Thursday, February 03, 2005
Motorman by David Ohle (originally published in 1971 and just brought back into print last year) is another great, weird book that fits nicely somewhere between Barthelme’s The Dead Father and Wurlitzer’s Nog - books that couldn’t have been written without Beckett & Kafka, but books uniquely inspired by a sort of drugged out, post-hippie, surrealist world. At only 137 pages it’s a perfect book - just the right length to give you a taste of it’s crazy world w/o overloading. The somewhat obscure, mixed-up narrative focuses on Moldenke, lost in a post-war world, filled with multiple fake suns, moons, and bizarre weather (post-nuclear world or post-LSD?), captive or patient of the sinister Bunce / Burnheart / Eagleman / Roquette. If he still had feelings he’d probably be in love with Cock Roberta. Trapped in his room by Bunce’s jellyheads (two or more of which he may have murdered). Escaping & wandering the countryside, meeting the weatherman, driving Shelp’s k-motor, munching the stonepicks, and almost finally, heading down the Jelly on some kind of endless boat trip. It’s a nonsense book for you and me. Great fun! Strangely enough, Ohle apparently published a sequel called The Age of Sinatra thirty-plus years later - and I'll soon be reading it.
