Negativeland

by Doug Nufer

In this rueful tale, written under a simple but pervasive formal constraint, Olympic gold medal winner Ken Honochick and his girlfriend take a cross-country road trip to revisit his brief moment of triumph and his subsequent long haul on the promotions circuit. The result is a smart, flirtatious tour-de-force thats as funny as it is inventive. Under all the comic gusto and technical virtuosity, however, theres also some penetrating thought on our countrys obsession with private foibles and public image, individual achievement and the pressure to cash in on it.

186 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2004

Reviews

[Nate D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the admitted satiric bite of the marketing-obsessed 1980s American wasteland that takes central focus, or central void, the actual narrative thread, the reversed decline of a washed-up ex-athelete, wouldn't really thrill me but for the not-unimpressive focus of the oulipan constraint driving every single line with surprising (un)ease. And I don't name-check the Oulipo lightly -- Harry Mathews and Sorrentino both couldn't leave this without a blurb. (Though they're amiss not to be reading Christine Brooke-Rose instead, naturally).

It's a not insignificant temptation to leave this marked "unread", but instead I'm going to leave it in limbo for now. I can't really get into the characters, and the reversed plotting leaves little-to-no actual narrative tension. The language might compel more if it didn't get tangled up in its constraints and fall over at times. Never mind.

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though it was cleverly written with each sentence containing a negative word, it was distracting for me at first, especially when I first noticed it because it was something I kept focusing on.

But I was eventually able to get into the story, yet it was also confusing to me at first and it wasn't until 2 or 3 chapters in that I was finally getting a sense of what was going on.

This book is definitely not a quick or easy read, but its prose can be appreciated, especially if reread two or three times more.

[Ted · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very good example of constrained writing -- in this case, each sentence in the book is written with some kind of negative construction. And yet, it didn't seem forced or stilted. At times I completely forgot about it. And then, when I remembered, I'd flip back a bit and start checking each sentence for a while. The problem I had with the book is that I didn't find the characters particularly interesting. It's not so much that I didn't like the book as I simply didn't care.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

If they didn't tell you it was Oulipo, you might not care. It's very smooth, holding back right when it's about to overdo the melancholy. Packs a lot into 186 pages. Nicely done.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A perfect escape from and supplement to the Olympics, Negativeland, a sort of backwards novel that contains a "negative" in every sentence, tells the cheerful tale of a former Olympic swimmer (not Mark Hosler) backstroking through a Baudrillardian America. It's actually good.

[Rand]

hmmm