Sunsphere

by Andrew Farkas

The Sunsphere is a 266-foot-tall green truss structure topped by a gold glass sphere that was built as the symbol of the 1982 World’s Fair (also known as the Knoxville International Energy Exposition). Actually, the Sunsphere stands 6,520 feet tall and is composed of a black, cylindrical base capped by a miniature neutron star. Well, the Sunsphere Shot Tower, made entirely of brick, manufactures shot for shotguns. But then, the Sunsphere is 1,000 feet tall and composed of a green tower and a pulsing orb of blue lightning. Really, the Sunsphere is dilapidated, covered in tarps, and likely to be torn down soon. Or maybe, Sunsphere Ziggurat is a massive conceptual art installation constructed by an underground organization called the KnoxVillains.

Certainly, Sunsphere, a collection of nine formally innovative fictions, focuses on characters obsessed with ideas of energy and entropy, focuses on characters who are trying to figure out how to continue on in a world that is falling apart, who are trying to learn how to act in a world that is constantly changing. In the face of social collapse, some characters find solace in the logic of puzzles, in the conventions of art, in outdated ideas of empire and romance, in the lure of pop culture, in academia and politics. But at the core of this collection is a search for humanity, even when the very atmosphere appears to demand the inhumane.

232 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2019

About the author

Andrew Farkas is the author of THE GREAT INDOORSMAN: ESSAYS, THE BIG RED HERRING, SUNSPHERE (stories), and SELF-TITLED DEBUT (stories). He is an editor for ALWAYS CRASHING and Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Washburn University.

Reviews

[Erik Wennermark · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is the Sunsphere? A tall dilapidated golf ball. A totem for a future religion. (Is it real? Checking Google-sensei… Yes. Like real, real? Yes. Yes.) Where is the Sunsphere? (Knoxville obv.) Is that a real Knoxville and real Sunsphere or something else entirely? Is it a manufactured place, an Ancient place like a galaxy far far away or is it a place where I can watch Dukes of Hazzard on TV and sweat? Both, I think. The Sunsphere and Knoxville. Market Street and Broadway.

Andrew Farkas has created a series of stories that leave me perplexed by these and other questions but equally entranced by his exquisite world building ala Book of the New Sun (there is even a character named Gene… coincidence?) and sly dialogue. In any case, Knoxville is an apt home for an apprentice torturer. These are ancient moderns in familiarly named cities walking known/unknown streets. This is existential Aristotle. Borgesian towers and Becketist (Beckettian? Becketesthetique?) gags. Mathematics, calculations, and Grecian allusions wrap like a security blanket around cold shoulders. It’s an attempt to mask human frailty and confusion, but the dismal reality seeps through the frayed material.

You are on a rock hurtling through space; the meaninglessness is clear. Read it and laugh and weep.

[Call Me [Brackets]]

In Andrew Farkas’ second short story collection Sunsphere, he weaves stories in alternate universes that all tie back to the city of Knoxville, Tennessee and its remaining landmark from the 1982 World’s Fair, the sunsphere. Farkas’ experimental, surrealist stories explore many different perspectives, from a grease addict to a narrator that does not really exist. Throughout the collection, Farkas investigates the mind and how different people think. His writing also explores the idea of societies, groups, and communities as well as the effect they have on individuals. In “The Physics of the Bottomless Pit,” he describes the life of a Stone, saying “the only long-term pals you have are other Stones who keep falling with you, but if they decide to become Toilers or even Flyers, then you leave them behind, making your own small transient community…” Farkas experiments with some of the bases of humanity, forcing characters into extenuating circumstances and questioning when people hit their breaking point.

Near the middle of the collection rests “Everything Under the Sunsphere,” a story about a man named Gene living in a version of Knoxville that suffers from extreme temperatures and a gang of arsonists. Both Gene and the city itself are attempting to manage an identity crisis. Gene says he is able to find relief through a woman named Stiria who “Cools me down wherever I am. She keeps me away from the heat, the burning, the scorching, the chaotic inferno, whether I’m with her or not.” Throughout the story, Gene struggles to understand himself and the city he lives in. As he tries to understand himself, Gene thinks “I like to think I was made in God’s own image. That God is just as awkward, and ridiculous, and sweaty as me, that He has so many names because He’s too timid to tell anyone they’re wrong…” The story also demonstrates the different ways people deal with extreme circumstances, such as Gene, the Phlogistonites, and others doing their best to survive in the chaotic world surrounding them.

You can read the rest of our review on our website here:
https://callmebrackets.net/sunsphere/

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sunsphere is a book of many books. You could call them linked stories, almost literally revolving around the Sunsphere itself, or you could call it a novel about the Sunsphere that ranges, a bit like Cloud Atlas, through multiple time frames, multiple universes, multiple characters who come into contact with the Sunsphere. This is not a book about character psychology so much as it is a moving, wonderfully-languaged meditation on the absurdity of how we construct our universes, on meaning and meaning-making itself. The smart and sharp writing utilizes a number of modernist and metafictional techniques, further calling attention to how The Sunsphere, all things to all people, remains elusive, unpinnable. Great book!