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A review by radagast_the_brown
Remainder by Tom McCarthy
4.0
cor·dite: n. A smokeless explosive powder consisting of nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin, and petrolatum that has been dissolved in acetone, dried, and extruded in cords. Produced in the UK from 1889 to replace gunpowder as a military propellant.
The quote from Jonathan Lethem on the front cover of the Vintage Press’s copy reads, “A stunningly strange book about the rarest of fictional subjects: happiness.” This quote gives this sense of potential optimism that might be found in the novel, but no. I would argue that this book does not hold the optimism you might be looking for. It follows a man’s post-trauma journey, loaded with money that gives him the power to re-enact his own designed world.
Tom McCarthy places a good number of symbols and references, not too subtle, that hint towards the overall themes of repetition and artificial reality. The song about repeating the past, the Narrator’s occasional quips that seem to mean nothing, references to Samuel Beckett (a writer of existentialist themed pieces), and frequent musings on inauthenticity.
One thing that stuck with me was the mention of cordite: the smell of cordite was something that nothing could be done about, that ever so slightly ruined the Narrator’s seemingly perfect ‘re-enactment’ of his visions. Upon searching for exactly what cordite was (á la Remainder), it was a smokeless replacement (full description at top) for gunpowder. I think that these references to cordite sums up the entire idea of artificiality, and goes with the Narrator’s fixation of vaporization into nothingness. Cordite has the smell only; it doesn’t carry any other sensory parts to it that would signal someone of its existence. It replaces for something real, authentic with something with less…substance. That lingering smell of cordite reminds the Narrator that his re-enactments are “re-” instead of real; it reminds him that it only holds the place of genuine life. Cordite is a cheap attempt at an equivalent that will never quite be equal. Cordite’s use as a symbol in Remainder is a great addition to the text.
The title “remainder” also fits in well with the Narrator’s obsession with the word “residual,” and he’s convinced it’s a noun when he’s heard the doctor use it as such. The word “remainder” (I believe) is a nod to this definition of residual, or “recidual,” and like the Narrator, it gives the book a sense of finality and neatness, which can be seen in the Narrator’s revisitation of the Seattle-style cappucino punch card, wanting to have all his stamps just to “finish it off.”
I have to be completely honest: I was assigned this book in my Intro to Literary Study course, and so far we’d read a few short stories and House of Leaves, the cult classic (which we didn’t have enough time to fully finish or anything) but this is the first work that I could not put down. I was supposed to read the first half for Wednesday’s section, and the second half for next Wednesday’s section, or something, but I finished it over the weekend. The beginning can be a little slow, as are all of the half-speed descriptions of action (however I realize that’s the point of those half-speed portions, to drag on as if in slow-motion real time), but to be completely honest, this book fucked with my mind a little bit. I took a seminar on existentialism, thinking we’d be reading things like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead and works along those lines, but we ended up going way back to Hegel, Nietzsche, Ortega y Gasset, etc. This book has fulfilled my want to read something “horrifically existentialist”, a great description from Kirkus Reviews on Remainder. It struck chords that reminded me of Godot, but in a capitalist world where a disturbed man holds money as power.
The quote from Jonathan Lethem on the front cover of the Vintage Press’s copy reads, “A stunningly strange book about the rarest of fictional subjects: happiness.” This quote gives this sense of potential optimism that might be found in the novel, but no. I would argue that this book does not hold the optimism you might be looking for. It follows a man’s post-trauma journey, loaded with money that gives him the power to re-enact his own designed world.
Tom McCarthy places a good number of symbols and references, not too subtle, that hint towards the overall themes of repetition and artificial reality. The song about repeating the past, the Narrator’s occasional quips that seem to mean nothing, references to Samuel Beckett (a writer of existentialist themed pieces), and frequent musings on inauthenticity.
One thing that stuck with me was the mention of cordite: the smell of cordite was something that nothing could be done about, that ever so slightly ruined the Narrator’s seemingly perfect ‘re-enactment’ of his visions. Upon searching for exactly what cordite was (á la Remainder), it was a smokeless replacement (full description at top) for gunpowder. I think that these references to cordite sums up the entire idea of artificiality, and goes with the Narrator’s fixation of vaporization into nothingness. Cordite has the smell only; it doesn’t carry any other sensory parts to it that would signal someone of its existence. It replaces for something real, authentic with something with less…substance. That lingering smell of cordite reminds the Narrator that his re-enactments are “re-” instead of real; it reminds him that it only holds the place of genuine life. Cordite is a cheap attempt at an equivalent that will never quite be equal. Cordite’s use as a symbol in Remainder is a great addition to the text.
The title “remainder” also fits in well with the Narrator’s obsession with the word “residual,” and he’s convinced it’s a noun when he’s heard the doctor use it as such. The word “remainder” (I believe) is a nod to this definition of residual, or “recidual,” and like the Narrator, it gives the book a sense of finality and neatness, which can be seen in the Narrator’s revisitation of the Seattle-style cappucino punch card, wanting to have all his stamps just to “finish it off.”
I have to be completely honest: I was assigned this book in my Intro to Literary Study course, and so far we’d read a few short stories and House of Leaves, the cult classic (which we didn’t have enough time to fully finish or anything) but this is the first work that I could not put down. I was supposed to read the first half for Wednesday’s section, and the second half for next Wednesday’s section, or something, but I finished it over the weekend. The beginning can be a little slow, as are all of the half-speed descriptions of action (however I realize that’s the point of those half-speed portions, to drag on as if in slow-motion real time), but to be completely honest, this book fucked with my mind a little bit. I took a seminar on existentialism, thinking we’d be reading things like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead and works along those lines, but we ended up going way back to Hegel, Nietzsche, Ortega y Gasset, etc. This book has fulfilled my want to read something “horrifically existentialist”, a great description from Kirkus Reviews on Remainder. It struck chords that reminded me of Godot, but in a capitalist world where a disturbed man holds money as power.