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It's
not easy to write metafiction, and it's harder still to write
metafiction that goes beyond gimmicky structural tricks and
delivers a fulfilling book. By design, metafiction needs to
remind readers constantly that they are reading a book, thus
removing one of the fundamental joys of fiction: the suspension
of disbelief. But Jonathan Baumbach, in You or The Invention
of Memory has written a book that accomplishes the main
goals of metafiction and of good literature: reminding readers
of the book as an object and a construct and a contract between
the author and reader, and enrapturing those same readers
with a complicated love story that plays with memory and identity.
Baumbach is clearly a writer at the top of his game.
The protagonist
of You is the writer, Jay, who is writing this book
in hopes that "you," the former lover of the writer, are reading
his sentences. He plays with his ideal reader, you, and her
familiarity with his petty peccadilloes—his seven-minute
shower, the fourteen slices of banana on his muesli. "Writing
a novel for all its aggressive gyrations, for all its assaultive
and invasive aspects, is a gesture of love between writer
and reader." It is, he says a few sentences later, "tantamount
to taking off my clothes under a spotlight on a public stage."
That
Baumbach goes on in this mode for a few pages might seem self-indulgent,
but it is vital to the character and to the character of the
book. It allows the reader to see Jay as a highly reliable
and regular narrator, one who will admit to not having been
as faithful and demonstrative as he should have been, one
who knows exactly how many slices of banana he puts on his
cereal each morning. As the reader slips into the story with
the trustworthy narrator, it becomes easier to accept the
initial conceit, making You like reading a secret diary
or a love letter meant for another.
As You
continues, though, readers may begin to doubt the narrator's
truthfulness. It becomes evident that the narrator and his
lover have been engaging in an on-and-off affair for many
years. He seems to think that every other man his lover was
with was called Roger, but when they all meet in France, he
is called Roget. Are these simply tricks of memory, or is
Jay perhaps more duplicitous than he originally seemed? And
are these really memories or inventions of Jay's imagination?
The structure and subtle clues within the text (the repetition
of myriad boyfriends being named "Roger," stories about meetings
that vary from chapter to chapter), raise these questions.
It's almost as if each time Jay and "you" are apart, a new
reality is formed that's slightly different from the previous
one.
When,
in Part II, the narration changes from first person to third
person, and the protagonist becomes the sister of "you," the
relationships and people become even denser and more confusing,
but the plot even more gripping as readers eagerly try to
detangle these messy relationships.
Too often,
a difficult construction like this calls attention to itself
at the expense of the story. That Baumbach has written a story
that is equally compelling is a rare feat. Although nothing
very dramatic happens—the couple fights, makes love,
run into each other years later—readers will be engaged
by the constant variations in the story, even as they are
puzzled as to whether or not Jay is writing about one woman
or many different women. It becomes clear that, when colored
by memory, perhaps one significant woman can be many women,
even within the course of a day, and certainly over the years,
and even if that woman's other lover can only be one faceless
man. With You, Baumbach has told the reader she will
be taking a romantic ride in the Tunnel of Love, but instead
takes her into a huge house of mirrors. Only the most skilled
and creative writers could adeptly make this switcharoo seem
satisfying, and Baumbach handles this with aplomb.
(March,
2009)
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