What I Am Reading: "The Hundred Brothers" by Donald Antrim

I wasn't sure what I was going to read this month, until I found this list of postmodern novels and selected a few of the shorter ones to binge on. I might get to some longer ones next month, after an interlude.

I guess you are always chasing the first Borges high, and this novel is a bit like "The Library of Babel" in Ficciones, in that it is set in a giant, reality-defying library. The plot, such as it is, centers around a gathering of 99 brothers, with one absent, in their ancestral library, in order to attempt again to locate the urn of their father's ashes. The story is narrated by Doug, who serves as something of a family genealogist and scholar of heraldry.

"Genealogy is more than a system for cataloging descent. The genealogical tree is a living organism. It is a living, breathing tree, and the limbs of this tree are human lives, hardier than any wood. The bonds joining lives, life after life, reach across time. And human bonds are always emotional creations. The student of human births and deaths will experience, perhaps as a distant and unaccountable memory, the traces of very old affections, all the joys and disappointments that have forever bound people together in families. Who has ever visited a grave site; who has lingered in that silence among graves and not felt a chill travel down the spine? Am I alone among my brothers in these sympathies for the perished? (p. 143)

Doug feels a connection to the other Dougs in his family tree, many of whom lived brief and unpleasant lives. Despite this thoughtfulness, he is still kind of an asshole. Most of the brothers are assholes, in fact. Please rest assured that there are a hundred brothers named. Many are, if not characterized, at least labeled as being "young fathers" or as part of a set of twins. A few play more prominent roles, such as the doctor, or the eldest brother, Hiram. The exact logistics of the family are not elaborated upon; Hiram is the oldest, in his nineties, and many of the others (including Doug) are middle-aged. It is not clear if they all share the same mother, she is not mentioned. The father, in fact, appears to be only dimly-remembered.

Doug mentions that he believes the family to be descended from an insane monarch, and says that the

"collective persona of this family could reasonably be described as frantic, romantic, lethargic, sarcastic, fearful, frustrated, tipsy, pugnacious, unchaste, heartless, dog-eat-dog, borderline narcissistic, nervously narrow-minded, and more or less resigned to despair although occasionally festive when inebriated." (p. 19-20).

Even when hearkening back to the innocence of childhood, remembering the decrepit mansion, denuded of foliage and surrounded by a homeless encampment, in better times, Doug still segues from describing the wonder of seeing a massive flock of starlings take flight segues into how easy it was to slam a (younger) dodgeball target in the head while they were watching in wonder at the birds. Not much happens in the story. A linear description of the plot would tell you that Doug watches one brother on psychedelics have an accident, then navigates the room in an attempt to get a drink, then joins the horde in sitting down to dinner, then, after briefly entering football practice, enacting his Corn King ritual. This, arising from his interest in the Hobbesian prehistoric days, is when he wears a mask and dances naked through the room while his brothers try to bring him down, as his gift to them of enacting a human sacrifice ritual. The other brothers have all brought their interests as well, and games of cards and chess and sports practice and pornography viewing all simmer into drunken, low-key fights as, casually, more and more brothers are taken out of commission and the mansion, already in terrible condition, crumbles around them. Doug comes to be lost in a shelf labyrinth he did not know existed, and manages to injure or inconvenience many of his brothers along the way. Is the novel dismal? Is it ridiculous? Yes and yes, but the two keep each other in check, so the absurdity is understated, while still leavening the gloom.