Reviewed by Jack Goodstein
Las Vegas is in some sense the perfect symbol of the American economy and gambling the perfect metaphor. From a limited stock of money (it may be a very large stock, but ultimately it is always limited), the gambler bets some looking for greater gains, much in the same way the capitalist economy uses or ‘bets’ its resources.
The problem is that while there might well be short term gains in the long run the house always wins. Whether its craps, blackjack or the slots, the odds always favor the house. If you play long enough you lose.
You would think a novel that indulges itself in somewhat lengthy explanations and critiques of economic theories from Adam Smith and David Ricardo through Karl Marx to econometrics and macro-economics, supplemented by doses of biological and astrophysical data might be dreary going. And while there is no doubt that there will be a good many readers who will find these passages dry and daunting, it is equally true that there will be those that will marvel at the chutzpah of an author who deliberately chooses the dismal science as raw material for his work, and even more importantly admire his skill in shaping it into art. On some level, certainly less epic but less digressive as well, it reminds one of the discourses on whales and whaling in Melville’s Moby Dick, discourses that have brought even that venerable voice his share of detractors. A writer takes a gamble when he loads a work of fiction with this kind of baggage–with some readers he will win, unfortunately, no matter how well he manages the material, with some he will lose.
This is all the more unfortunate because Thomas Legendre’s first novel, The Burning, is a rewarding, skillfully controlled piece of work well worth the serious reader’s attention. Its forays into the esoterica of economics and science are integrated functional expressions of both theme and character. Three of the four central figures in the book are academics–two recently ‘doctored’ economists and an astrophysicist. That such people would tend to look at the world in terms of the metaphors and models of their professions is only natural. Logan Smith, the novel’s protagonist, is something of a maverick among economists. Unlike Deck Moore (one has to wonder about Legendre’s choices of character names. There are a Keris and a Dallas still to come. Whatever happened to Bob and Carol, Ted and Alice.) the novel’s putative villain, he isn’t into the professional specialty du jour, econometrics. His concerns are much more humanistic. He is interested in reevaluating economic theories in the light of their effects on society. His doctoral dissertation is a study of Adam Smith attempting to show where the father of laissez faire capitalism went wrong. Not that he is a communist, Marxist theory has its own problems, it is simply that modern economic theory rest on assumptions about resources that ignore certain basic scientific truths that need to be taken into account.
Deck is a pragmatist. He knows which side of the academic bread the butter is spread. He understands the wheeling and dealing necessary to getting ahead even in the hallowed halls of ivy, besides he has goals even beyond the university. Visions of presidential commissions dance in his head. He knows critiques of two hundred and fifty year old theories that have calcified into dogma are not going to get him where he wants to go, no matter how cogent and well reasoned they might be.
The contrast between the two is crystalized by the way they think about economics and illustrates the aesthetically functional way in which Legendre uses this material. Here is Deck: "He had wanted to show that point-of-sales ATM transactions, when isolated from other expenditures, would result in step-shaped consumption functions with a series of zero-slope or nearly horizontal plateaus bridging the traditional upward sloping sections." Moreover when the data begin to betray him, he simply puts the whole theory on the "back burner" to await some new equation. Compare this with Logan talking to a class about the ideas of Jeremy Bentham (It is also worthwhile to note that Logan is a much more committed and effective teacher; for Deck, like many other academics, teaching is something of a necessary evil). "Bentham wanted to reconcile individual freedom with the greater public welfare. He believed that social institutions have a major effect on people’s actions and, as a result, should be modified to ensure that everyone’s pursuit of his or her ‘rational self-interest, as most economists phrase it, was compatible with the long-term goals of society." Their ideas about economics are functions of their personality.
Logan and Deck are set up as opposite poles, not only professional, but in most other ways as well. Deck is a California boy: outgoing, glib, blonde. Logan is a dark Pennsylvanian; sensitive and careful about what he says. Logan is straight forward, Deck manipulative. Deck is casual and emotionally distant in his sexual behavior; Logan cannot help but become emotionally involved. Deck is at home in places like strip clubs; Logan wants no part of them. Deck works on his body in a gym; Logan bikes and works redoing his garden. Deck looks at the world in which he lives to see how he can use it, Logan looks to see how he can change it.
The third of the academics, the astrophysicist, is Keris Aguilar, divorced mother of one, into Yoga and natural therapy; liberated, bright and beautiful in an uncommon way. Not only is she interested in Logan’s ideas, she is fully capable of critiquing and indeed collaborating with him. A perfect mate for an idealistic young economist, you would think. And you would be right, but for the fact that–this is after all a novel, so there has to be a but for the fact that–Logan is married, although needless to say, married to a woman completely wrong for him.
The fourth member of the character quartet is Dallas Cole. She is a blackjack dealer that Logan met on a trip with Deck to Las Vegas to celebrate their ascent to ‘Ph. D.-dom.’ While Deck runs off to a strip club, Logan sits at her table, and since he is a novice, she takes him under her wing as Vegas dealers are wont to do with neophytes. She also takes him home with her at the end of her shift. When the story picks up again, they are married and living in Arizona where Logan is now teaching. Of course it doesn’t take long for them to discover that blackjack dealers and professors of economics might not have all that much in common when the sexual heat begins to cool. It doesn’t take her long to find out that there aren’t too many towns that have the glamor and excitement of Las Vegas. It doesn’t take him long to find out that beautiful blackjack dealers may need more tender loving care than one might have thought on first acquaintance.
Set this quartet into action and you have the formula for the plot of The Burning. While the book does make what seems to be the obvious point about these relationships, it is also concerned with more cosmic issues: unsustainable economic growth, depletion of resources, environmental deterioration, urban sprawl, allocation of wealth, among others. Ultimately it forecasts a dire scenario unless some radical changes are made. There is something very seductive about the American life style. Everyone, all over the world, seems to want it. The problem is that everyone cannot have it. Its very existence is predicated on the fact that there are multitudes that do not have it and never will. It demands to be constantly fed; it demands always something new to consume.
Las Vegas is in some sense the perfect symbol of the American economy and gambling the perfect metaphor. From a limited stock of money (it may be a very large stock, but ultimately it is always limited), the gambler bets some looking for greater gains, much in the same way the capitalist economy uses or ‘bets’ its resources. The problem is that while there might well be short term gains in the long run the house always wins. Whether its craps, blackjack or the slots, the odds always favor the house. If you play long enough you lose. If you play long enough your chips are gone. This is the free market. It will sustain itself s long as the chips hold out, but if you play long enough. . . . That Las Vegas with its flashy neon excess provides a glitzy contrast to the university lecture halls belies the fact that they have a good deal more in common than meets the eye.
Las Vegas, John Maynard Keynes, g-strings and radon-219–What more can a reader ask for?
About the Reviewer: Jack Goodstein is a professor emeritus at California University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught English for more than thirty years. His work has appeared in scholarly journals such as Critique, Theatre Journal and College English and in literary magazines such as The Maine Review, The Small Pond Magazine of Literature and The Jewish Digest. In 1990 at age 51, he tried his hand at acting, and while he has always loved the theatre from the audience, discovered an unexpected addiction to the stage as a performer. Since then he has appeared in more than sixty plays throughout Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania. He has also done film and commercial work. This ultimately led to his attempts at writing for the stage. His one act, Pinochle was given a staged reading at the ATHE conference in Toronto in July of 1999 and was published by the University of Charleston Press. In April 2000, his one act, Poker, was produced by the Pulse Ensemble Theatre in Manhattan as part of their OPAL series. Bride of the Father(2000) and Creative Daydreaming (2001) were produced by the Gallery Players of Park Slope in Brooklyn. Other one acts have had readings or been staged at Far Off Broadway and Northern LightsTheatre in Canada, and New York University and the Cafe Sha Sha in New York.
The Burning
by Thomas Legendre
Little, Brown
Hardcover: 368 pages, July 6, 2006, ISBN: 031615380X
Originally published in http://www.compulsivereader.com/html. Reproduced here with permission.
