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Living Section of the San Bernardino SUN August 15, 2004 Issue 
Wakefield Andrei Codrescu Algonquin Books, 2004 
An Existential Life I met Andrei Codrescu at a recent library conference. Authors have started to think of library conferences as prestigious venues to market their new works because libraries, with their need for multiple copies of books, are their best buyers. Then there are the librarians, too. We worship the written word and are Wordsmith Groupies. The aging baby boomer librarians who once upon a time might have been rock 'n' roll Band Aids are now Literature Book Ends. Codrescu is a weekly commentator for NPR's All Things Considered and a prolific writer of critically acclaimed books. He is Romanian and I, as a neighboring Bulgarian, think that "The Hole in the Flag: An Exile's Story of Return and Revolution" about the Romanian anti-communist revolution, is his best book. But much to my chagrin, the only book he was selling and autographing at the conference was his brand new novel with the very prosaic American title - "Wakefield." I bought "Wakefield" out of double loyalty (as a fellow Balkanist? Balkanian? and a Librarian Wordsmith Groupie). Although I was not much interested in reading yet another diatribe about the alienated and floundering American male, I started the book, again out of that double loyalty. The main protagonist of the book Wakefield is a sometime writer turned motivational speaker. He lives in the Old Quarter of a city that is undoubtedly, New Orleans. Although he is well read, well traveled and knowledgeable about art, architecture, literature, food and wine and every imaginable trend, Wakefield has neither strong convictions or lofty beliefs nor great passions or for that matter - neither a personality or a character. He is colorless and malleable. Alienated and spiritually isolated from the rest of the human race, he leads a solitary life. Yet, he is not unhappy. He is not numb, only unfeeling, gliding on the surface of life. Even his motivational lectures are sort of a joke. He never prepares for them and even tells his audience that he doesn't know what he would say until he has actually said it. He has something vague in common with his literary namesake, Hawthorne's protagonist Wakefield. The literary Wakefield abandoned his wife and home, reappearing 20 years later when everyone had assumed him to be dead. This is in total contrast to Wakefield's one and only friend, Ivan Zamyatin - "a Russian émigré cabdriver and unknown American philosopher." Zamyatin brims with life, passion and strong convictions. His experience in a Soviet mental hospital and an Arctic labor camp as punishment for his dissident activities, lends his personality depth and poignancy. But all this comes later in the novel and is preceded by the Devil's unceremonious entrance. He has come to claim Wakefield who, understandably does not want to go. Wakefield stalls for time, schemes to make a deal with the Diablo, himself bored and jaded. No, after an eternity of collecting souls, the Devil is not interested in any more souls. Nothing so abstract and literary. He will give Wakefield one year to find his real, "authentic" life if Wakefield brings him a tangible possession from each stage of his search. Thus, Wakefield sets on an existential and metaphysical journey. First stop - a city called Typical where Wakefield is to give a motivational speech on Poetry and Money (with a detour in Art) to the rich techno-geeks of the Company. He spouts some unintelligible and ridiculous gibberish that nevertheless riles up some of his rich audience. How is he to find authenticity and meaning in his life in the midst of this consumer and possession oriented milieu? Next, Wakefield is off to the Wintry City (Chicago) where he is to give the keynote address for the opening of a communist-era dissident art exhibit at the World Art Museum (Art Institute of Chicago). And here he comes in touch further with Eastern Europe. This might, just might, be the beginning of finding his real life. "I've landed on your planet and I have no idea how to talk to the natives. What am I going to say tonight?" Wakefield calls Ivan for advice. Don't tell them about ethnicity, or ethos, Ivan philosophizes. "I know my people," he says, "gloomy Slavs, people with souls as dark as Leningrad in December. They gonna suffer forever. They have old, old feelings... like nine hundred years old." I am finally hooked. Very cleverly Codrescu juxtaposes capitalism and communism. Materialism, conspicuous consumption, total makeovers, inhuman technology and corporate greed have already claimed the souls of Americans. On the other hand, these East Europeans have too much soul, senses sharpened by their ethos, prejudices, superstitions, tales, wars and innumerable sufferings. My enjoyment of the book grew proportionately to the amount of Eastern European experience Codrescu incorporated in it. It is those nuances that add a special dimension and an edge to all his works. But it is also Codrescu's ability to make light of the absurdities of life and to treat us to an intellectual discourse in the guise of a comical satire that makes reading this book pure unadulterated fun Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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