Subject: Cigawette Boy wesubmission

From: [email-masked] (Foo Loops)
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 14:30:34 GMT

Cigarette Boy (a book)
by Darick Chamberlin (an author)
Review by @Man (a reviewer)

This review is in the public domain: no restrictions on use or distribution.
Please contact me if you use it for anything.  My Internet address is
[email-masked].

: GAMES WHERE DEAD STRANGERS WERE STRIPPED AND SMEARED WITH SYNTHETIC
HONEY  ON THE MOUTH  SO THAT THEY WOULD SAY NOTHING BUT  SWEET THINGS
IN THE OTHER WORLD ABOUT MEMBERS OF THE LOCAL SCENE :

                                               - From _Cigarette Boy_
                                 START

So begins the "mock-epic" _Cigarette Boy_.

        START SOLOPRINT `E-CODE' FUGITIVE AUTOSCHEMATIC OF
        X-STATION  PROTONOVEL  OUTLINING  "C"  :  [RECRUIT
        NUMANGA COPYCAT SKIM SACCADES  :  ACOLLIDE  I.D.C.
        AUTOSCHEMA  VIA  ELEVENTH HOUR REBEL IONS : IGNITE
        OVERCLEVER  COPYCAT  PHAROAH  SCANS IN  "CIGARETTE
        BOY" SEQUENCE CUTS VIA DYMOSAURICK RE-EXPLODERS] :

So it continues.  So it goes on for 84 pages.  It is one long 100%
uppercase, right-and-left-justified, stream-of-machine-consciousness textual
dump.  No, that's not really fair.  It is, however, how it appears on the
surface.  The most obvious thing about _Cigarette Boy_ is definitely its
layout, and, to some extent, the presentation of the material matches the
approach to the content: nearly impervious.  Now, that's not to say that the
content is impossible to decipher, nor worth the effort; it's simply woven
in a complex fabric that approaches the human-unreadable.  At one point I
considered writing a program that would parse the text and reformat it into
something easier to read, but the task of typing in the entire text was too
daunting.  I still think it would be possible, however, because the text,
while about as forgiving as a jet-black obelisk, is arranged in a way that
makes it susceptible to machine processing.  In fact, the entire text is
supposed to be machine-generated, or at least gives that impression.
Mixed-media cues nested in square brackets are mixed with images, background
information, and indexing commands that give the impression that if you fed
the "novella" into the right piece of equipment with access to the right
libraries of audio and video footage, it would sit silently for a while,
then emit a sonorous "bing" when it had digitally assembled the requested
pieces into a "movie" or whatever term mixed-media interactive artwork
eventually gets tagged with.  Example:

        7:30..."  :  [AUDIOTRACK ENHANCEMENT : RE-TRACK
        EXCERPT LINE FROM THE MESA DELATA FILE: CARBON-
        INDUCE INTERLAMINATE  NUCLEOTRACKS ] : [ RESUME
        SCAN]  :  [ IMPLY  THE  DELIBERATELY ENGINEERED
        SIXTEENER  CRUSADE  COPY ON CHARIOT GLACIATIONS
        VIA FOSSIL THEORIES  LISTED TO DATE BY  VARIOUS
        AUTHORS  :

The end result of this methode du presentacion (to use a bogus Frenchism for
no good reason) is that _Cigarette Boy_ demands far more effort on the part
of the reader than most works of prose.  In addition to demanding that the
reader keep track of which level of nesting the current passage is in, and
parsing lots of weird new terms (like "ACOLLIDER," "PARAWELD," and
"SURGIRAFFE,") multiple thematic elements including Egyptian imagery and
genetic, temporal, and wafer-level engineering, the reader is encouraged
(some might say required) to produce sophisticated mixed-media mental
imagery in order to follow the story. On top of all this there is a regular
and heavy layer of transformational word-play adding a shiny metallic thread
to the fabric of the piece.  Puns, spelling twists, even limericks surface,
snap, and submerge in the midst of the contorted plot and the media
directions.

                      :  EVERYONE  WHO  KNEW  THE  FOSSIL
        FOURTH   MASTER  KNEW  THE  FLOWER  GIRL  :  BLUE
        BEGONIA  GIRL  : ANTOINETTE  CODE  GIRL : LUNAR 5
        SUFFICIENT "SAVE" GIRL : [BAROQUE FLECK SOCIALIST
        APRICODE BEE PERFUME CORAL GIRL] :

and
                     : THEY CUT AN ELEGANT MOON MANOUEVRE
        BUT IN VAIN : NOON VAIN : [NOTE VAIN ORE]

What all this meant is that this 84 page book took me three weeks to read.
Often I would read four or five pages carefully, still get lost, reread part
of what I had just finished, and end up either staring out the window
pondering the material or feeling extremely tired from the effort. For some
reason the style never became transparent to me, and I had to expend
enormous mental effort to make substantial progress. It felt like reading
the Canterbury Tales without glossing and without the reassuring pull of
iambic pentameter to draw one onward.  At two or three places, after lengthy
squares of nearly incomprehensible machine commands I almost gave up.
However, each time, without fail, I found soon afterward an exquisitely
crafted image (like the one mentioned at the top of this review) that would
give me pause, and gave me reason to continue.  In case you've forgotten the
abovementioned image, here it is again:

           : GAMES WHERE DEAD STRANGERS WERE STRIPPED AND
        SMEARED WITH SYNTHETIC HONEY ON THE MOUTH SO THAT
        THEY  WOULD  SAY NOTHING  BUT SWEET THINGS IN THE
        OTHER WORLD ABOUT MEMBERS OF THE LOCAL SCENE :

There are many other are equally poetic images buried in the mass of text
that makes up _Cigarette Boy_.

The plot didn't become anywhere near clear to me until I was about 80% of
the way through the book.  I'm still not sure exactly what is going on.
There is some kind of warfare-oriented genetic engineering occuring, and
temporal manipulation; spaceships fight, and battles are played out; there
are hints of rebellion against corporate interests, and betrayal, but the
storyline's progress was lost for me, distorted beneath the high-pressure
blanket of the author's style.

Was it worth reading?  To be honest, I'm not sure.  I think so.  As an
amateur writer, it was useful as an extreme experimental position from which
I can retreat to something I consider useful; as I reader, again, yes, I
think so.  The guts (which in this case I suspect are electromechanical) are
there to be probed, analyzed, and understood.  I can feel the story, which
is intertwined with the presentation, trying to touch me.  Unfortunately,
this book requires more than one reading, a trait it shares with all fine
literature.  Whether it actually _is_ a piece of fine literature (in the
sense of being able to provide a rich, diverse set of internally coherent
interpretations,) remains to be seen.  I suspect it can indeed support a
host of interpretations, but I have the uneasy feeling that there are a lot
of subtleties and details I am missing, having read it only once.

It is going to be a while before I tackle it again, however; for my tastes,
the style is really thick, and slightly irritating.  Prose is, at its heart,
a human communication form, and the style of _Cigarette Boy_ comes
dangerously close to crossing the line into unintelligibility.  Although
_CB_ is supposed to be written by a machine, it is ultimately intended for
human consumption (for you and I, the real-world readers,) and that fact
requires some concessions if it is to be read cover to cover instead of
paged through like a coffee-table book.  One choice that would tip the
balance in favor of readability without compromising the story's integrity
would be the use of lower case. Today, there is no good reason for computers
to produce English text in all uppercase.  It doesn't even look "computery"
or futuristic anymore; instead, it makes one think that the text was either
generated by a completely obsolete computer, or by someone who is new to
textual telecommunications and doesn't realize that when they speak in all
caps, THEY ARE YELLING THEIR FUCKING HEAD OFF.  One would think that a
computer sophisticated enough to generate this kind of story would have a
caps lock bit under software control.  :^) Yeah, it's a nit, but it's a
large one--about as big as nits get, I reckon.  Fortunately, the font is
almost sans-serif and about as close to readable as possible for all-caps
once you get used to it.

I don't give numerical ratings, because I think they are worthless, and the
idea of expressing months or years of effort in 4 bits is silly, so I'm not
going to give this X stars, or a laughing hyena with a split side, or a
pulsating amoeba shaped into a meaningful symbol.  If you want a second
opinion, you can read Paul Di Filippo's review in _Science Fiction Eye_ #11.
He was able to piece together more of the plot than I was, by the way.
_Cigarette Boy_ is not available in stores--if you are interested in
purchasing a copy, you'll have to order it directly from the author for US
$15, including postage and handling, for a signed and numbered copy.  The
author can be reached at the following address:

Darick Chamberlin
1562 E. Olive Way #402
Seattle, WA 98102
USA

%A Darick Chamberlin
%T Cigarette Boy
%I N/A
%C Seattle
%D 1993
%G N/A
%O US$15.00
%P 84 pp