Warp is an oddity – a spaced oddity, if you like. This is a novella by Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians series, though it is not connected to the series. Originally written 1992 – 1996, and first published in 1998, it is a story of American slacker culture, a romance of the Generation-X lifestyle, which does remain with you for a while, once read.
Much of the context of this story is important. Lev has written a new introduction to this edition of the novella, explaining the how, when and where it came to fruition. It does show that people can rise above somewhat uninspiring beginnings.
This story is rather autobiographical. It is about Hollis Kessler, a Houlden Caulfield for the 21st century, whose life is pretty meaningless. He is recovering from his last love affair, has no job, little money and few prospects, eking a living by meandering between his dwindling trust fund and his equally lost friends. It is a tale of aimless capitalism, of isolation and of alienation.
Lev says in his Introduction that it is “a careful, orderly portrait of a group of people at the most chaotic, desperately lost time in their lives… the cheap booze, the black humor, the nameless longings, the alienation, the total poverty, the wasted days, the wasted nights, the circular conversations, the payphones and old-school video games and pre-grunge alt-rock, and the total conviction that the world was worthless and that everything important happened elsewhere, in fiction and fantasy and dreams and unreal nowhere-places that didn’t exist and meant nothing.”
And so it is. There’s not much of a plot, but it is clearly intelligently written. The first part of the novella is about Hollis meandering through his life. The second part of the book is when Hollis’s friend Peters decides to go and steal a house-key from a family friend so that Hollis and Peters can stay for free in the house whilst the owner’s away.
Everything is loaded with meaning, even the minutiae observed by Hollis on his meandering along the streets of Boston. There’s some lovely descriptions which highlight the disjoint between the outside world and what is going on in Hollis’ head. There, whilst the real external world is mundane, internally, Hollis’ imagination runs wild, juxtaposing the real world with invented scripts from Star Trek: the Next Generation (hence the title) and imaginary novels.
What this shows is that the dreariness of the real world (remember: “no email, no texting, no Twitter, no Facebook”) is shown in stark relief to Hollis’ imagination. As Lev himself puts it, Hollis is “alienated, mentally hyperactive, outwardly ineffectual”. Though there are no magical elements herein, genre readers will recognise the many cultural references to icons as varied as Star Trek: TNG, Lost in Space, Sherlock Holmes, Nintendo video games and old movies like The Terminator and Thelma and Louise, which makes it read rather like a more depressed, more sexed-up and drugged-up version of an early The Big Bang Theory.
Warp is a book which reflects a lifestyle, written almost as biography. Many readers may recognise it, even identify with it, whilst others will read with disbelief at the decadently wasted lives of the bright young things therein. Don’t read this for the plot, but there’s much to appreciate here in its nuanced and crafted prose. It is clear from this how Quentin Coldwater came to being, for (as Lev admits) this was his lifestyle before being given magical powers. It’s a quick read that is a product of hard work and one that begins to show the voice later identifiable in Lev’s other writing. And that may be enough for some to want to read it.
Warp by Lev Grossman
Published by St. Martins Press, September 2016. Originally published 1997.
192 pages
ISBN: 978 1 250 09237
Review by Mark Yon
