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It'd
be interesting to see how someone unfamiliar with the works
of Ethan Coen (half of the Academy Award-winning Coen Brothers)
would review this collection of short fiction. He or she would
have to be someone who wouldn't immediately associate mildly
surreal takes on 1930s noir with Barton Fink or hear
Sam Elliott's voice drawling through the Lebowski-like
barstool-top yarnspinning. Can someone with an opinion and
knowledge of the Coens on film possibly be impartial to a
Coen in literature? Or will his or her inherent fandom (or
dislike, if it were possible for anyone with an IQ above 75
to dislike them) creep into the evaluation?
If that
snide, intelligence-questioning remark has passed you by,
this review will skew "fan."
Gates
of Eden is a collection of fourteen short works—both
prose and quaintly anachronistic radio dramas—that tread
on familiar territory for those with even a passing knowledge
of the Coen oeuvre. Eden is populated with inept boxers
turned inept and unwitting mobsters in the 1930s, bumbling
mobsters in Minnesota, wise-cracking private dicks who talk
in an overly-witty-and-too-fast style, sleazy record execs,
aging Jews, more private eyes, more inept mobsters, more Jews,
renegade Feds (who work for the Department of Weights and
Measures), and local barroom bards.
Thankfully,
Coen's characterizations take what may look like a slightly
homogenous mixture and prevent it from ever feeling worn thin.
Every character is a wonderful mixture of pathos and personality.
"Quirky" would describe Coen's world well if not for the pejorative
connotation that comes with it. Why have a simple private
eye when one can have a private eye who, after having his
ear bitten off in a scuffle, succumbs to hysterical deafness?
Why simply have mobsters when one can make them so inept that,
instead of just striking back after a hit on one of their
own, a series of bungles leads to them having a dead, gay
man delivered to them in a Minnesota garage—and
getting ripped off in the transaction? Why write a factual
"About the Author" section when Coen can describe himself
as an "accomplished nudist" and declare himself the author
of "three volumes of poetry or, if any publisher should prefer,
one big one"?
As a
man whose livelihood comes from long-form film, Coen seems
unusually adept at short works of humor. Pieces such as "Have
You Ever Been to Electric Ladyland" are beautifully executed
and masterfully told in their brevity. In it, a contemptible
and seemingly universally-hated music mogul reports an unnamed
crime to a police officer, giving him a list of suspects.
As each suspect comes up, the main character describes their
relationship and conflict-fraught history. Word choices and
the way he has obviously misread so many of his interpersonal
dealings slowly reveal more of his character and lets the
reader believe that almost any of these people would have
ample reason to want to do him harm.
In "It
Is an Ancient Mariner," another unnamed narrator tells a stranger
at a Texas bar about the murder of bar regular Radio Ronnie
Harper. Coen's easy-going narration belies the horrible events
it's working its way towards. With down-home charm and wit,
the story discusses a man being stabbed in the neck with a
buck knife by his wife in front of their two daughters. The
events are told with such laid-back aplomb that at no time
does one ever really stop to realize how truly fucked up that
is. Its totality is lulling with dulcet tones and hypnotic
hospitality.
A chief
complaint about Eden could be that Coen's short story
characters are rarely "real." The detectives, the mobsters,
the palookas…they often approach caricature for comedic purpose.
Thankfully, between the comic-noir, Coen injects memoir-like
tales of everyday life. Most of these take the form of tales
of young Jewish kids attending Talmud Torah after school in
Minneapolis, which could very well be works of nonfiction.
Coen pens works of youthful protagonists dealing with a mixture
of adolescent curiosity and tastes, alienation from being
Jewish in such a Lutheran part of the country, and, often,
disconnection from their less-than-idyllic home lives. Nothing
they deal with is too outlandish and unbelievable, leaving
a narrative of the subtle humor and reality for which he and
his brother have become known.
The cover
of the book perfectly reflects the collection of works held
within. If the stories aren't happening on blocks just like
the one pictured—in unnamed, uncluttered, "simple" parts
of America in "simpler times"—they reflect the stories
those same houses would listen to on the radio, or the flash-bang
product of 1950s Hollywood, piped in on black and white TVs.
Coen's big-screen, smirking sense of humor and the nuanced
touches he brings to his film work make for a literary collection
that easily spurs big-screen mental images.
(March,
2008)
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