The Visible Man

I have trouble writing about this book.  I read it back in March and while I was stunned by how good it was, I was still very unsure about how to approach it on paper.  So I thought about it and thought about it, brainstormed and recorded some of those thoughts, and then I thought about it some more.  For three months.

Now I am finally trying to undertake the task of writing about this complex book.  I absolutely adore Chuck Klosterman, who earned a place as one of my favorite authors with his first book, Fargo Rock City, and whose book Killing Yourself to Live remains one of my favorite books of all time.  Though there are times where I disagree with his philosophical ideas, and though there are times when I find his thinking to go off the deep end, I still find myself purchasing and reading every book he publishes.

Klosterman's books, minus The Visible Man

That is not what drew me to this novel.

This is Klosterman's second novel -- most of his writing is nonfiction dealing with American culture and its intricacies.  His first novel, Downtown Owl, is focused on small-town high school life; it's more complex than just that, but that's a decent surface description.  The prose of this novel is clean and straightforward, almost clinical, but the characters he draws are largely fascinating.  (And when reading the second novel, it's hard to tell that Klosterman is still the author -- the language style is so different!)  The Visible Man is a very different novel than Downtown Owl; in many ways, The Visible Man is a blending of Klosterman's cultural writing and his fiction, which creates a complicated result.

What drew me to this novel is its title vs. it's description.  On Amazon.com, this story sounds like science-fiction: a therapist is contacted by a man, known only as Y, who claims to have stolen some government technology that renders him effectively undetectable (there is a lot of discussion over the word 'invisible,' which I'll get to in a moment).  Thanks to this technology, he is able to fulfill his deepest desire: to sneak into people's homes and observe their actions.  AND YET, the title is The Visible Man.  The obvious contradiction between the two is what made me want to read the book, and this contradiction ended up being central to the ideas of the book.

I imagine Klosterman laughing maniacally to himself, saying, "This is exactly what I was going for! You've fallen into my consumer trap!" -- even though I would have bought the book anyway.

I realize now that I have only barely described the content of the novel itself.  Y has a government technology and uses it to observe people without their knowledge.  But the driving idea of the novel is that Y is seeking treatment from a therapist (and the book's narrator), Victoria, though he refuses to say that exactly he'd like to accomplish through this therapy.  They communicate strictly by phone at the beginning of the novel, and gradually throughout build a complicated relationship that I am hesitant to fully reveal.

The language of visible vs. invisible shows up (bu-dum!) throughout the novel.  Early on, when Y first steps into the novel in a bodily form, he is what you and I would call invisible -- he cannot be seen.  But Y refuses to classify himself as invisible, instead labeling himself as "unseen" or "nearly visible."  In fact, several times he reacts violently to being called invisible.

Y is not exactly like THIS invisible man -- his is more a body suit than a lab accident. Nonetheless, he's just as much a sarcastic and self-indulgent prick. 

This argument inspires much debate between Y and Victoria, his therapist, especially as the misadventures that Y describes start to come fully into view.

These instances that Y describes, wherein he is observing someone while inside their apartment, are often noteworthy in some way.  The implication is that Y has been inside hundreds, maybe thousands, of homes to conduct his 'experiment,' but the ones that he shares with Victoria are carefully chosen to prove a point. (Like I said earlier, that point is never quite revealed and is left up to the reader to discern.)  Some of the stories are incredibly violent, as in one Y is responsible for someone's death, and some are extremely disturbing, such as one where Y adds his speed to a drug abuser's pot and gleefully watches the, as he finds them, hilarious results.  The man comes off as a sociopath.

Yet this label seems to be exactly what Y wants to avoid.  He would never admit this; he never does admit that he's talking to a therapist for any kind of identifiable reason.  All he will ever say is that he's just there to talk, he just wants to talk and talk and talk to someone about what he doing with his life.  In his mind, Y has pure motives: he observes these people in order to understand Culture, that great elusive beast that rules the American consciousness.

Since culture is invisible, it is fitting that Y is also "invisible."  And just as he is not quite "invisible," neither is culture -- culture can be observed through its people and their tastes.  How does one determine what is American culture? You look at what's popular now, what American people are doing, what they believe in, what they work for, what they buy.  Culture is invisible, yet not. Y is also invisible, yet not -- he can be found, you just have to know where to look.

The book really is a lovely, if strangely manifested, discussion of what makes up culture. 

After much reflection, I find Y and his reasons for being in therapy to be very much representative of the everyday person.  He resists all of Victoria's efforts to analyze him, even going to great lengths to forbid her from doing such (including invading her house and injuring her husband), and seems to consider himself above the process of "therapy."  Yet there he is, sitting in Victoria's office, talking to her just as any patient would talk to his therapist.  His arrogance is superseded by whatever driving reason he has for being there. Thus, the question that comes to mind for both the reader and Victoria throughout the book is, why is he really there? The answer is simple: Y is seeking approval for his actions.  Just like every other person on the planet, Y wants to be told that he's okay, that what he's doing is right.  He wants reassurance.  However, just like the average person, Y does not want to admit that this approval is what he is looking for -- he just wants it to come naturally, hence his lack of discussion about his motives and his attempts to keep Victoria from categorizing him.  He acts with arrogance as a defense against what he really wants.

The character relationships in this book are exceedingly complex, and seeing that one of the two main characters is a therapist adds to the layers of meaning in the novel.  Victoria and Y have a semi-functional relationship; it builds to functionality and then eventually breaks down as the ending to the novel (I won't give away specifics).  Victoria is oddly drawn to Y.  She finds his stories fascinating, even as she questions their authenticity, and she struggles with the morals of her job even as she pushes Y to tell her more.  She is apprehensive and unsure and entirely unable to stop listening to his life story.  But it is only after Y really becomes visible -- after he opens up, not when he is physically seen -- that the story can end.  Only after he becomes the Visible Man does their relationship start to break down and Victoria start to assume power.  There is a tension throughout the novel that cannot be maintained beyond its events, and once that line is crossed, that's the end.

Ultimately, though I am stunned by how good this book was and how involved I became with it, I am not sure if I can recommend it to others without some additional knowledge about what kind of book a given person might want to read.  It is not a light book, and nor should it be undertaken as such.