Warp, Lev Grossman

i bought this book at goodwill having read the inside cover, it sounded very good. the tale of Hollis, a graduate who is bumming about in a semi-anarchic haze. not sure what to do with his life, or if there is any point.

Hollis is a bit like everyone i know. He has his quirks and his redeeming factors. The core story of Warp takes you through a 36 hour period of his life. His concerns over money, his landlord dodging, drinking, driving, relationships with friends family and girls.He walks around in a dirty trench coat pretending like he doesn’t care, but really he does, he is just too damn lazy and disappointed in the world to do anything about anything.

With out giving away any plot line, (sorry folks, you gotta read it yourself) i think that the introduction of a female character was the real turning point in the story. She tells us more about Hollis than Hollis ever tells us about himself.

The woman is Alix (also goes by Xanthe). One name is supposedly her room mate, and the other is her. She is a metaphoric sexual conundrum. a deviant with as little motivation as Hollis has, but a bit more insight on how to “appear” motivated. ALIX is an interesting character name, associated in the tech world with System Boards used in Firewalls (among other things). Alix is temperamental, but precise. Alix is the name used as a firewall until she chooses to tell Hollis her correct name.

Xanthe is the name of a fictional Piers Anthony world (if you drop the trailing “e”) as well as Greek for “Blond-Haired”. Xanthe (Alix) herself has a mixed dye job, both red and black hair. In Greek mythology, she is also one of the 3000 Oceanids (children of Oceanus and Tethys). their children carried many forms: mermaids, nymphs, and sirens, all of which i think are embodied in this character. she could save Hollis or drown him depending on her mood.

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In all likelihood, the problem you are going to have with this book is the cover image. its the same problem i had. Sure the character quotes a couple things from startrek. there is an under current of geek that flows through the book. But when you are standing on the train reading, or waiting for the bus, and some fool discounts it as bad literature because it has the starship enterprise on the cover, you will be pissed.

“don’t judge a book by its cover”.. my suggestion to the Author/publishing house would be to change the cover and re-release the book.? seeing the enterprise cuts out a significant reader base because they do not want to read about startrek. they never pick up the book and read the liner. they never give it a chance.. As Warp was published in 1997 (and i don’t see it as republished since) folks are really missing out. could have been bad marketing, could have been a small pressing, could be that the cover scares away the people who refuse to pick up a book with a geek icon on the cover. everyone is a geek for something,? even if it is not sci-fi. in this case, more generic would have been better.

Here is an excerpt from the novel. It details where i am assuming the title comes from. reading this excerpt will by no means act as a spoiler, this is however, one of my favorite passages from the book:

“I bet you make a lousy temp. Jesus, Hollis, I’m going to start getting worried about you. You know what happened to you?”

“I give up. What happened to me?”

“I just thought of this — it’s the American university system. This is my new theory: the New Feudalism. You go to college and you get used to living like some kind of medieval overlord, with people waiting on you and everything, and it warps your mind. it happens to everybody. By the time you graduate you have all the personal habits of an aristocrat, and none of the money. No wonder you’re dysfunctional — you’re a twentieth-century office temp who’s channeling for a nobleman in the British Raj.”

[...]

“Maybe,” said Hollis. “Maybe I’m just too darn good for this damn, dirty world.”

i highly suggest this. it is no moby dick or iliad, it is however, damn good. i suggest removing all expectations before reading this. approach it as a blank slate, you may be very surprised.