Click

[JasonKane]

September is here! Possibly my favorite month, though maybe tied with October. We'll be reading "Click" this month as selected by Mr. Ross. Looking forward to entering a new world and the ensuing discussion.

[JustinHolt]

September is one of my favorite months as well. I'm definetely a huge fan of the fall. Sweatshirt and shorts weather. Changing leaves. Good stuff.

I've started Click but haven't got far enough into yet to say anything worthwhile. Hopefully soon.

[Caleb]

I'll third the September affection. Kansas City gets violently hot. September is our vigilante.

So, with Click, because the author was kind enough to agree to answer some questions I've come up with an outline of sorts for this month. I figure we could discuss the novel for the first half of the month as we do with all novels. Then, on about the 15th I can gather questions from our discussion, conjure a few based on the our various comments, and email them to Kristopher Young.

He's already agreed to this setup, however if anyone has any other ideas I'm more than open.

I will get this discussion started off withing the next week or so with a few observations/questions of my own.

Also, for anyone interested Click is the September book club pick over at The Cult.

[JustinHolt]

Sounds like a good format Caleb. I'll try and finish up ASAP to help get this thing rolling.

That's cool about being featured over at the Cult as well. Hopefully the right people are in charge of the Book Club again and the book gets some well deserved widespread exposure.

[JasonKane]

First impressions:

I'm amazed at how solidly I understand and can tap into what's going on-- the delicate, strange emotions at play, the sense of being detached, and an isolation that feels almost like being underwater-- when the language is often so abstract and surreal. The "physical" things going on in the story so far are taking a back seat to the language of abstraction-- it's working though. It feels like a nightmare, in that the nightmare remains vital and frightening even though it is all interior. Maybe it's the fear that comes from realizing that every rule is being broken without warning.

By "rule" I mean, the interaction between the narrator and the physical world are secondary. There are no names, no (or little) exposition, no idea of concrete location. Things are their generalities: bed, work, restaurant, bar. Specifics do not exist here-- why does it seem to work thus far?

I think it works because, already, 30 pages in, I am feeling afraid for the narrator, who seems to be holding onto some vain hope that he can make sense of this with some effort-- that there are respites to be had, if only he could concentrate. It feels as if he's in the grip of some awful dementia that he can acknowledge only on the periphery of his consciousness. This seems to be heading into territory of a story not about people, but feelings. Sensations. Dread. That people might be involved could end up being nothing but a detail.

Anyway, just some initial thoughts as we get rolling.

[Caleb]

Originally Posted by JasonKane

First impressions:

I'm amazed at how solidly I understand and can tap into what's going on-- the delicate, strange emotions at play, the sense of being detached, and an isolation that feels almost like being underwater-- when the language is often so abstract and surreal. The "physical" things going on in the story so far are taking a back seat to the language of abstraction-- it's working though. It feels like a nightmare, in that the nightmare remains vital and frightening even though it is all interior. Maybe it's the fear that comes from realizing that every rule is being broken without warning.

By "rule" I mean, the interaction between the narrator and the physical world are secondary. There are no names, no (or little) exposition, no idea of concrete location. Things are their generalities: bed, work, restaurant, bar. Specifics do not exist here-- why does it seem to work thus far?

I think it works because, already, 30 pages in, I am feeling afraid for the narrator, who seems to be holding onto some vain hope that he can make sense of this with some effort-- that there are respites to be had, if only he could concentrate. It feels as if he's in the grip of some awful dementia that he can acknowledge only on the periphery of his consciousness. This seems to be heading into territory of a story not about people, but feelings. Sensations. Dread. That people might be involved could end up being nothing but a detail.

Great observations so far. I agree that the novel is more about exploring visceral emotions, and often times the observations and lifestyle that birth those emotions, than about the "true" physical world.

I think you're on to something in that perhaps these broken "rules" work because the reader is thrown into the world unapologetically. The narrator isn't sure of his own world so how silly would it be if, via this third person stream of conscious novel, the reader did understand the world entirely?
__________

Something Kristopher posed at The Cult, which I think heads like ours might be able to play with, is the following:

Originally Posted by Kristopher Young via The Cult

As readers will draw their own lines and come to their own conclusions, this effectively leaves much of Click up to interpretation [...] For example, while some readers believe the majority of events are actually happening to the narrator and that the glitches and loops are 'real', I've talked to others that believe most of the book to be the narrator's psychosis. Some read Click more as memoir than as fiction [...] I've heard some really wonderful explanations - for example, that the entire novel was a single iteration of a loop, or that the entire novel occurred during a few seconds of thought in the first chapter ala An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Neither were my intention, but that does not make them incorrect.

Any thoughts on this?

[JasonKane]

Regarding this Caleb, ambiguity makes an enduring story as far as I'm concerned. How many times have I watched movies like Memento and Primer because of small, nagging puzzles within that can neither be proven nor disproven. The lack of a "definite" solution allows for speculation; and the scope of this speculation thends to deepen as it is discussed.

Though I'm not far enough along to want to give my opinion on the matter of which is the scenario I truly believe, I can cast my ballot for the leading contender: I think the story is truly a story of the emotions of a troubled mind-- not necessarily psychotic, perhaps, but troubled: plagued by uncertainty, loneliness, despair and longing.

I remember once back in college a person forwarded me an email with an attachment to it. I opened the attachment and was treated to an extremely large and gruesome image of a man's face that had been injured in an explosion. Aside from causing me to pretty much delete all attachments without opening them from that point on, that image stuck with me for a long, long time, and would plague me at the most inappropriate times for no identifiable reason-- I'd be laughing, having a good time, eating, drinking, whatever, and there it would appear before my mind's eye and I'd be sickened and taken out of the moment. Why did this happen? Why did my brain cling to this? Why did it present it to me again and again when it was so unwanted?

Maybe "Click" is about going deep into this reflex and letting down your guard to see what your mind is truly capable of creating; the narrator says something telling, I thought, where he mentions (in a matter of speaking) that if he could just "give into love" the universe would click into place. Maybe this story is about fighting the inivisble horror that a mind is capable of inflicting on itself-- creating pain, sadness and misery of its own volition, when there is no reason for it to be that way.

[JasonKane]

***SPOILERS***

Finished this up this afternoon.

It was a quick and memorable read, with moments both revolting and gloriously lovely.

What is happening here?

I've not much revised my original first impression of the story, though there are a number of realities that could be true here, which is fitting given the nature of the story itself.

Is the narrator insane? Surely a possibility. I think so. His "insanity" seems truly insane in the first half of the book, yet follows distinct rules for the most part during the second half. I think the "mentor" and the secret he imparts is simply a delusion designed to give structure to his madness; the fact that he is always fixing, retreating backward in time, is telling in that it seems to indicate a window into sanity, that he wishes none of this was, that he could start over, be reborn. Likewise, his wish that that there was a "magic bulet" as it were-- a fitting phrase-- that could fix things, make them click-- like giving into love, like finding the right words-- seems to denote a despair with being trapped in his own mind. The delusion is one of ultimate control, ultimate sway, which would be really the only logical delusion for a person suffering as he seems to be. The martyrdom of his plight justifies his loneliness; makes it bearable.

In other words, I don't feel he's controlling the universe, though there really is no definitive evidence that leads me to this. It's Young's good writing that obscures the truth and gives you options. Choose as you will.

The malleability of the reality of the story is less impressive to me than the strength of the visions, the concreteness of the abstraction-- how to give a dream the urgency of the narrator's "visions" here? Because it is not often expressed as a dream or nightmare; they are expressed as terrifying shifts in reality. They are happening.

The memory of seeing his first dead body-- and his father's ensuing mantra of "there was nothing we could've done," and the frequent mention of "wide eyes" seems to point to a theme of seeing too much; of being flooded. The narrator mentions eyes as protectors near the end of the story; I think this too is a delusional response, in that in order to fortify himself against what he perceives to be the tragic reality of the world-- loneliness, war (the mushroom cloud imagery), sadness-- he turns the tables so that his eyes are not victims, but protectors. Delusion accommodates need.

The title is wonderfully ambiguous: the way the story hit me, the "click" has nothing to do with the control of things inside a loop. To me, it was representative of an urgently simple dichotomy: the "click" of the universe at last making sense, and gifting you with insight, love and safety, or the empty click of a gun. And the story ended with that same ambiguity: that the click is true at the story's end seems to represent that the narrator is on some level aware his revision of history is a delusion. That reality is far less grand, and far emptier, than he can bear to admit.

[Caleb]

Great observations all around.

Originally Posted by JasonKane

I think the "mentor" and the secret he imparts is simply a delusion designed to give structure to his madness;

The appearance of the mentor is one of the aspects that grabs me each time I read this. As a writer I see the mentor as more a device than anything; a way to drive the story. But I know Young is beyond simple devices in his writing. Sure the mentor may serve to push the story, but I don't think his intention is solely to push the story. I'll craft a question for the man about this one.

the fact that he is always fixing, retreating backward in time, is telling in that it seems to indicate a window into sanity, that he wishes none of this was, that he could start over, be reborn

This is an absolutely stunning observation. Simply the fact that the narrator wants to change things, that he understands enough about his reality to know that it needs fixing, implies a certain level of sanity. However, I think that your following comment:

Likewise, his wish that that there was a "magic bulet" as it were-- a fitting phrase-- that could fix things, make them click-- like giving into love, like finding the right words-- seems to denote a despair with being trapped in his own mind

might be less evidence of an irrational mind and more of a final option. Whether the narrator can bend reality or not, he believes he can and I think when given that kind of gift it would be irrational to not want to find that single element that brings everything into focus.

I love that the narrator takes on a godly persona at the end, understanding that he has the power to craft the world to his whim. This comments on a couple things nicely:

1) This constant backtracking, changing, revising would ultimately lead to that one element, or "magic bullet" that unites everything. A true Big Bang, if you will, which leads me to...
2) Click can almost be read as a God: The Younger Years parable. The narrator has these innate abilities to change the world, yet he struggles to grasp their true power, ultimately maturing to the realization of his divinity. Just an interesting thought.

In other words, I don't feel he's controlling the universe, though there really is no definitive evidence that leads me to this. It's Young's good writing that obscures the truth and gives you options. Choose as you will.

Personally, I like to believe that the narrator is truly controlling the universe. Given this type of power I think a person would likely question his sanity. Deities aren't always omniscient superheros with absolute confidence in their powers. Maybe sometimes they don't have minds strong enough to grasp/control these powers.

[JasonKane]

Originally Posted by Caleb

1) This constant backtracking, changing, revising would ultimately lead to that one element, or "magic bullet" that unites everything. A true Big Bang, if you will, which leads me to...
2) Click can almost be read as a God: The Younger Years parable. The narrator has these innate abilities to change the world, yet he struggles to grasp their true power, ultimately maturing to the realization of his divinity.

That's wonderful! The narrator is definitely (suffering or accepting?) a God Complex at the end-- his interior monologue has adopted an almost biblical obliqueness. the idea of returning to the uniting element of the universe still feels to me like less of a "growing" than a "shrinking from;" I see this as escape rather than discovery. Perhaps it's the reader's own mind that informs this association; to me, there has always been tremendous sadness in the role of the martyr, the lonely servant of mankind, the savior. If he is truly Divine, I'm not sure where the story has led us, as he seems to have no further cause to fear, no rival, nothing to be at odds with. He will attempt to set things right; arrive at the unifying element you mention. His loneliness throughout the story is almost oppressive; his actions don't feel to me like one grappling with power, but of struggling to find the right delusion that "clicks." There's the zombie delusion; it doesn't take. There's the self-surgery/alien implant angle; it doesn't take. The grand persecution of someone Divine, though, seems tailored for someone as lonely as he, as troubled, as torn.

I wonder: did he actually kill his girlfriend? Is her "rebirth" another figment of the imagination?

Originally Posted by Caleb

Whether the narrator can bend reality or not, he believes he can and I think when given that kind of gift it would be irrational to not want to find that single element that brings everything into focus.

That is true, but I was considering it more in terms of the infancy of his delusions-- I mean, when did all this start? At what age? How long before the novel opens is the narrator fighting his demons? He has obviously been testing the gun theory for some time now; is it truly a study in probability, do you think, or annother delusion, a disguised wish for the end? In the beginning, his longing for love and normalcy and meaning seems to be a more earthbound desire for unification-- not the later collapsing of the cosmos into something malleable as he contemplates his divinity. His longing, and his solutions, seem to be attainable in human form at the beginning of the story. It's maybe impossible to tell whether his desire for things to "click" is born of your run-of-the-mill standard human misery, or the debilitating weight of blossoming divinity. Maybe they go hand in hand.

Originally Posted by Caleb

Given this type of power I think a person would likely question his sanity.

That is absolutely true, and as far as I'm concerned, completely seals away the possibility of "figuring out" the story. If someone told you you were God, how do you prove it?