A novel by Anjo Bordell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Tapped out in a mouldy Shanghai apartment, the paranoiac writing in DEFAULT makes me want to tell the author to lay off the weed. But no lazy pot smoker could write such energetic sentences. Impending doom hovers over Anjo Bordell, author and protagonist of this satirical novel. It’s a send-up of American military chauvinism, another valuable addition to the collection. Think Vonnegut, think Heller, I guess. But then it’s also William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch without the drugs; the narrative lurches all over the shop. Bordell joins the Marines and bounces from disaster to disaster before washing up in Shanghai with his guide Sam – a barman he met in L.A.’s Chinatown when out drinking with his marine buddies.
And what about us? We tell him our names. “Anjo?” Sam says, cocking his head. “Ah, like dead person with wings.” Dane spews Tsing Tao across the bar. He’s laughing, apologizing, wiping up his mess. “Your friend have some problem?” Sam says. “He’s culturally insensitive, that’s all.” “What meaning?” “Never mind.”
In China things don’t lighten up: landlords, police, and taxi drivers are all looking to take Anjo out. As a foreigner, he feels eyes on him. He can’t get a coffee without a punch up. I don’t know where in Shanghai Bordell was hanging out, but I did relate to his travails buying clothes in a crowded market and being sick in an apartment with busted heating. He’s not writing a tourist brochure. I hate to call this post-modern – but you do wonder what the fuck is happening half the time. A muscular mash-up of marine speak and Chinglish, this is a work of near-genius – not for the whole package, but for the oddball conversations that keep coming.
“In a minute,” I said. “Your forearm—just brilliant. Some kind of electric chicken?” “My God, Americans. It’s a liver bird.” “A what?” “Liver, like diver.” “Ah,” I said. “Rhyming slang.” “Good grief. It’s the symbol of my city back in Australia. From the medieval times.” “Medieval Australia?” “Exactly,” he said, quite satisfied with himself. He finished his drink.
Will we get more from Anjo Bordell?
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