Arnon Grunberg
The Complete Review,
2006-06-25
2006-06-25, The Complete Review

Phantom Pain


Phantom Pain begins and ends with short sections narrated by Harpo Saul Mehlman, the son of a writer. It was Dad's idea to name the poor boy Harpo (Mom added the Saul, so he'd at least have something of a normal name as well), and Harpo isn't exactly grateful -- after all: "That it is absolutely inhuman to name your child Harpo goes without saying." The father-son relationship isn't helped by the fact that Dad left the family when the boy was only twelve -- though when the novel begins he's back in the grown-up Harpo's life. And, besides the man himself, there's a manuscript, the unpublished The Empty Vessel and Other Pearls; it is this that makes up the bulk of the novel.

Robert G. Mehlman was a successful writer, rocketing to early fame with a novel about his own father, 268th in the World (referring to the highest ranking his tennis-playing father achieved). Unfortunately, he wasn't able to duplicate that success: a bibliography is helpfully included at the end of the novel, and among his later works is the all too accurately titled collection of poems (now out of print), All My Readers Fit in One Cab. The Empty Vessel is an autobiographical account of the years before Harpo's birth, Mehlman describing his relationship with his wife and, especially, the woman she called The Empty Vessel, Rebecca, who hooks up with Mehlman. Rebecca doesn't exactly become his muse, but it's with her he finds a sort of inspiration -- and becomes successful once again.

The Empty Vessel shifts back and forth between various times, Mehlman describing his early days, before he was a successful writer and still worked at an all-night deli. He describes courting (more or less) his future wife -- and then the later years, when success (and money) has come and gone and the credit card companies all want their money and there's barely a trickle of royalties coming in from his books.

Grunberg's characters have their quirks, but the novel thankfully doesn't try to live off of being simply quirky. Harpo's mother is a successful psychiatrist, but a surprising number of her patients show a penchant for committing suicide -- something that is repeatedly mentioned, but not made too much of. Rebecca and some of the other characters crossing Mehlman's path are also slightly unusual, but Grunberg doesn't play that up excessively: the novel is literally off-beat -- just that one, slight shift from normalcy -- and he does that very well.

Asked by his future wife to explain the title of the book he is working on at the time (268th in the World), Mehlman admits: "Every answer is a lie." Pressed again to explain, he tells her he'll give her the prettiest answer; after all:

"If everything's a lie, one should choose for beauty, don't you think ?"

With his career floundering and huge debts everywhere there eventually aren't many pretty answers left to give, but Mehlman still lives the lie. He lives it up as he courts Rebecca, though he's in no position to; his wife is fortunately away in Europe, but he's constantly reassuring her that everything is just fine, even as his world comes close to collapse.

Rebecca is unfillable as an Empty Vessel, but it's with her that Mehlman again finds success. Driven to the absurd, he signs a contract to write a cookbook -- and soon is desperate enough for cash that he tries to actually write and deliver it. It's an exercise that turns out to be phenomenally successful -- though, of course, one that is hardly satisfying to the writer in Mehlman. Living with it turns out to be no easier than living with his earlier failures.

Phantom Pain is a novel full of small incidents, Mehlman (and then his son) describing his life by picking pieces from it. Absurdity dominates, and yet it generally feels grounded, close enough to the real to be plausible. (The suicides of Mehlman's wife's patients, for example, are among the less believable aspects of the novel, Grunberg trying just a bit too hard off stage.) Mehlman as writer is particularly successful: actual literary creation is largely glossed over, only the finished products discussed, but he's constantly writing letters, many of which (including some he never sent) are reproduced here, his flailing efforts at communication and creation. But he's not a good correspondent, it seems: he's not a letter-answerer, only a letter-writer: he wants to offer himself -- so also in the self-revealing The Empty Vessel -- but is unable to accept much in return (from his son, his wife, his lovers, etc.).

It's a novel of amusing incidents and genial, if often melancholy, tone. The lives described are unusual, but believable. True-life complexity is mirrored in the uncertainty and doubt that surrounds and plagues them.

Phantom Pain doesn't offer fake, full satisfaction -- no grand, unifying catastrophe or movie-of-the-week redemption, for example. In fact, it generally withholds it: what becomes of Mehlman is near pointless, and even then doesn't allow for simple, abrupt finality. But Phantom Pain offers good entertainment and some food for thought. Grunberg's story and characters aren't always sympathetic, but he writes well and engagingly and he does have something to say.