A review by jdglasgow
Maxwell's Demon by Steven Hall
4.0
I spent the majority of MAXWELL’S DEMON waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yeah, there’s the occasional page with something printed on it like buttons from an answering machine, and yes there are the leaf-shaped footnotes which appear more frequently as the story advances, but I expected something *magical* to happen inside the plot, something to rival the first appearance of the shark in THE RAW SHARK TEXTS. Maybe it was unfair of me to pin those expectations on this, Hall’s 14-years later follow-up to TRST.
This book doesn’t go into the magical direction of its predecessor but that’s not to say that it doesn’t get absolutely bonkers by the end. I compared TRST to ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’. This one reminds me a lot of the movie ‘Synecdoche, New York’. Comparing Steven Hall to Charlie Kaufman seems entirely appropriate.
It’s true that the ultimate conclusion is not very satisfying. The final twists don’t really make a lot of sense and it doesn’t seem to tie everything together very well. The fact that it sort of falls apart at the end is frustrating but also feels somewhat of a piece with one of the themes of the book, entropic breakdown. Of course, that may just be ex post facto justification on my part since another recurring motif is the concept of a book as a closed-loop, a perfect system incapable of losing energy. But maybe the narrative is really critical of this idea? It’s hard to say; “ambiguous” is the more generous term.
Nevertheless, I’m standing by the four-star rating because I think Hall is an excellent writer. There’s so many individual moments of philosophical thought, about dust and angels and language and time which are thought-provoking and just beautiful to read. I get the criticism that writing a book about writing books is a little self-indulgent but I think he has enough interesting ideas here to make the exercise worthwhile. And there are moments of real drama here, even if they are undercut by the silly reveal at the close. They work in the moment. I’d also say there’s something of the wild world-building present in TRST, specifically in Andrew Black’s seemingly endless workshop and incredibly intricate dollhouses.
All of this is to say that I did like this book quite a bit. The plot, I think, got away from Hall at the end. To be perfectly frank, the end of TRST wasn’t the most rewarding either, so I get the sense that tying things up may just be a challenge for Hall. No matter, though, because the journey to get there, just the experience of reading his writing, is so enjoyable.
P.S. One thing that continually bothered me, though, is the anachronistic use or non-use of technology in this book. It was published in April 2021, yet the plot is initiated by an answering machine message, which the protagonist half-hears while struggling to get to the phone from the bathroom. It’s a funny image but *who has an answering machine in 2021*? Later he enters a darkened church and wanders around in the dimness, waiting for his eyes to adjust and feeling a sense of dread. Yes, it’s dramatic, but wouldn’t a normal person immediately use their cell phone’s flashlight in this situation? (I know, I know, “I’m not a fucking normal person!”) Last one: our protagonist Thomas is in a town without cell service and forges ahead with a foolhardy plan without notifying anybody. He comments that he should have found a pay phone to call his agent. Found a WHAT? Pay phones *do not exist* anymore! What are you even talking about, you crazy person? I know the setting of the book is relatively contemporary because Thomas *does* have a smartphone (he uses it to read a news article at one point) and a live-stream webcam plays a part in the narrative as well. So this isn’t taking place in like 1990 or something. I don’t know, this is probably a ridiculous thing to get to hung up on but it bothered me repeatedly.
This book doesn’t go into the magical direction of its predecessor but that’s not to say that it doesn’t get absolutely bonkers by the end. I compared TRST to ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’. This one reminds me a lot of the movie ‘Synecdoche, New York’. Comparing Steven Hall to Charlie Kaufman seems entirely appropriate.
It’s true that the ultimate conclusion is not very satisfying. The final twists don’t really make a lot of sense and it doesn’t seem to tie everything together very well. The fact that it sort of falls apart at the end is frustrating but also feels somewhat of a piece with one of the themes of the book, entropic breakdown. Of course, that may just be ex post facto justification on my part since another recurring motif is the concept of a book as a closed-loop, a perfect system incapable of losing energy. But maybe the narrative is really critical of this idea? It’s hard to say; “ambiguous” is the more generous term.
Nevertheless, I’m standing by the four-star rating because I think Hall is an excellent writer. There’s so many individual moments of philosophical thought, about dust and angels and language and time which are thought-provoking and just beautiful to read. I get the criticism that writing a book about writing books is a little self-indulgent but I think he has enough interesting ideas here to make the exercise worthwhile. And there are moments of real drama here, even if they are undercut by the silly reveal at the close. They work in the moment. I’d also say there’s something of the wild world-building present in TRST, specifically in Andrew Black’s seemingly endless workshop and incredibly intricate dollhouses.
All of this is to say that I did like this book quite a bit. The plot, I think, got away from Hall at the end. To be perfectly frank, the end of TRST wasn’t the most rewarding either, so I get the sense that tying things up may just be a challenge for Hall. No matter, though, because the journey to get there, just the experience of reading his writing, is so enjoyable.
P.S. One thing that continually bothered me, though, is the anachronistic use or non-use of technology in this book. It was published in April 2021, yet the plot is initiated by an answering machine message, which the protagonist half-hears while struggling to get to the phone from the bathroom. It’s a funny image but *who has an answering machine in 2021*? Later he enters a darkened church and wanders around in the dimness, waiting for his eyes to adjust and feeling a sense of dread. Yes, it’s dramatic, but wouldn’t a normal person immediately use their cell phone’s flashlight in this situation? (I know, I know, “I’m not a fucking normal person!”) Last one: our protagonist Thomas is in a town without cell service and forges ahead with a foolhardy plan without notifying anybody. He comments that he should have found a pay phone to call his agent. Found a WHAT? Pay phones *do not exist* anymore! What are you even talking about, you crazy person? I know the setting of the book is relatively contemporary because Thomas *does* have a smartphone (he uses it to read a news article at one point) and a live-stream webcam plays a part in the narrative as well. So this isn’t taking place in like 1990 or something. I don’t know, this is probably a ridiculous thing to get to hung up on but it bothered me repeatedly.