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A review by bennyandthejets420
Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash
5.0
Just gonna make a few quick points here:
1) Habash lists Roberto Bolaño as a big influence in the back of the book (appearing once in an answer to "What Are Your Favorite Authors?" and again in Habah recommending 2666). I think the influence of Bolaño is important here because it shows how Habash learned to make the first person voice of Stephen Florida so personable, creepy, and varied in organization (long chunks of narration, quick one sentence paragraphs, long breathless sentences). It's wonderful and feels like Habash is drawing from Bolaño without aping him. Habash also takes a trick from Bolaño's book by listing information only the narrator finds interesting. (In Bolaño's The Third Reich its moves for a game the character is obsessed with and the reader knows nothing about and here its anything from the names of all the wrestlers he's lost to weird loops of nonsense text that feel like Florida's mind unspooling in way that distantly recalls some of Samuel Beckett. Come to think of it The Third Reich seems like a closer fit to this book than 2666. Both books deal with narrators losing grip on reality through singular obsession and competition in a closed environment. For The Third Reich its somebody who plays war games on vacation in a tiny hotel).
2) The horror/weirdness in this book works best when the reader gets to imagine what they think is about to happen, which leaves the reader constantly on the edge of their seat. Its a great trick I think to keep us on the tightrope between disgust and attraction and I think Habash walks the line here with Florida here so I never feel entirely lost at some of the genuinely repellent things he does in the pursuit of winning. In the end, you're still pulling for Florida even though we could easily write the character off.
3) For some reason, my favorite part was at the oil rig where I think Habash pulls a trick out of Cormac McCarthy where Florida's isolation/loneliness matches the exterior natural landscape outside his head and into the surrounding area. It's a great trick where a character's POV is suggested to be All There Is: outside, in the Real World: it's turtles all the way down, etc. The cold houses in the cold landscape outside the rig, the giant of the rig where faceless people work. . . all of it comes across with the kind of chill of Florida realizing what that kind of life would be like. It's the kind of chill in writing I love to get. Habash isn't from North Dakota and while he runs the risk of fetishizing the kind of landscape/people of the Midwest (the great Flyover) I think this passage rings true to the book's themes of loneliness and mental isolation.
4) Finally, the wrestling. Wow! I wrestled for one year in high school (went 3-3 but 2 of those were draws haha) and I think the loneliness and personal quest for glory/greatness/achievement were captured very well here. Also the great beauty of wrestling as a one-on-one sport where people develop singular ways of moving themselves around the mat. And the thrill of competition.
Ultimately, I think this is an excellent sports book which uses some of the techniques of modern narrative writing to excellent poetic and artistic effect. Not to be missed.
1) Habash lists Roberto Bolaño as a big influence in the back of the book (appearing once in an answer to "What Are Your Favorite Authors?" and again in Habah recommending 2666). I think the influence of Bolaño is important here because it shows how Habash learned to make the first person voice of Stephen Florida so personable, creepy, and varied in organization (long chunks of narration, quick one sentence paragraphs, long breathless sentences). It's wonderful and feels like Habash is drawing from Bolaño without aping him. Habash also takes a trick from Bolaño's book by listing information only the narrator finds interesting. (In Bolaño's The Third Reich its moves for a game the character is obsessed with and the reader knows nothing about and here its anything from the names of all the wrestlers he's lost to weird loops of nonsense text that feel like Florida's mind unspooling in way that distantly recalls some of Samuel Beckett. Come to think of it The Third Reich seems like a closer fit to this book than 2666. Both books deal with narrators losing grip on reality through singular obsession and competition in a closed environment. For The Third Reich its somebody who plays war games on vacation in a tiny hotel).
2) The horror/weirdness in this book works best when the reader gets to imagine what they think is about to happen, which leaves the reader constantly on the edge of their seat. Its a great trick I think to keep us on the tightrope between disgust and attraction and I think Habash walks the line here with Florida here so I never feel entirely lost at some of the genuinely repellent things he does in the pursuit of winning. In the end, you're still pulling for Florida even though we could easily write the character off.
3) For some reason, my favorite part was at the oil rig where I think Habash pulls a trick out of Cormac McCarthy where Florida's isolation/loneliness matches the exterior natural landscape outside his head and into the surrounding area. It's a great trick where a character's POV is suggested to be All There Is: outside, in the Real World: it's turtles all the way down, etc. The cold houses in the cold landscape outside the rig, the giant of the rig where faceless people work. . . all of it comes across with the kind of chill of Florida realizing what that kind of life would be like. It's the kind of chill in writing I love to get. Habash isn't from North Dakota and while he runs the risk of fetishizing the kind of landscape/people of the Midwest (the great Flyover) I think this passage rings true to the book's themes of loneliness and mental isolation.
4) Finally, the wrestling. Wow! I wrestled for one year in high school (went 3-3 but 2 of those were draws haha) and I think the loneliness and personal quest for glory/greatness/achievement were captured very well here. Also the great beauty of wrestling as a one-on-one sport where people develop singular ways of moving themselves around the mat. And the thrill of competition.
Ultimately, I think this is an excellent sports book which uses some of the techniques of modern narrative writing to excellent poetic and artistic effect. Not to be missed.