The Unnamed
by Joshua Ferris
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joshua FerrisEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-01-18
ISBN: 0316034010
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Book Reviews of The Unnamed
Book Review: Zen and the art of homelessness
Summary: 4 Stars
I listen to a number of podcasts and in a recent episode of one of my favorites, "Entitled Opinions," the host a professor of Italian literature at Stanford, Robert Harrison, gave a monologue on Wallace Stevens. A 20th-century poet and philosopher, Stevens was interested in the act of naming. He was greatly concerned with trying to find a language to talk about the things of the world that would free them of the conceptual debris that constrain our conceptions of a thing. In "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction", Stevens suggests that the true first sin in the Garden of Eden was not the sin of transgression, the eating from the tree of knowledge, but the sin of denomination, Adam's naming of the creatures and plants of the Garden of Eden.
This initial act of naming was Adam's first step to move away from a life with God and take his first steps towards the world of the named, the world of death and loss. Shift your focus many thousands of years and many steps beyond those first steps to contemporary New York City as Joshua Ferris' "The Unnamed" sets you off to explore the consequences of category. Ferris' book seems to match closely, metaphysically speaking, to Stevens' universe, or to that of Zen Buddhism. In both cases, the nature of suffering is closely tied to denomination.
In the world of Tim Farnsworth everything seems to be placed neatly into well defined categories. Tim Farnsworth is a middle-aged lawyer, accompanied through life by his loving wife Jane and his indifferent daughter, Becka. At the book's opening Tim has had the unpleasant epiphany that "It's back." What is "it"? Superficially, "it" is an uncontrollable compulsion to walk until his body collapses from exhaustion and then rush to find whatever shelter he can find until he is pulled into the sleep of the truly tired. Throughout these episodes, Tim's cognitive abilities are retained; only control over his body is ripped away.
Throughout previous episodes, Tim has traversed the globe seeking specialists to tend to his unidentifiable disorder. He has tried to fight the compulsion by having himself handcuffed and strapped to a bed, all without the remotest success. This time he finds himself unable to muster the strength to seek out the doctors to handle the trauma of the bed and will have to face the consequences of embracing "The Unnamed."
Farnsworth, for all practical purposes, is satisfied with this life and everything it offers. But part of him recognizes that he is living in a place devoid of meaningful interaction. He exists in a world of wonders and he only sees things and places. For whatever mysterious reason a deep primeval aspect of himself, as manifested in his compulsion to walk, is rebelling against this life of category.
This book was engaging as a straight novel. It does a fine job of pulling the reader into the life of Tim and Jane. Tim's character was by far the most compelling and complex. Generally, I prefer a book to have more characters deeply developed. Because this story is one of self-reveleation, I found it acceptable to have the central character more thoroughly developed than others. I certainly felt for Tim when, time and time again, he would appear to have regained control and then be zipped off to trudge to exhaustion. One particular tragicomic scene occurs fairly early on when he thinks the disorder has gone into remission. Tim shows up a court case that had been previously removed from his control and given over to another partner. He shows up in the middle of trial, a serious breach of protocol, and attempts to take the case back. Just as the judge is inquiring why he is there, his compulsion decides to rip him out of the court and he finds himself yelling back that he won't be attending today and it is best to proceed without his counsel.
I will foist one criticism against the book. Early in the story, Ferris includes a number of discussions of whether the unnamed affliction is a "medical disorder" or a "mental illness." Tim is greatly concerned with finding proof that, in his words, it is a "legitimate medical disorder" and that he not be "lumped in with the loonies." Over and over again Tim and everyone Tim speaks with characterizes mental illness as due to a weakness of the sufferer. On the one hand, I understand that many people do have this false impression of mental illness; which makes it reasonable to have characters who support such a belief. However, it was disappointing that the many doctors Tim interacts with don't seem to disagree with Tim on this point, and seem to actually support his belief that mental illness is due to character flaws and weakness of will. Again, while there are some doctors who still believe this, it is unlikely that all of them would have such a poor understanding of mental illness.
That being said, you can see, from the rest of my review, that I think this book is most interesting when viewed as an exploration of the interrelationship between our experience of the world, our need to label that world, and our suffering in the world. A reader could certainly enjoy this book without trying to glean any insight into how these three points relate to each other, but by paying attention to the author's presentation of these points, they will, I believe, obtain a much richer experience.
Summary of The Unnamed
He was going to lose the house and everything in it.The rare pleasure of a bath, the copper pots hanging above the kitchen island, his family-again he would lose his family. He stood inside the house and took stock. Everything in it had been taken for granted. How had that happened again? He had promised himself not to take anything for granted and now he couldn't recall the moment that promise had given way to the everyday.
Tim Farnsworth is a handsome, healthy man, aging with the grace of a matinee idol. His wife Jane still loves him, and for all its quiet trials, their marriage is still stronger than most. Despite long hours at the office, he remains passionate about his work, and his partnership at a prestigious Manhattan law firm means that the work he does is important. And, even as his daughter Becka retreats behind her guitar, her dreadlocks and her puppy fat, he offers her every one of a father's honest lies about her being the most beautiful girl in the world.
He loves his wife, his family, his work, his home. He loves his kitchen. And then one day he stands up and walks out. And keeps walking.
THE UNNAMED is a dazzling novel about a marriage and a family and the unseen forces of nature and desire that seem to threaten them both. It is the heartbreaking story of a life taken for granted and what happens when that life is abruptly and irrevocably taken away.
Amazon Best Books of the Month, January 2010: It's back. With those words Tim and Jane Farnsworth reenter a nightmare they know so intimately it needs no other description. "It" may not be found among an insurance company's diagnostic codes, but the Farnsworths, a couple made wealthy by Tim's single-mindedly successful legal practice, know it too well: Tim's compulsion, at any random moment of the day or night, to set out walking for hours at a time until he collapses in exhaustion. They've survived two bouts of this inexplicable illness, which began as mysteriously as they ended, and now, as Joshua Ferris's second novel, The Unnamed, opens, they are beset by a third. Ferris's first book, Then We Came to the End, was one of the freshest, most acclaimed fiction debuts of the decade, but he's followed it not with an imitation or extension but with something thrillingly different. Like Tim possessed in one of his perambulatory vectors, Ferris follows his character's condition as far as it leads him, far beyond where logic and loyalty usually take our lives, but always treats it with empathy, grace, and imagination. His language is as exact and poetic as his premise is fantastic, and by the story's end you feel the title refers not only to his hero's strange and solitary disease but also to those elemental but equally inexplicable forces that bind us together through the most difficult turns of our fated lives. --Tom Nissley
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