The Case Against Writers – The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman
Sometimes when I finish a book I find myself wondering why the writer chose to write it. Ray Bradbury claims to have written Farenheit 451 in a week, but for the most part writing a 200 plus page novel takes a nice sized portion of your lifetime. If you’re going to put that much time into something I reckon the author should have a message or emotion or feeling they’re trying to convey. Chuck Klosterman’s new novel The Visible Man left me clueless.
Klosterman is a hell of a writer, but not a graceful one. He can communicate the most abstract, bizarre ideas in ways that almost make sense and in language that makes you laugh out loud, but his writing isn’t smooth or lyrical. It’s cold, precise, and functional. Because of this I find him a better essayist than a storyteller. His books Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, IV, and Killing Yourself To Live show Klosterman at his best.
Perhaps aware of his strengths and weaknesses Klosterman frames his new novel The Visible Man as a work of non-fiction. A therapist writes down her accounts of her sessions with a new client. This client is a creep who at first only wants to have their sessions over the telephone, but eventually they meet in person. The client’s problem stems from a new technology he has access to. A suit that for all intents and purposes makes him completely invisible. He uses his powers to silently peep on people. He portrays himself as a scientist trying to study the true nature of a person, but comes across as an unreliable voyeuristic jerk.
I remember in an earlier work of Klosterman’s he wrote of a woman who lived in an apartment that he had a direct view of and would observe her at all times of day and night. And so I take this visible man as a substitute for Klosterman and perhaps for all writers in general. Maybe this was written to be a diatribe against writers as being dangerously detached from humanity? If so this might be the last we ever read from him. Or perhaps he will continue to write and loathe himself for what he does.
