manage but he never eradicated them. He wore the wounds inside out, too. Hollow treats bounced around and burst open on our faces. The favorite old-time cosmetic covered our hands. Reeking of violets. It made us cackle. We fought and said it was the fault of the other. The part that aims too high can count the losses. He hears the voices of strangers. Chaotic and irrepressible. They told him all tears are selfish. What goes on between people anyway? I always find beauty in horrible things. The way comedians talk about mothers-in-law. An inescapable part of life and you must adjust to it. Did you get a pet? Do you think about me? Silence gets wider and wider. Safety first. Yes, an internet agreement about silence. Countersigned in silence. And then there are hobbies. Regular visits to the library. Honing those computer skills. He made birds out of typing paper. Desperate for someone to waste time with. He never wrote in his notebook. But I began to use language to express something closer to how I really think. I left things out. I merged others together in odd configurations that are lost when I try to recapture them now. Sleepy boy. Nose in a dictionary. A fount of knowledge. Cutting each description into thin rectangles. Spreading them across the table. Face down. Why is it that I pander at all to the reader?

I was filled with regret today. Ghosts are everywhere. I feel more and more like a fool. It is such a sorrowful thing. Losing the ability to see a person in a positive light. What you desire greatly begins to show up around you in little pieces until you see it everywhere. It points right at you wherever you are. He mentioned he was no longer interested in architecture or lovely furniture. I feel as if I'm outside the whole interaction. I watch him talk to me, but his words are a mantra to keep him tuned to the incredibly small world necessary for his security. The world of the absolute answers to everything. The same songs over and over. The world I run from every day. I am not sure how to make plans for us to do things together. I am no longer certain of what will offend him. He looked amused at that. His sentimentality is heartless. Everything must fit into an order that at all costs will be maintained. Rude characterizations are artificially stamped on every character. There are bound to be unpleasant consequences. I feel guilty because it was easy for a while. I am a shadow. A senseless road. That's what he said. My life is a hesitation. I type. He drifts. The rudder is stuck on this boat. He doesn't need both hands. We were served a meal where one peppered dish after another burned a different region of the mouth and throat. What answers do I think I need from him? I feel the wild tempo of the inner process. Useless patterns. Unsettled. Brittle. Our clocks are not in unison.

There is some taking that is not given willingly. There are degrees of rape that transport what is seen into something else, something unaware. What parts of me do you want? I'm all twisted together in a tangle. The idea of collecting myself includes untruths I no longer even know about until they come to the surface. Balancing a clinically maintained self with a passionate driven self. Where can I take this? What is the best way to expand this character? To what end? I settled for watching a movie with him. Roughly filmed and edited with a jagged elegant economy. It was about whether a man is a factory or a landscape. There was a landscape and they built a factory on it. There was a factory and they put a landscape around it. He thought the character didn't speak from inside his own script, but with the words someone else gave him. A mirage born of despair. He knew how to be a bastard and come out looking pretty good. And he wanted revenge against a way of thinking that buries the deepest thoughts inside a secret place. You trust yourself too much, you pretending piece of self-deprecating sponge.

That museum is overwhelming. Too much private desire in a public place. I particularly enjoyed the barbed wire collection. Over one hundred varieties. Lengths of it radiating out and around a large oval frame. Inside it was an old photograph. Sepia-toned. Horns and antlers. Particles of dust. Dirt that attaches itself to a car. Fibers from his clothes. The procession of insects that arrive at the dead body in a predicable and datable sequence. I wonder if addictive behavior manifests itself the same way in countries with different religious emphases. I would like to find those dangerous old visions. To love the forbidden things that could be found without much effort in the library. He suggested a whole new set of moves through a pair of thick brooding lips. He had the cheapest tickets. Secret thrills that were better than the ones the other kids were looking for outside in their cars. I feel so selfish. He must think I'm an animal. Real noise directs us away from the message itself toward the medium in which it occurs. I have to get away from this city. Avoid the same traps. These awful feelings of ruin. Such mediocre stuff. It turns out each middle has its own distinct properties that affect the message in precise ways. Shut up and fill in the gaps with something multifaceted. Will we see the end of his bad ideas about love?

He has a way of making everything I do seem unimportant. I don't think he means it. But sometimes I just want to have an ego. The problem of owning instead of renting. I like it when he calls me daddy. When he thinks I make all the right decisions. Even when I'm wrong. I like getting the praise I don't deserve. When I steal the glory. I've entered a game where I suddenly become this person that's a different person from the one you've been speaking to. I excel in this highly organized form of pretending. Capable of dastardly behavior. The gradual reintroduction of their ideas into my own. I know the jokes, the references to all kinds of old art. It's an odd use of the dead. The vanished. There is always continuity. Maybe everything has already vanished. Not much physical evidence left. Objects can be irrelevant. They don't pre-exist in a valuable state. And still I've spent so much of my life trying to make usable structures. Everything is contaminated. I'm not sure how to proceed. To find better definitions. It's futile to have a part of your life that no one can touch. The limbo between prose and poetry. Someone else's right thing. Lots of military guys. Standing there. Guarding emptiness. People are taking photographs in groups. Parasitic tourists. He says I am experiencing the accumulated charred and unholy ends of all my failed relationships. Boy, I do hate lazy reviewers.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from PASSES THROUGHby Rob Stephenson Copyright © 2010 by Rob Stephenson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Fiction Collective Two
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1573661554
• ISBN 13: 9781573661553
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168