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jdhacker 's review for:
Universal Harvester
by John Darnielle
Much like his previous novel, wolf in white van, I wouldn’t pick up Universal Harvester if you’re looking for a lot of answers or resolution, part of why I didn’t flag this as a mystery though early on it certainly shares some elements of that genre. On the other hand, if you’re a fan of Camus or the other giants of existentialism, I would highly recommend both books. The emphasis on lack of intrinsic meanings to events, or even explanations for them, places them squarely within the existentialist wheelhouse.
Again, much like his previous novel, this one features a number of characters who have been indelibly altered (some to greater or lesser extents) by past events...and the implications being there are some events that transpired that leave us changed in a very permanent way...that there can be holes in us, gaps that can never be quite filled.
Early in this tale set in Iowa/Nevada (which while different still share many characteristics with the sense of midwestern endlessness and pseudo-desolation which figured so heavily with Kansas in WiWV), when the mystery elements are more prevalent, I found myself feeling a great deal of anxiety. Perhaps it was because as the mysterious and foreboding spliced in VHS scenes at first seem to foretell something sinister and tragic in a much more visceral and violent way than actual occurs, though perhaps as readers we are simply susceptible to such fears and leaps of logic because we are primed by the preponderance of so-called ‘murder porn’ of many slasher/horror movies. I also felt some of the anxiety stemmed from being put off-balance by some interesting things going on with time and perception. Though we predominantly follow Jeremy through this novel, even after he begins to see the mysterious tape scenes, the contents of what he saw is only revealed to us in fragments, gradually and out of sequence, much like the collection of tapes as a whole. This handling of time was particularly interesting to me since time is handled in a vaguely backwards though somewhat untethered from linearality in Darnielle’s previous novel as well. How he deals with time, close enough to a linear fashion to lull the reader into a false sense of security, but just discontinuous enough to leave us unsettled is something to watch out for going onward in his work.
Another particularly interesting thing, to me, was the was in which point of view is handled. While usually we see the story through a 3rd person limited POV, primarily following Jeremy around his experiences but occasionally following around other characters. However, there are these occasionall digressions into a first person narrative, one which is not clearly identified. Is it an omniscient narrator? Is it a character we know already giving us secret information via soliloquy? Is it an unnamed character we previously have not seen? Is it the author himself? Each of these have arguments for them, and each would result in radically different interpretations about what these asides mean. Especially given the importance of POV in this narrative in terms of Lisa’s camera and what it does and does not show us, this very intentional choice to switch to a 1st person narrative must be intensely meaningful.
Again, much like his previous novel, this one features a number of characters who have been indelibly altered (some to greater or lesser extents) by past events...and the implications being there are some events that transpired that leave us changed in a very permanent way...that there can be holes in us, gaps that can never be quite filled.
Early in this tale set in Iowa/Nevada (which while different still share many characteristics with the sense of midwestern endlessness and pseudo-desolation which figured so heavily with Kansas in WiWV), when the mystery elements are more prevalent, I found myself feeling a great deal of anxiety. Perhaps it was because as the mysterious and foreboding spliced in VHS scenes at first seem to foretell something sinister and tragic in a much more visceral and violent way than actual occurs, though perhaps as readers we are simply susceptible to such fears and leaps of logic because we are primed by the preponderance of so-called ‘murder porn’ of many slasher/horror movies. I also felt some of the anxiety stemmed from being put off-balance by some interesting things going on with time and perception. Though we predominantly follow Jeremy through this novel, even after he begins to see the mysterious tape scenes, the contents of what he saw is only revealed to us in fragments, gradually and out of sequence, much like the collection of tapes as a whole. This handling of time was particularly interesting to me since time is handled in a vaguely backwards though somewhat untethered from linearality in Darnielle’s previous novel as well. How he deals with time, close enough to a linear fashion to lull the reader into a false sense of security, but just discontinuous enough to leave us unsettled is something to watch out for going onward in his work.
Another particularly interesting thing, to me, was the was in which point of view is handled. While usually we see the story through a 3rd person limited POV, primarily following Jeremy around his experiences but occasionally following around other characters. However, there are these occasionall digressions into a first person narrative, one which is not clearly identified. Is it an omniscient narrator? Is it a character we know already giving us secret information via soliloquy? Is it an unnamed character we previously have not seen? Is it the author himself? Each of these have arguments for them, and each would result in radically different interpretations about what these asides mean. Especially given the importance of POV in this narrative in terms of Lisa’s camera and what it does and does not show us, this very intentional choice to switch to a 1st person narrative must be intensely meaningful.