The Passing of Postmodernism: A Spectroanalysis of the Contemporary

Neither Logocentric nor Logo Centric

75 Writing of the Ghost (Again) CHAPTER THREE Writing of the Ghost (Again) The Failure of Postmodern Metafiction and the Narrative of Renewalism Once again I tried committing suicide—this time by wetting my nose and inserting it into the light socket. Unfortunately, there was a short in the wiring, and I merely caromed off the icebox. —Woody Allen, Without Feathers Baby Suggs died shortly after the brothers left, with no interest whatsoever in their leave-taking or hers, and right afterward Sethe and Denver decided to end the persecution by calling forth the ghost that tried them so. Perhaps a conversation, they thought, an exchange of views or something would help. So they held hands and said, “Come on. Come on. You may as well just come on.” —Toni Morrison, Beloved So why do I do it then? Why do I sit here like this? Because if writing this book—which, according to several people who are knowledgeable about literature, is the first tetherball novel ever—can help just one kid who’s gone through a similar experience, i.e., having a dad who survived an attempted execution by lethal injection and is resentenced to NJSDE, and losing your virginity to a 36–year-old warden, then it will have been worth it. —Mark Leyner, The Tetherballs of Bougainville Neither Logocentric nor Logo Centric In the preface to The Tetherballs of Bougainville, Mark Leyner reminds us that “When an astronomer observes a galaxy in some distant realm of the universe, . . . [h]e is quite literally looking at the past” (9). This 75 76 The Passing of Postmodernism is, of course, as Leyner goes on to point out, an effect of light; by the time the light of a distant galaxy reaches us, here on Earth and in the “present,” the galaxy itself “may no longer even exist” (9). So, Leyner goes on to suggest, “if we could travel to a point many light-years from the earth and somehow view the light emanating from our planet with the resolution of, say, a spy satellite—advanced photoreconnaissance spacecraft are capable of reading the washing instructions on a black silk chemisette from 22,300 miles in geosynchronous orbit—we could actually observe ourselves in the past” (9). However, because we cannot yet “outrace light,” Leyner admits that “we must make due with our memories, our diaries and notebooks, our videotapes, microcassettes , floppy disks, our photo albums, our evocative souvenirs and bric-a-brac—all the various and sundry madeleines we use to goad our hippocampi into reverse-scan” (9). By highlighting this inevitable “limitation ,” Leyner’s preface works to stress the problems associated with any historical account. The preface thus prepares us for the text that follows: an “autobiographical account” written from the perspective of a thirteen-year-old Mark Leyner. This “autobiography” recounts a single day in Mark’s1 life. On the day in question, Mark’s father—a relatively good man who “just can’t do PCP socially” (22)—is scheduled to be executed for murdering a security guard with “a Cuisinart variable-speed hand blender and a Teflon-coated ice-cream scooper from a vendor’s kiosk at an outlet in Secaucus” (23). Minutes before the execution, Mark gets a phone call from his “agent” who tells him that he’s “going to win the Vincent and Lenore DiGiacomo/Oshimitsu Polymers America Award” (17), an award worth $250,000 a year (for life), which Mark’s high school gives out annually for the best screenplay written by a student. The problem, though, is that Mark hasn’t yet written his “winning” screenplay, which is due the following day. In brief, then, the first half of the text, or “autobiography,” recounts the various experiences Mark has as a result of his father’s execution (which is unsuccessful), his attempt to have sex with the thirty-six year-old warden of the prison (which is successful), and his struggle to produce a screenplay before the end of the day (which is also, apparently, successful). What is important to note here is the apparently incongruous nature of the preface of Leyner’s text and the text proper. In the preface, Leyner seems to address the problem of historical accuracy “sincerely” (albeit, in a comedic manner that is ultimately or simultaneously a type of imitation, or exaggeration, of the most obvious signs of sincerity and/or seriousness2 ). In doing so, he highlights his apparent desire to be as “honest” as...