X in Paris

by Michael Brodsky

Thirteen stories from a modern master

"Brodsky is a master both of technique and of language, his sentences positively crackling with unexpected insights."-- Publishers Weekly

"Brodsky possesses a masterly control of diction and rhythm, an often startling metaphoric gift, and a range of effects extending from Swiftian bluntness to Proustian elaboration."-- The New York Review of Books

"He brings the reader to reflect anew on ways of knowing and truths of being in an uncertain world."-- The New York Times Book Review

Genres: Fiction

196 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1988

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading Michael Brodsky's recently published 1,190-page Invidicum these past six months—an incredibly complex literary work written over the course of twenty years, each chapter an excursion into existential philosophy, in-depth psychology, and various levels of culture and society. I wanted to have a sense of Brodsky's writing prior to his embarking on his magnum opus, and thus I picked up X in Paris, published back in 1988.

Like Invidicum, X in Paris is a boldly experimental work of fiction, though in this case the experiment unfolds through a sequence of thirteen interconnected short stories. Brodsky’s strategy is to unsettle the reader by dispensing with a conventional plot arc, eschewing standard modes of character development, and even abandoning traditional punctuation. To give a more immediate taste of how this destabilization operates on the page, I’ll anchor my comments to direct quotations drawn from the shortest of these interlinked pieces.

ORIGIN
"What was it possessed my going, to appear, to make myself known. It wasn't a long journey though when it began to appear so I stopped to tame what threatened to proceed without me. Then I moved on."

Sounds as if the narrator views himself as being composed of different segments—if not various physical parts, then certainly separate mental compartments. One thing is clear: ideally, he would like to be united, all in one piece, before he interacts with anyone. And, by the way, X isn’t his name; rather, he tells us outright that he came to Paris to pursue a shameless activity he labels X. And X, in turn, is the theater of his anguish.

"When the door opened the head of the household turned toward me as the rest of him maintained allegiance to the direction of interrupted movement. His lady gave me her full attention in stupefaction. I could tell she was thinking fast."

It appears the narrator also views other people composed of different parts. And you have to enjoy his unorthodox language —“her full attention in stupefaction” to note how the lady of the house was a tad surprised, perhaps even shocked, to see him standing at their front door.

"I enjoyed the discomfiture, I prey on loose ends."

Is this Michael Brodsky’s enjoyment, or his narrator’s delight in the discomfiture he’s created—both for others (including the reader) and for himself? Since metafiction plays an important role in postmodern experimental fiction, I strongly suspect it’s a case of both author and narrator.

"I had to come, I said. Or rather I've come to discover what propulsively populates my labors without my knowing--what allows them to go by the name of labors. And I think I know I owe the very existence of these populators to you."

Holy propulsive populators, Batman! We can only wonder what husband and wife make of such pompous, pretentious, puffed-up, overblown language.

"I laughed heartily, no one asked why, I told them. I've come presumably to unearth my origin when all along, it is true, I've been loving what sidesteps its stench."

Ha! The narrator desires to learn of his origin but he also delights in those other factors that skirt, elude, or otherwise dodge the smelly substance surrounding said origin.

"Or it is not so much my origin I come seeking as the axioms that have regulated my postponement of the quest. I saw I was making them tic-ridden."

Is our narrator a bit of a namby-pamby, or, in other words, a putter-offer of what just might place him in something of a quagmire? Could very well be. And such shuffling and shirking is undoubtedly causing his interlocutors undulating unease.

"Semi-collapsed, the mother said, Why did you come. You were, if you must know, the fruit not of a union but of a sundering."

My goodness. It appears husband and wife could also be his father and mother. And he, the son, didn't pop out as a slice of union but as a sunderer. that is, a being causing splitter and splatter.

"I had almost succeeded in yanking myself free when the seed spilled. He took my curses for coquettry."

Is the narrator flirting with a string of swear words? Has he yanked himself free by way of expletives deleted?

"The husband turned away, clearly he could not bear the sight of me as well as whatever else of my marginal being was visited upon his sensorium."

Upon his sensorium? Oh, Michael Brodsky! Are you inviting your readers to engage their entire sensory apparatus in a careful reading of your prose? I strongly suspect such a suggestion. Not to mention an aerobics workout for one's gray matter.

X in Paris. Read it. And if you're taken by Brodsky's experimentation, you can move on to Invidicum, all 1,190 pages.


American author Michael Brodsky, born 1948 - photo taken around 1988, the publication date of X in Paris

[Dana Jerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty sure this should have been a pamphlet. I am unimpressed with Brodsky and figure he's probably teaching under a rock somewhere fussing over what really passes as literature these days. Overwrought and trapped by itself.