Padgett Powell: The Interrogative Mood [Archive]

Mirabell

23-Jan-2010, 00:56

When I heard about this book in bookblogs, I was skeptical. See, American bookbloggers have a tendency to elevate stern genre distinctions to fetishes, creating such a strong image of what a genre is supposed to be like, that they happen to hail a surprising number of recent and not-so-recent publications as a major breakthrough in the genre in question. From an ?Alternative History? of the novel (http://www.stevenmoore.info/current.shtml) to Lydia Davis? work (http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/new-it-aint-lydia-davis-varieties-of-disturbance/), the unexciting string of ?shocking? breaks with convention is long and dire. So when Padgett Powell?s most recent book, The Interrogative Mood, was received along similar lines, lines that the subtitle ?a novel??, with the pointed question mark, only served to deepen and emphasize, I almost regretted getting it. I wrote down a few remarks for this review concentrating on the ludicrous straw men of some reviewers, tying in this book, without having read it. Yeah, I do that sometimes. As I got into it, however, I became genuinely excited about the book and its writer. It?s quite astonishing that Powell really manages to pull this off: an experimental book that does play intelligently with genre notions and conventions, that?s an engaging read, quite moving, frankly, yet also challenging and consistently interesting. Pick up this book. You will not be disappointed. And while you?re at it, pick up also his debut novel, Edisto (review forthcoming). Padgett Powell is one of the most genuinely exciting writers I?ve discovered in a while.

full review here Pure: Padgett Powell’s “The Interrogative Mood: a Novel?” shigekuni. (http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/pure-padgett-powells-the-interrogative-mood-a-novel/)

I was told it's (even) worse than usual, so I apologize beforehand.

Stewart

24-Aug-2010, 22:28

I'm two thirds of the way through this and it's up there with David Markson for taking the idea of what constitutes a traditional novel and giving it a good old shake. I certainly see some pattern in the questions and the detailed ones certainly give a measure of the interrogator, but I don't quite see a whole picture yet. I've found myself nodding or smiling at a few of the questions as I go, no doubt the intended effect, even if I'm not the one being addressed. I'm not quite sure, when I come to the end, it's the sort of book that I could rate as it wins points for the novelty factor but I'm not sure I'm overly enjoying it, even if I'm liking its pull.