THE DANGERS OF PROXIMAL ALPHABETS by Kathleen Alcott

This book. First, let's talk a bit about the title: The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets. It's ... intriguing. What are 'proximal alphabets'? Why are they dangerous? Why are you so sure they're dangerous? This book will be bleak. When I look at the title, at first, I think it's interesting. Those previous questions flit through my mind, but in passing, I think they are worthy questions, with worthy answers. At least, that's what reviews have told me. The title also attempts to grab your attention by introducing a phrase, mode of being, status, that is unheard of: proximal alphabets. 'Alphabets' meaning letters, or 'alphabets' meaning different writing systems? And the word 'proximal,' meaning next to each other, or similar to, as in 'approximate'?

Now all of this analysis is very unnecessary because this book was pretty terrible. The title is flashy, but is an empty metaphor, disguised as something deep. I've teased out some meanings, but they do nothing. This book is about Ida and brothers Jackson and James - they've known each other their whole lives. They're more than friends, they're beyond that, beyond lovers, beyond partners, beyond everything. Their relationship is special, but ... DANGEROUS. So anyway, the book goes through moments of their lives growing up and doing everything together, becoming a couple, breaking up, getting back together, and charts the various ways they hurt each other and everyone else in their lives. 

I am going to categorize this book as 'hip emotional torture porn.' Let's unpack this. It's hip because it's in San Francisco, and Ida (our narrator) talks about the shitty (but still so endearingly lovely) apartment she and Jackson shared in an immigrant neighborhood. All the items in their apartment are discarded objects from 'affluent neighborhoods' (114), hand-me-downs, or handmade, like the curtains which Jackson sowed together using several types of fabric. The best is their windowsill, which had 'a terrarium of moss and succulents where plastic dinosaurs loomed over tiny cowboys' (114). Wow. So hip. Things clash. They love old stuff. Please. Stop.

And when I say 'emotional torture porn,' I mean that these characters are so unreal as people. It is my militant belief that characters in a novel (or film, television show, play, etc.) should feel real. They should seem as if they could extend beyond the novel, that their consciousness is more than what can be contained in the novel. This stems from a lot of theory about subjectivity that I cannot really go into right now. Each character should have subjectivity, should be a subject. Ida, Jackson, and every other member of this motley crew of characters in this novel are not subjects, they are objects. This happens because of a narrative structure that is, to my knowledge, very popular.

The novel moves from IMPORTANT scene to IMPORTANT scene. The chapters are short and punchy. We either get some wild, hedonistic scene of youth, some deeply sad scene of adulthood and relationships, or some deeply sad and wistful scene of youth. These kinds of scenes allow for the narrator to jump back and forth through time, make connections between seeming disparate events, and give a comprehensive, but quick view of events. But when a whole book is like this, there is no room for characters to breath, no sense of their selves opening up beyond whatever IMPORTANT.EMOTIONAL.POINT/LITERARY.WISTFUL.SIGH the narrator is trying to make. In choosing to represent only the moments with very intense emotions, the actual weight of those emotions are lost. So the characters are merely objects or representations of these emotions, rather than a subject feeling and experiencing these emotions. 

All of this which leads me to the closing scene of the novel. So, spoilers, I guess. At the end of the novel, Ida's father dies, and she is reunited with Jackson and James. They're really a trio of dysfunction, which could occupy another post which I will not be giving it. Ida has been pining for Jackson these past couple of years, and when he comes back for her father's funeral, he tells her needs her, and misses her, and blah blah all the usual stuff, but of course, Ida feels kind of empty about it all, and doesn't really want to be with him anymore. After all of the emotional exhaustion of her father dying, and being back in her old home, Ida finds Jackson and James asleep next to each other on a futon in the house, and she gets between them, and in their sleep 'both draped their limbs around [hers] so intricately [she] couldn't move if [she] tried and [she] fought off sleep vehemently, determined to appreciate what they gave [her] without [her] even asking' (208). 

This moment is so unbelievable. They are all ready to fall into patterns of dysfunction. The moment maybe could have paid off if they all weren't an amalgamation of quirks and pseudo-emotion. 

Anyway, that's enough ranting about this novel. Please let me know your thoughts if you've read this novel, or if you know about a novel that is similar, and please feel free to rant about it in the comments.