An intriguing and often very funny entry in one of my favourite sub-genres - postmodernist existential detective novels (cf The Raw Shark Texts, Icelander (*) and, of course, the grandfather of them all, The Crying of Lot 49, Murakami a neighbour too, especially in A Wild Sheep Chase (*) and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (*) mode).
There once was a one person who
Knew that all that she knew was untrue
She fell asleep in her head
When she woke up instead
Of being one one, she was two.
In Orion, we're in the hands of a wilful and inscrutable (even to herself) narrator, one Finley, engaged on a mysterious Assignment set by the equally mysterious Binelli - an Assignment whose very nature is unclear to Finley, but which has something to do with puppets. Her syntax is curious, but then so is everything about her (in more than one sense):
They are also an unending source of pain and fury for myself and The Lamb. We are neither of us even close to a size 9.5. Who is. A penguin. A clubfoot. A saintly redheaded sister with no need for shoes, not ever again, wafting about the clouds in her wherewithal, no doubt, in her birthday suit, in the buff, with specially made size 9.5 wings erupting from giant shoulder blades to carry her wherever she might deign to go. An entire room filled with handcrafted, timeless, useless shoes.
One could go mad.
One does go mad, often, and then the other one, and then both for some time, and then some shoes get thrown about and the memory of the sister desecrated and defamed and then all are yelled at and then all get crappy Assignments next time around.
There's much confusion in Finley's world, not least on the question of who she is; many of those she encounters seem strangely doubled. (Not that this prevents her frequent application of 'logic' to what she encounters.) There's also a large snake, Lavendar, who is her 'beast of burden' and goes everywhere with her in a satchel, sometimes emerging to the consternation of those around. And there's also the odd recurrence of Tiki Ty's Tiki Barn, whose owner makes magnificent shrimp:
Wherever we went, wherever the concerns in need of Investigation took us, we always stayed at Tiki Ty's Tiki Barn. And unlikely seeming as it seems, it always seemed to be exactly the same place.
One learns that certain questions are unanswerable.
This is why we need words like 'conundrum'.
Tiki Ty's was always where we stayed and was always a large bright generous sort of bookstore-slash-vintage surfing memorabilia museum. The books were not necessarily about vintage surfing memorabilia; I perhaps misspoke. There were few, if in fact any, books on vintage surfing memorabilia at Tiki Ty's and perhaps in the whole of the world. Vintage surfing memorabilia being one of those memorabilias that people prefer to see accidentally or even on purpose, in person, but rarely, if ever, to read about.
Though perhaps they would enjoy a picture book of vintage surfing memorabilia?
This may not even be the case.
This may be something that warrants further investigation, but perhaps by someone else.
Very pleasing indeed.
