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Vector for Seven
Opening lines: “There are undoubtedly much worse things that can happen to a person than to be splattered with the shite of swifts,” said Sophia Smith in a rather unsympathetic voice. She was adressing her remark to Mrs. Mortimer, whose first name she did not know because they had only just met."
238 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1970
25 people want to read
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December 27, 2020
There is a lot more to this book than a splatter of bird shit. Josephine Saxton is one of my favorite writers, and in Vector For Seven, she has accomplished something rare and strange and beautiful.
Much like the other novels that I read by Saxton, the story weaves together a series of surface events with explorations of mental states. My guess is that many readers found the random wanderings of seven incompatible characters on a scam bus tour to be of little interest. They might never have made it to page 90 when the travelers are visited by a UFO and their journey "skips" across continents, cultures, and levels of perception, taking them to exotic and yet monotonous landscapes such as the Nazca lines of the Peruvian plateau.
There is a long and beguiling section of the book in which each of the characters are stripped naked and bathed by a bath attendant that is at once Orientalist and at the same time loaded with ambiguous sensuality. There are long passages about sex providing an analysis of the pain, the dissatisfaction, and the futility of it all from the female perspective; while the men, predictably are selfish, sated, and uncomprehending. Saxton is unique in that she can cloak the identities of her characters and then hint at their knowledge and participation in secret actions in a way that makes everything uncertain and strange.
Without spoiling the ending it can be said that, after their surrealistic travels, the random individuals are joined into a vector of mutual understanding that obliterates the "ordinary" expectations and sensibilities of going "home." You can wonder if a serial killer's bloody axe on the door step is symbolic of understanding and kindness in a way that directly draws from Dostoyevsky, or you can just chuff it away as another baroque detail in Saxton's brilliant word play.
If you must have an Agathie Christie plot and a tidy ending, don't read this. You won't like it. If you are curious about what perception, consciousness, madness and reality mean, and if you ever felt like taking the wrong bus to nowhere might be a good way to escape from mundane reality, give it a try!
Much like the other novels that I read by Saxton, the story weaves together a series of surface events with explorations of mental states. My guess is that many readers found the random wanderings of seven incompatible characters on a scam bus tour to be of little interest. They might never have made it to page 90 when the travelers are visited by a UFO and their journey "skips" across continents, cultures, and levels of perception, taking them to exotic and yet monotonous landscapes such as the Nazca lines of the Peruvian plateau.
There is a long and beguiling section of the book in which each of the characters are stripped naked and bathed by a bath attendant that is at once Orientalist and at the same time loaded with ambiguous sensuality. There are long passages about sex providing an analysis of the pain, the dissatisfaction, and the futility of it all from the female perspective; while the men, predictably are selfish, sated, and uncomprehending. Saxton is unique in that she can cloak the identities of her characters and then hint at their knowledge and participation in secret actions in a way that makes everything uncertain and strange.
Without spoiling the ending it can be said that, after their surrealistic travels, the random individuals are joined into a vector of mutual understanding that obliterates the "ordinary" expectations and sensibilities of going "home." You can wonder if a serial killer's bloody axe on the door step is symbolic of understanding and kindness in a way that directly draws from Dostoyevsky, or you can just chuff it away as another baroque detail in Saxton's brilliant word play.
If you must have an Agathie Christie plot and a tidy ending, don't read this. You won't like it. If you are curious about what perception, consciousness, madness and reality mean, and if you ever felt like taking the wrong bus to nowhere might be a good way to escape from mundane reality, give it a try!
Displaying 1 of 1 review