Truth Is Still Stranger Than Fiction, No Matter How Absurdist
05/15/2007
Wilson, D. Harlan. Dr. Identity. Hyattsville, MD: Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2007. 199 p.
Dr. Identity (or Farewell to Plaquedemia) is a work of absurdist fiction that portrays a future so unnerving that it makes Terry Gilliam’s vision of things to come in Brazil seem warm and fuzzy. Certainly, it is even more extreme than the future anticipated by Phillip K. Dick in his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the literary work on which the film Blade Runner was based. So suffice it to say, this is a book that is not for everyone. I personally found parts of it hilarious, and other parts at first harder to comprehend (though if you slog through the less coherent sections you will find they make sense in the larger frame of the story). In the end, the book manages to skewer academia, technology, consumerism, politics, the media, the internet and various other facets of modern society with blood-curdling ferocity.
Where I see a problem for certain readers, even more so then with the difficulty of comprehending certain passages, is with Wilson’s use of what he terms “ultraviolence” as a literary technique. The timing of the book is somewhat unfortunate (or perhaps prophetic) in that the book starts off with Dr. Blah Blah Blah, an English professor, and his android, Dr. Identity, who teaches in his stead when the professor doesn’t feel up to the rigors of instructing “student-things,” fleeing from the University where the professor is employed. They have no choice, since the android has run amok and slaughtered a portion of the faculty and the student body.
I knew this was the premise going in, and while I was enjoying the first section of the book very much (its sardonic tone being a bit more grounded in reality and easier to grasp than some of the later chapters), the graphic depiction of the Professor finding the murdered students scattered throughout the hallways and classrooms was unnerving in light of the recent incident at Virginia Tech. I imagine that some readers will not be able to get past the imagery. But in actuality, this demonstrates just how firmly Wilson has his finger on the pulse of modern society. When cutting-edge absurdist fiction becomes an actual reflection (possibly even a prediction) of current events, I am afraid that any given writer’s imagination will have to work overtime just to keep up.
The violence does not stop at the university gates however. There are further adventures—and much more bloodshed—in store for the duo after the initial murders. The University killings make them (literally) overnight media sensations, with stores selling action figures of the Professor and Dr. Identity several hours after the initial killings. Both the authorities and the paparazzi pursue them relentlessly. However, what really puts the manhunt into overdrive is an act they commit soon after the University killings, an act regarded as the ultimate transgression against society: They kill…gasp…a movie star!
D. Harlan Wilson is obviously very talented. As of this moment, I would have preferred he stayed within some of the parameters he set toward the beginning of the book, and relinquished some of the scope of the satire in favor of more dramatic cohesion–but I could very easily change my mind about that. This is the type of book that will probably bear repeated examination in order to comprehend all of its facets. And that, in today’s literary market, is a rarity.