The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal [Paperback]

Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal

by Sean Dixon, 2009

Intricate and audacious, but the author pulls it off 5*

I'm seldom genuinely sad to see a book come to an end, but I had become so engrossed in the lives of the crew of unusual women (and token boys) who make up the Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women's Book Club (in the words of Du, "an intense little book club") that I felt like a kid moving out of town and losing his circle of friends, or maybe more aptly, a traveler heading home after the brief but intense camaraderie of the road. The characters were not all terribly likable, but were interesting, quirky and human

Now there are two extremes of stylistic ideal. In one, the writing is so transparent that one hardly notices it. Nothing seems to come between the reader and the characters, setting and action. This style seems so natural that one imagines it is effortless, but of course takes great skill and effort. If this is your favored read, approach this book with trepidation!

Then there is writing where the style itself is front and center, in your face, and "Last Days..." certainly falls toward that end of the spectrum. The conceit of the book is that it is written by two of the members (or former members) of the Club, Jennifer and Danielle, and their auctorial voice is sometimes clear as they address us directly in their own name(s), sometimes implicit in the narrative [e.g., "Do you remember when we mentioned the backpack that Neil found back in Chapter One?", p.71]. At other times, the narrative appears straightforwardly third person, yet the question of just how the narrators know, for instance, what a character was thinking at some moment, is never far from view -- and such considerations are often addressed directly. The narrative is self conscious, but seldom devolves into the merely precious. That this is a stylistically different book strikes us from the very beginning, where there is what we can later interpret as a hastily whispered conference between the two 'authors' as to the epigraph (or 'epitaph' as one accidentally calls it).

Here's an example of the sort of swerve that is constantly dished up: "{Runner Coghill] was almost weightless, with translucent skin, a haughty nose -- a pig nose, she sometimes called it in her own garment-rending arias of despair, which were private and known to us only because they were occasionally gossiped about in fits of envy of which we are not proud." Note that here we move effortlessly from a third person narrative, to an abstract first person, to an intimate first person ("we are not proud"); and there is also the concern with attribution, how the author/narrators know what they are reporting.

For those who think this sounds like reading "Last Days..." will be an exercise in intellectual analysis, let me just recommend that you simply read it straight through without stopping to ponder too much. What at first seems confusing should eventually begin to clear up as you get to know the characters and acclimate to the numerous swerves and differing viewpoints that Dixon throws at you. The ride is bumpy and unpredictable and can be unsettling or exhilarating depending on your frame of mind or maybe just the day you're having, but it'll be smoother if you relax and go with the flow. And if, like me, you are reluctant for the story to end, it's one of those books where you can comfortably go back to the beginning and start over again, with a now familiar crew of old friends. It's a tale best unraveled iteratively, rather than by stopping to obsess at each moment.

One complaint: the tablets that Neil carries around are constantly referred to as "stone". As far as I can figure out, the original tablets of the standard version of the Epic were baked clay. (And because of the 11-tablet nature, it is seemingly the standard version that is being used.) Cuneiform is a writing system intended for pressing with a stylus into clay (or wax, etc.), not chiseling into stone. Incidentally, the standard version was written down between 1300 and 1000 BCE, with other partial versions over the previous millennium (as with most epic literature, this is more a 'cycle' of connected stories than a single narrative), and whatever historical framework they are built on was maybe ~2500 BCE. Or did the author have some intent in switching from clay tablets to stone? If so, I can't divine it.

The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal took some time to fall into, however the end result was so worth it. I cannot go into too much details or I would ruin the story for you. However I can tell you I so want to join a young woman's book club now!

The story is unique, challenging yet fun to read. Different from anything else I have ever read, which makes its appeal much stronger. It is a book about the love of books and friendship. It is odd though, so you have to be up for a challenge and willing to open your mind to the story.

I can't remember the last time I struggled so hard to finish a book! I would read a few pages, then go online and read a few reviews, shake my head and say to myself, "Really??!! People think it's mind blowing? Moving? Fun?". Then I would return to the book in the vain hope that I had missed something.

I found the writing to be painfully self-conscious. Sean was trying really, really hard to be wacky and out there. Every character had a weird flaw or penchant (a ghost in their mirror or covered in stripes) and the dialogue was a clunky collection of zany statements that seemed to be unconnected (and disconnected) to the characters around them.

And speaking of the characters. Even people who liked this book complained that the characters weren't fully formed. Everytime I felt that a character was starting to emerge out of the high-faluting fog and take form, they would do something so at odds with who they seemed to be that they would disappear again.

Good comedy often comes from a bed of tragedy and that seems to be the path here as most of the characters are dealing with loss of different kinds - death, loneliness, innocence. But it felt to me that these elements of grief were mere devices to try and flesh out what is after all a farce. And like all good farces, it is based around a quest. But what that quest was is never really made clear. In the end, it was a collection of appallingly dull, self-absorbed people running around play-acting roles from a mysterious ancient book of stones that can be read by a tiny girl with a broken foot (and wrist).

It's written with lots of footnotes and asides. The characters are either mortified or alarmed.

Supposedly this was first written as a play and it has a hammy, staged, high-school revue quality to it that bored me to tears.

So, so very disappointing.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 7 reviews  3.0 out of 5 stars