Vernon Subutex 3: A Novel

This is a story of two people, one dead and one alive, and how the dead one can instigate more interest, conniving, and wasted mental activity than the live one. It is a story where seeing your name on a book can be vastly more important to an author than its actual contents. It is a story where power, particularly of the social kind, is exposed as what it really is, namely a willingness to “smile” in the presence of those person(s) higher in the hierarchy than yourself. Displays of generosity are equated with affirmations of power.Within this story, there is expressed a longing for the past anarchy of social media, which at the time had an uncertainty about where it was going to evolve. This uncertainty served as a catharsis for those who wanted to flee from the anxiety of a mundane and policy-driven existence. This is to be contrasted with what is available today: that of high-amplitude name-calling and gnashing of teeth.Within this story, this powerful social commentary, il n'y a pas d'amour, mais tout le monde baise, baise et baise. Stilettos are viewed as perfume for the sole, as a pheromone for women, whose strength is directional proportional to the length of the heel and serve as proof of courage of those who wear them to stroll in places typically occupied by creeps and other forms of human/vermin combinations. Pornography abounds, and even suggestions on how to write a guide to pornography for children, with the goal of teaching them how to deal with its contents, which they are exposed to “even before they read”. This is kind of like passing out condoms to teenagers with the “realistic” expectation that they are going to have sex regardless of social mores or moralistic imperatives from their parents. Female porn stars are supposed to feel pride in being the best there is in the business, whereas male porn stars are doing what is “normal” for men. But female porn stars are to be distinguished from prostitutes, the latter of which are “lion tamers”, and who are to follow an alteration of the Nietzschean exhortation that “when you go to clients, do not forget the whip!”The “hyper-instability” of the financial markets is acknowledged accurately and unashamedly. Vernon (the “live” one) faces a Baumanian liquid life as everyone else does, but a different viscosity assigned to each, which prevents some of them from bouncing off the walls of their self-made purgatories, as they would otherwise. The “bumbling CEO” appears also, with the their typical paucity of brain power, which is to be contrasted with the real financial doers, i.e. the innovators who really create the wealth, and who expose without intent the CEO as nothing more than a tramp on a mountain (a mountain piled up with false, imputed achievements, and its slopes full of climbers desperately attempting to reach its summit, without knowing that this is a position of unstable equilibrium, the slightest perturbation of which will result in a Sisyphean realization beyond their control). Street protests are ineffective in influencing markets; the protestors are effectively blowhards, unaware that “all is one and dusted”. Algorithms now rule the financial markets: survival of the fittest applies to software code, not people. Immigrants, viewed as alien lifeforms, are slapped in the face by an absentee meritocracy which they thought was real.Vernon sleeps with trannies, and makes nothing of it, but he feels obligated to characterize the tranny as “beautiful” and “classy”. Beauty, whether possessed by a tranny or not, is a characteristic that must be pointed out. It is looks that matters, not character or intellectual prowess. There is a large variance in attitudes displayed towards street beggars. The gait speed of a passerby is taken as an objective measure of their fear of occupying or competing with Vernon’s space (but never questioning their assumption that their current status is in fact better than his).But eviction from an apartment and finding yourself as a beggar in the street is one thing, and of course traumatic; but choosing consciously to evict your personal integrity is another. Better to be a bum on a hill because of events beyond your control than to be a bum on a hill of detritus resulting from excising your moral conviction, or from exercising unbridled sycophancy to the “monotheistic cult of money” and plutocracy so prevalent in the modern condition.

To me it is really impressive how the author manages to show all these different perspectives and draws a very current portrait of Europe in the 21st century.

Balzac meets punk rock. A slice through the social world of Paris (or any big city) and the compromises and self-deceptions people make to get by.

I received the UK edition of this book as a gift a few months ago (it won’t be published in the US until later in 2019). I twice tried to start it, and twice put it down after a few pages thinking, “I can’t read this. This reminds me of the most depressing parts of the DC punk scene back the eighties and early nineties, the guys who spent their last dollars on beer instead of heating their apartments. This is about the ones who didn’t grow up.”The third time I picked up the book, I read random pages from the middle, and I was hooked. The author, Virginie Despentes, is a phenomenal writer with an extraordinarily deep and perceptive mind, and an almost unparalleled ability to portray the minds and experiences of a broad cast of very different people. I went back to page one, read the book all the way through, and came away thinking this is one of the best novels I have read in many, many years.Vernon Subutex is a former record store owner, now out of work and out of options. When the book opens, he’s scrounging tobacco from last night’s cigarette butts to roll into his morning smoke. His unemployment benefits have run out, he’s about to be evicted from his apartment, and his benefactor, the rock star Alex Bleach, has just died.Things go downhill from there.I was right in my assessment of the first few pages. This book is about exactly the kinds of people I knew back in DC when Fugazi and Bad Brains were playing at the 9:30 Club and DC Space. Despentes writes about what happens to the rockers, the groupies, the partiers, the addicts, porn stars, transsexuals, Neo-Nazis, and wannabes as they approach age fifty.Some, like the writer Xavier, have moved into traditional roles and become bitterly reactionary, self-centered, or self-pitying. Others, like the Hyena, adapted to a harsh and cynical world. Still others, like Pamela Kant, gave up on trying to fit in to a society that never did and never would accept them. Many, like Vernon, are just trying to find their way with ever fewer resources, fewer opportunities, and less energy.We meet this sprawling cast of characters as Vernon drifts from home to home, couch to couch, in a futile effort to avoid ending up on the streets. In true punk fashion, Despentes presents her characters raw and unvarnished. The unrepentant porn star, the savage wife-beater, the neo-Nazis, the young Muslim girl who chooses the veil, the homeless, hulking and physically repulsive Olga–are all full-fledged human beings whose thoughts and feelings make sense, whether we agree with them or not.In fact, an encounter near the end between the haughty right-wing Xavier and the homeless Olga illustrates the encounter between the reader and the text. Xavier crosses the street to talk to Vernon, who sits beside Olga, begging in front of a supermarket. Xavier has no intention of speaking with, or even acknowledging Olga, whom he finds disgusting. He crouches down in front of Vernon, close enough so that he doesn’t have to see Olga.Olga, unbidden, talks to Xavier about the dog that was cruelly taken from her. Xavier too has just lost a dog, and has been too hard, too bitter to mourn. Olga’s eloquent expression of grief hits a nerve, takes him by surprise, and allows him to finally feel the extent of his loss. Along with his recognition of their mutual reactions to a shared experience comes a surprise recognition that this woman is not some repulsive “other,” but merely another version of himself in another context that terrifies him. This is himself as a woman at the midpoint of a life in which everything went wrong, in which he ceased to matter and lost all protection from the indignities and brutality of a society in decay.Throughout the book, Despentes seems to say, “Let me show you the tawdriness, the ugliness of what you so love to despise. This is you. It’s ugly, isn’t it? But are you willing to see the beauty in it? Because it’s there if you look.”This is where Despentes differs vastly from so many American writers. American readers seem to demand that characters whose political values or moral outlooks are opposed to their own be portrayed as unlikable and be condemned by the author. Despentes simply pumps her world at the reader through a fire hose and leaves it to you to figure out how you feel.What comes out of that hose, like real life, is a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. What makes this book so good is its unflagging intensity, the scope and breadth of the world it portrays, its clear-eyed and justified rage, its untender appreciation of beauty. You can’t imagine that an author can convey such depth and poignancy writing to the machine gun beat of eighties punk, or that she can break your heart without an ounce of sentiment. But she does it. After three hundred and fifty pages of vivid writing that challenges you to think and feel, to revisit and re-evaluate perspectives you thought had settled, Vernon’s final descent into homelessness, when he suddenly identifies with the entire catalog of outcast humanity, is one of the most moving passages in all of literature.I really hope this book finds an audience in the US when it comes out this fall.

One star--not for Despentes' work, but for this awful translation of her text. Hopefully a different publisher will release a better translation, as this one is no doubt butchering the original work. As is, I find it unreadable, replete with odd translations, expressions and sentence structures that gave me the impression that the translator relied entirely on google translate to translate the text.

Very enjoyable goes at breakneck speed disects french society with scalpel precision

The hype around this book is baffling. Perhaps the translation is not great but I doubt that this is to blame for some of the awful writing. The ‘tell not show’ thing is a real problem and it’s just littered with cliche.The other thing I couldn’t get my head around is how a 40 year old in modern day Paris who had a record shop called ‘Revolver’ and bangs on like a purist about The Clash all the time is supposed to be cool. The whole punk rock purist thing is beyond stale and I had to check the published date a couple of times. Why the author thought it would be interesting to name-check bands so often is beyond me. If this had been published or set 30 years ago that aspect may have been less tiresome. Maybe.The premise of the story; Vernon is down and out but he has a tape of some rock n roll legend (who sounds about as interesting as a conversation about sprouts at Christmas) and everyone will want to see it. Another point at which I checked the published date.Finally, the book is so desperate to impress you with its edginess and cynicism but some of the references to drug use etc are just clumsy and embarrassing. Without any enrichment of the narrative or the characters, they will, upon occasion, just casually take quantities of drugs that would have made Keith Richards (in his pomp) question his lifestyle. Some of it just isn’t credible.The cynicism is not an issue in of itself but it helps when it comes with some insight, humour or charm; the characters in this book are so dusty, cliched and one dimensional it becomes charmless and patronising very quickly.I squirmed my way through what I could and had to abandon it, which I almost never do. Fair enough if people enjoyed it but the fact that people who are paid to critique literature think this is good writing is bizarre.

The first of this year's Booker International shortlist that I read on the expectation that it was the one I most expected to like (my generation, my sensibility, based on the blurb). As it turned out, it was the book I least liked of the six. Pedestrian is the word that comes to mind. Sharply defined characters and situations but none I particularly cared about or who evoked any kind of emotional response in me. A narrative that goes nowhere in particular (and that may well be the point but it didn't go nowhere in a way that resonated with me). And frankly, I don't think Despentes writes particularly well. There's neither style nor elegance to her construction. For me, missable. Not the worst book I've ever read but given how much there is to read, a couple of days I'll never get back.

Relentlessly nihilistic trawl through Paris' 'wild side' (as per Lou Reed's song, only this is largely the bourgeoisie). Porn actresses, transvestites, druggies, film producers, rockers, neo-Nazis, hobos, professional online trolls. All linked through Vernon Subutex, erstwhile record shop owner brought down by the digital revolution and when his rock star benefactor dies suddenly, he's homeless and goes on a non-pilgrim's progress through his address book.Vernon is supposed to be an everyman, but he's pretty unlikeable himself, his attitude towards women, he steals from a woman who put him up in her flat and who slept with him. It's fairly bleak despite the easy access to money and drugs. Sometimes he disappears from the action as another new character is introduced & we learn their back story and how they've ended up as washed out. The link is he possesses his dead benefactor's last audio tapes and lots of people are very inetersted in those, sniffing money.It is deeply misogynistic, but remember this is written by a woman. Can't help thinking she's paying off some personal scores here.It's well written, mildly entertaining but you have to be in the mood for it.