Justin Kurzel and Michael Fassbender Redo Macbeth

Thoughts on Macbeth and Movies

MACBETH            (2015)

Directed by Justin Kurzel

The Weinstein Company, 113 minutes, R (violence and brief sexuality)

* * * *

When I turned 50, I gave myself permission to dislike a bunch of things that "sophisticated" people are supposed to like: Bach, opera, Baroque art, ballet, and Shakespeare. This shocks some of my dearest friends, especially the ones who think Shakespeare is the very embodiment of all that is good and fine in Western civilization. I  have issues with the Bard—starting with the fact that a lot of the same intellectuals that scoff at Biblical literalists treat Shakespeare's every word as if it is sacred. They don't care about the staging–you can dress the actors in mukluks if you wish–but don't touch the prose. I happen to think Shakespeare was wordier than a slum full of Dickens. Plus, I don't speak Elizabethan—nobody does these days, except on stage.

My other big issue is that Billy Shakes was a terrible historian! Fine—his job was to entertain, not to lecture, but because his words have been sanctified, a lot of utter rubbish has come to be perceived as a true record of the past. Take Richard III, for example. Who actually knows that he was a decent king who was quite handsome, not Shakespeare's mincing hunchback? Of all of Shakespeare's slanders, the worst was his take on Macbeth. I'll get back to this, but first let's consider a new film version that hews the Bard's propagandist storyline, but takes liberties with the production in ways guaranteed to perturb purists, scene-chewing thespians, and directors more ambitious than Justin Kurzel.

Kurzel's Macbeth is truncated in several ways. First, a normal stage production generally runs from 2.5-3 hours, but Kurzel's film is under two. He has cut dialogue–quite a lot, actually, as he uses the medium of film to full advantage: facial expressions, smoky special effects, scarred bodies, brooding silences, sweeping pan shots, etc. that convey information in images rather than words. The film unspools at a much faster pace, but the crosscutting between speech and image actually tells the story with greater clarity and accessibility.

Kurzel hasn't altered the content. King Duncan (David Thewlis) is near defeat by Northumbrian enemies before skilled general and Thane (baron) of Glamis Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) turns the tide and saves Duncan's throne. A grateful Duncan bestows an additional title upon Macbeth, Thane of Cawdor, but a witches' prophecy unsettles Macbeth. They tell him that he shall be king, but that his friend Banquo (Paddy Considine) will sire the line of future kings. Driven by poisonous ambition and the vainglorious prodding of Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard), Macbeth turns monster in an attempt to alter fate. After dispatching Duncan and frightening the king's son Malcolm (Jack Reynor) to flight, Macbeth subsequently arranges for the murder of Banquo and his son Fleance (Lochlan Harris), though the latter escapes via magical deception. As they say, things fall apart from there. Macbeth descends into madness, Lady Macbeth kills herself, and the tragedy ends in Macbeth's demise via a sword wielded by his main accuser, Macduff, the Thane of Fife (Sean Harris).

Macbeth is among Shakespeare's bloodiest plays, and Kurzel graphically depicts this. Violence is literally etched upon Fassbender's body: oozing head wounds, a road-map of scars, blood running as thickly as sweat…. Battle scenes are gruesome and Duncan's murder is sanguinary and grisly. Some critics have panned Fassbender for his mumbling delivery and exaggerated physicality, but I saw this as a way of placing Macbeth inside the Hobbesian man-against-man savagery of 11^th century Scotland. Okay, he's not Olivier, McKellen, or Welles, but in many ways, Fassbender's primal Macbeth is more historical than robed figures delivering eloquent soliloquies. My only quarrel with the film is its sloppy elision of time, which so compresses Macbeth's rise and fall as to make it seem instantaneous.   

So let's talk about history. Shakespeare gets a flat-out "F" for his version of Macbeth. The real MacBheatha mac Fhionnlaigh (Gaelic for "son of life") did not murder his king; Duncan died in battle against the Northumbrians in 1040. His fellow thanes chose Macbeth king over Duncan's son Malcolm, who fled Scotland. There was some opposition to Macbeth's kingship, but that was the norm for whoever wore the crown back then. He ruled from 1040 to 1057, and no contemporary accused him of regicide, corruption, tyranny, or misrule. He too died in battle against a Northumbrian army, one led by none other than Malcolm, an act easily viewed as traitorous, which probably explains why Macbeth's adopted son was his immediate successor, though he was feeble-minded. (Malcolm murdered him a year later and took the throne as Malcolm III.)

Why such tinkering with the historical record? It probably had less to do with Shakespeare's need to find the proper vehicle for his clever words than it did with the fact that his patron was King James VI of Scotland (James I of England), who was descended from Malcolm III. In other words, Shakespeare was sucking up to his patron. Today we'd use words like "embedded" and "toadyism" to describe his actions. So I don't mind at all when someone edits Shakespeare.* They're unlikely to butcher the Bard as badly as the Bard carved up history.

Rob Weir

*Adam McNaughtan's "Oor Hamlet" reduced a 4 ½  hour play to a three-minute song. Brilliant!  

Caleb Carr's Surrender, New York a Failed Novel

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Surrender, New York. (2016)

By Caleb Carr.

Penguin Random House, 624 pages.

*

There’s no reason to mince words: Surrender, New York is a failed novel—at least in the non-proofed advance copy I read. It won't happen, but Penguin ought to delay release of this book, assign a stern developmental editor, and advise author Caleb Carr to excise a few hundred pages and rework some head-scratching and totally unbelievable detail. It pains me to say this, because two of Carr’s previous novels—The Alienist (1994) and The Angel of Darkness (1997)—are high on my list of thrilling reads.

Both of the above featured the character and/or theories of Laszlo Kreizler, the namesake alienist of the 1994 novel. During the late 19^th century that antiquated term referenced today’s fields of psychology and psychiatry, which were in their infancy and seemed to the uninformed as mysterious as spiritualism. Carr fashioned Kreizler as a hybrid of criminal profile pioneers such as Cesare Lombroso (1835-1903) and Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914), with what I suspect was a bit of early Freud tossed into the mix—perfect for solving two Gilded Age serial killer cases.

Surrender, New York is the name of a fictional town set in equally fictional Burgoyne County, but in contemporary times. You can, if you wish, try to play the game of what the stand-in town might be, but all you need to know is that it’s three-hours north of New York City, within a reasonable driving distance of Albany, and that Route 22 runs nearby. Route 22 factors into the story as it is the artery that connects the Big Apple to rural New York, where local officials seek to track down a serial killer responsible for the deaths of several young people. A few local cops are perturbed by the direction of the investigation and call upon the services of criminal profilers L. Trajan Jones and Michael Li to assist them. The duo quickly surmises that the “murders” are, in fact, suicides, a theory that infuriates officials in Albany. Why? Because Jones and Li detect that the victims were “throwaway children” abandoned by their parents, but who seemingly made their way down Route 22 to the Big Apple and acquired the trappings of money. We are led to believe that New York’s ambitious governor, state attorney, and other Albany bigwigs would prefer a serial killer to an abandoned children scandal that might touch the rich and powerful. Find that hard to swallow? It is.

LT and Mike have to tread lightly, though, as they have no official standing and are, themselves, exiles in Surrender, having once been stars within the New York City Police Department before they got too close to blowing the whistle on powerful people involved in the man/boy sex trade. They rebounded by retreating to Surrender, where the Jones family has long been viewed as the local patriciate and LT’s aunt has a farm where he can den his cheetah—yes, we’re straying upon more illogical ground—and where the good “doctors,” who have Ph.D.s in psychology, can support themselves by teaching online courses for SUNY Albany on the “context” theories of—you guessed it—Laszlo Kreizler. Why Carr freezes the evolution of criminal psychology in the late 19^th century is anyone’s guess, but fine. But I must ask this question: How much money does Carr suppose one makes teaching online? Let me answer that. It depends upon the number of students and the institution, but it’s in the $1,500 to $5,000 range—surely not enough to outfit the lab these boys have in the barn. Did I mention it’s filled with high tech links built into the converted hulk of a vintage Junker aircraft? Or that student protocol is to address an instructor as “professor” rather than “doctor,” and that both Jones and Li would have been fired in a New York minute if they humiliated their young charges with the language used in Carr’s novel.

Speaking of language, our highly educated doctors both speak as if they are escapees from a Mickey Spillane first draft, with a bit of teenage bad boy mixed in. We do get some profiler deductive reasoning, but mostly it’s a procession of “F” bombs and rants on why forensics is garbage science. In fact, the book’s number one takeaway is that Carr hates, really hates, CSI in all its iterations. Jones and Li would also be arrested for child endangerment if they, as in this novel, took in a 15-year-old assistant, allowed him to view an autopsy, and constantly put him in harm’s way. I suppose it’s pointless to suggest that this character, Lucas Kurtis, always speaks the way that 15-year-olds speak only in the locker room, yet somehow is capable of leaps of reason that elude most adults. Should I even dwell on the point that he too is a throwaway child living with his blind sister Ambyr? Or that Ambyr is gorgeous and that she and the one-legged cancer survivor LT develop a “thing?” Carr’s descriptions of their intimacies are embarrassing—not because they are salacious, but because they are puerile. Should we get into the ethnic slurs good naturedly exchanged between LT and his Chinese-American partner? (Is this banter, or just an excuse for Carr to be a bit naughty?)

Let’s not; it’s simply not worth it. Had I not committed myself to writing a preview, I would have ditched 150 pages in. The solving of the central mystery isn’t particularly clever or complex; in fact, I had most of it puzzled out before I hit page 400—complete with exposing the red herrings. Here’s the unassailable fact for which you’ll need neither psychology nor forensics to uncover: even good writers are capable of writing junk. Shame on Penguin Random House for allowing this one to get past the first read-through.

 

The Whimsical World of Bernard Langlais

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Bernard Langlais:

Maine's Quirky Artistic Treasure

Are you heading to Maine any time this summer or fall? If so, keep a keen eye peeled for the art works of Bernard Langlais (1921-1977). They shouldn't be hard to spot. Thanks to efforts spearheaded by the Kohler Foundation and Colby College, hundreds of his works have been dispersed throughout the state, an initiative formally known as the Langlais Art Trail. Dozens of public libraries, civic spaces, parks, and art museums are sprinkled with his work and you'll know it immediately–its whimsy will bring a smile to your face and you'll embrace it without judgment of its artistic merit.

Cezanne phase

On that last point, one of the many intriguing things about Langlais is that he challenges preconceptions about art. Like most creative people, he went through the process of finding his niche. Check out an early Picasso and you'll find a man emulating naturalistic painters, and even his famed "blue" and "rose" periods are a mere patch on what he produced after he saw his first African mask. John Marin wanted to be an architect, then flirted with academic painting–until he went to Paris in 1905 and saw modern art.

Langlais similarly had to free himself from convention. He was born in Old Town, Maine, first trained as a commercial artist, but then went to art school, where he developed affection for Cezanne and Matisse. After World War II, he was back in Maine on a scholarship at the innovative Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, before heading off to New York, France, and Norway, the latter on a Fulbright stint that instilled a love of the paintings of Edvard Munch. His earliest works show him echoing many of his influences, a task he did well though hardly with great distinction. He

Inspired by Munch

enjoyed some success in New York, but grew bored with its art scene. (Contrary to legend, people can and do get bored with New York.)

In 1966, Langlais moved to Cushing, Maine, not far from where Andrew Wyeth summered. There he purchased a farm along the St. George River that needed some work, which rekindled his love of working with wood. He also discovered an unusual artistic inspiration: National Geographic Magazine. Wildlife photos held special fascination for him, and he began assembling fanciful 3-D images of animals in small and large-scale. Some are anatomically approximate, but most bear resemblance to folk art. That is to say, the highly trained "Blackie" Langlais–as he was known by locals–reinvented himself as if he were an untrained folk artist. For all of his schooling, Langlais is best known for a 62-foot carved Indian that stands in Skowhegan.

The ennui of sheepiness

For my money, Langlais' offbeat carvings—often fashioned from rough plywood—contribute far more to the art world than another Cezanne or Munch wannabe ever could. In academic discussions of the aesthetics of art, the word "fun" is too often missing. Langlais' carvings are chimerical, droll, and filled with wonder. In many cases, they capture the essence of the world of beasts far better than any realistic rendition could. (There is, after all, just so much a painter can capture in two dimensions.) Most of all, each work is handcrafted and unique–the perfect antidote for our age of mass-assembly cookie-cutter sameness. Seek Langlais' work next time you're in the Pine Tree State.

The photos in this piece were taken from an exhibition of his work from the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. Alas, that show closed at the end of June, though several of the sculptures continue to adorn the lawn. Those traveling to Cushing should definitely go to his studio, recently opened to the public. While you're there, go to Wyeth's house where it will take you all of about 30 seconds to understand his famed 1948 work Christina's World.

Rob Weir  

The fun stuff. (Right click on any picture for larger size viewing in a new tab:  

July Album of the Month from Siama Matuzungidi

SIAMA MATUZUNGIDI

Rivers—From the Congo to the Mississippi

http://www.siamamusic.com/music

* * * * *

Siama Matuzungidi was a soukous legend in his homeland, the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1970s and early 1980s. The former Zaire is, alas, a troubled land and Matuzungidi and lots of other musicians fled. He landed in Minneapolis in the 1990s, via Uganda, Dubai, and Japan. Our gain; Africa's loss.

For those unfamiliar with soukous, it's a popular form of dance music sometimes called the "African rumba," as it appears to be one of the few musical types that migrated from the Caribbean ­to Africa rather than vice versa. Like Cuban son, which inspired it in the 1930s, soukous makes judicious use of bright brass and it's good party music. That's the musical history side of things, but Rivers is far more than an African lilt grafted to a Latin beat; in fact, this album shows Matuzungidi experimenting with various styles. True to its subtitle, we indeed hear music inspired by the Congo–try "Sisili," or "Malembe"–but also tunes whose roots lay along the Mississippi River that runs through his adopted home. For the most part, though–as we hear in the bluesy " Ndombolo" and "Mpevo–" think the Mississippi considerably south of Minnesota. The latter song is one of several tracks that feature trumpet from Bobby Marks that will make you jump, and bass and piano lines that would be more at home in, say, Memphis than Minneapolis.

Matuzungidi's vocals invite adjectives such as "silky," spirited," and "sunny. Given that most of the songs are in African languages, I've no idea what he's singing most of the time, but most of it felt joyous, so I hope I wasn't grooving to somebody's pain. You'll have trouble standing still to "Jungle Zombie," its solid dance grooves muscled up by bold brass. The brass serves to give heft to a hypnotic melody line from which departures spin. The overall effect of the song is like being bathed in a warm river with a strong current pulling you downstream. It's a good metaphor for an album that often delivers you to unexpected places. Matuzungidi's guitar and Tony Axtell's bass set the melody for most of the tunes, but you'll hear lots of instruments you probably don't associate with Congolese music: concert flute and piano (Brian Ziemniak), a full drum kit (Greg Schutte), and cello (Jacqueline Ultan), for instance. The most surprising of all is the veena playing of Nirmala Rajasekar. Let's add the Ganges to our list of rivers; the veena is a lute-like instrument that is the likely ancestor of the sitar and whose sound it resembles. It is often called a "Carnatic veena" and is used throughout southern India in "classical" music  that is often religious in nature. I think Matuzgungidi's references are more secular on "Maisha Mazuri." It has a little bit of everything in its robust mix: cymbal-crashing percussion, guitar and piano arpeggios, and a veena lead that would do a rock musician proud. Add to this Matuzungidi's vocals, which on this track are as sexy as Barry White but with ten times more energy. If Matuzungidi hasn't surprised you enough, he rounds off the album with "Yolanda," a sophisticated and moody tune that owes a debt to moody jazz.

This is certainly one of the year's finest albums. Check it out. By the way, Matuzungidi's Website promises there is track information in the CD. I got a download, so those who buy the CD can read the liner notes and let me know how far off base I am in some of my assumptions!

Rob Weir

Vietnam Era Novel Dove is a Turkey

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DOVE (2016)

M. H. Slater

Daytime Moon Publisher, 530 pp.

*  

Abbie Hoffman famously remarked, "If you can remember the Sixties, you weren't there." His was a jesting reference to the use of mind-altering drugs, but in a more profound way he was correct. Each era has an essence that that takes careful research to recreate. One cannot capture an era's vibe simply by ticking off the boxes of events that occurred during the period. This is a problem in M(elanie) H. Salter's Dove. She's too young to have been there and she's also Australian. The latter is not a deal-breaker, though it does explain minor errors–such as locating Ohio State University in Athens, OH instead of Columbus. Getting the vibe wrong is a more serious problem.

The novel is set in 1970, the year that Andy, a young man from Alabama, gets his draft notice. Andy and his girlfriend Heather decide to flee for Canada. They assume the identities of characters from a book they both love: Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums, with Andy becoming "Japhy" and Heather emerging as "Ray." That's not a bad choice—The Dharma Bums often held the same reverence for college-age folks in 1970 as A Catcher in the Rye for those coming of age a decade earlier. But right away we have a problem: student deferments weren't curtailed until 1971. There was no reason for Japhy to split instead of going to college as planned. Am I being too picky? Does the novel work if we just change the zero to a one? Nope! If we do that, then Salter can't have her on-the-road characters wend their way to Kent State in time for the massacre. (Are we okay with mixing real people and fictional characters at Kent? It makes me queasy, given that one she mentions is a relative by marriage.) Nor can she show how profoundly Ray is affected by the death of Janis, Jimi, and Jim.

The problems get worse. Kerouac is just the tip of the simpatico iceberg for Japhy and Ray; their real bond is rooted in the songs of James Lee Stanley. They know all of his songs and Salter prints lyrics that putatively tie to the book's plot. Except there is no way two kids from Alabama are singing the songs of the Philadelphia-based Stanley in 1970; he didn't record until 1973. Yet Stanley is the spiritual anchor–and a character to boot–largely because Salter loves his music, met him, and thinks he's terrific. (I'll grant that last one.) He shows up in a USO-like concert in Vietnam and that never happened either; Stanley was in college, which is where Japhy should have been. This is to say that the two major motivations for our protagonists are convenient, but ahistorical contrivances.

There's also an intellectual trivialization present in the book. I'll concede that lots of young people jumped on the hippie wannabe bandwagon, but there is a serious lack of what used to be called "analysis"–a 60s' buzzword–among the book's characters. Ray is aggressive and Japhy is more passive, but as Dylan observed, "You don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing." Is it conceivable that two hippies would accept a ride from three ripped, clean-cut guys and that Ray would argue with them and announce that Japhy was a draft dodger? Only if you are applying a force-fit to an implausible plot. And things stray further when Ray and Japhy link up with white hippie chick Lauren and her African American boyfriend Leaf. We get the obligatory visit to a Canadian commune before Japhy re-crosses the border, is arrested, jailed, and sentenced: to join the US Army and go to Vietnam. So tick off the trauma in 'Nam box as well.

Lots of guys mused over the consequences of draft dodging. Read Tim O'Brien. They thought about it–a lot and deeply. Japhy apparently had little analysis other than desire for self-preservation and thoughts of Ray. He can adjust–and he's fine with that. How shallow! But it's more believable than life on the home front. Shall we toss in a little free love? Pregnancies and uncertain fatherhood?  A love triad? Identity transference during sex? Do you believe for a second that a white girl and her black lover could openly cavort about small-town Alabama in 1970? Let me answer the last one: No flippin' way! 

I don't insist on 100% historical accuracy in creative works, but Dove is a turkey fattened on clichés, a Wikipedia view of history, and melodrama. This Vietnam War-era novel is strictly 4F.  Rob Weir

Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kyle Cox, Brooks Dixon, Ben Sollee, Louise Goffin

If you know the expression "You had me at hello," you know exactly how I felt when I listened to The Things We are Made Of, the newest recording (#14!) by Mary Chapin Carpenter. At 58, Carpenter knows about loss, the importance of memory, and the difference between shallow frippery and things that matter. It's been a long time since I've heard a record that opens with a better song than "Something Tamed Something Wild," a song destined to become a classic. It also offers perspectives that only a mature performer like Carpenter can offer. A young writer shouldn't even try a line such as: "I'm staring down the great big lonesome/As I'm listening for the dwindling of time/What else is there but the echoes of your heart/Something tamed something wild." Nor would we believe them if they sang, "So the things that matter to me now/Are different from the past/I care less about arrival/ Than just being in the path/Of some light carved out of nothing/The way it feels when the universe has smiled." Yes, folks, it's that kind of record­–a masterpiece of adult wisdom burnished by experience. Carpenter sings in a much lower register these days and her tones befit the introspection of her material. Later in the album Carpenter asks, "From departure to arrival what does it mean to travel," and we know she's asking us to ponder things much deeper than being on the road. Check out the cool bass lines to "Between the Wars" and the way in which they frame fragile vocals, quiet guitar, and understated percussion. Add superb arrangements to Carpenter's lyrical and vocal excellence. If it sounds as if I'm gushing over this album, guilty as charged and I seek no mercy.

Kyle Cox offers (mostly) acoustic country with an occasional early 60s-pop vibe woven in. How to tell someone is a country singer: he compares his love for his wife as comparable to a "Trusty Ol' Pair of Boots." (My suburban-bred wife would not be amused!) The Texas-bred, Nashville-based Cox offers a fine EP titled Kyle Cox Trio and Friends, which is exactly as advertised: a five-track sampler of personal songs about the things that he values: love, friends, and family. He celebrates all three in "Richest Man Alive," and one can only applaud his contentment. I really liked the diversity of this short effort. "The One Left Behind" has the aforementioned echoes of early 60s pop, "Just Outta Reach" has catchy hooks, and "The Artist," though not gloomy, has the feel of a classic country weepy, complete with wailing pedal steel.

Brooks Dixon offers a James Taylor-like vibe on Weather the Storm and not just because one of his best songs is a love song to the Tar Heel State titled "Carolina Queen." Like Taylor, Dixon's repertoire falls into the crevice where pop, folk, jazz, and white blues tumble together and express themselves as non-taxing good-time songs. The title track, for instance, has decided Tayloresque cadences, tackles a potentially dicey situation, and turns it into sunny optimism. "Smile" also evokes Taylor in the way in which Dixon applies vocals to cascading notes to give the song a strong tongue-twisting staccato feel. Several songs feature brassy rhythm section interludes that give a bit of bite to Dixon's warm voice. The only downside is that Dixon's repertoire could benefit from a few signature tunes and sharper hooks, though. I enjoyed this record while I was listening, but the tunes faded quickly.

Ben Sollee must have raised a bit of money for his latest project, Live at Studio EM² as it's far more polished than anything he has done in the past. That's a mixed blessing, though. Sollee is a cellist/singer with the soul of a pop star—call his style "cello-bop." "Forgotten" is typical of his approach; it's either hip or overdone, depending upon your taste, a song with the feel of Paul Simon shooting syllables through a Gatling gun. "Pretend" has a contemporary metro vibe, with Sollee's vocals the calming center of a full band production in which his cello becomes the lead percussion instrument. My favorite track was "Steeples," a nice balance of growly cello and caffeinated frenzy. 

Louise Goffin has been recording since 1979, but I have to admit I've paid scant attention to the offspring of one of music's most famous couples: Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Maybe that's okay; a new collection titled The Essential Louise Goffin underwhelmed me. It has great production values and the name alone means you get to share the mic with luminaries such as Jakob Dylan ("Take a Giant Step") or the Cyanide Social Club ("Devil's Door"). But once we wipe the stardust from our face, we're left with fairly standard pop and a voice that's mid-range. Her cover of mom's "You Make Me Feel Like a NaturalWoman" sent me back to King's Tapestry and the difference is that of ordinary versus sublime. 

Rob Weir

Dark Matter a Smart, Engaging Multidemensional Novel

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DARK MATTER (2016)

Blake Crouch

Crown Publishers, 352 pp.

* * * *

We all make choices in life. Dr. Jason Dessen was a brilliant young physicist working on cutting-edge quantum mechanics. Daniela Vargas was a rising star in Chicago's art world. They met, fell in love, and bore fruit: a son named Charlie, who became their top priority. Move the clock forward fifteen years. Jason is teaching undergrad physics at Lakemont College, a run-of-the-diploma-mill school, and Dani only fiddles with art. Both watch as those with far less intellect and talent pass them by. Jason's former classmate, Ryan Holder, has just won the prestigious Pavia Prize for work on the multiverse that Jason pioneered; Dani has seen friends make splashes where she could have raised waves. Do they have regrets? Of course they do, but only a few. They made their choices and are comfortable with the smaller world they built. They'd do it again the same way–in this universe, at least.

 But what if another Jason in another universe cracked the code for moving from one parallel universe to another? And what if that Jason got sick of his big world and decided to downsize by pulling a switcheroo with the Jason of this universe? If that sounds far-fetched, hold that thought. Author Blake Crouch has not constructed his novel from premises confined to crackpot sci-fi. Among quantum theorists, luminaries such as Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Leonard Susskind, and Neil deGrasse Tyson are among those who think that science suggests the strong possibility that parallel universes exist in dimensions beyond the one we perceive. Perhaps the multiverse is highly speculative, but it's not crazy to imagine it. How many parallel universes? Perhaps an infinite number.

Crouch constructs a fascinating crime/romance/drama that's equal parts Star Trek, Run Lola Run, and Lassie Come Home. He works from the premise that parallel universes are synchronous, but subject to the butterfly effect–each altered choice sets off a cascade of variant results. (See the film Run Lola Run for a brilliant look at how a single change leads to radically different outcomes.) Translation: You probably wouldn't want to open doors in which your parallel selves reside. There might be untold numbers of you–some unspeakably sad or awful, but also some so familiar that they might be able to pass as you.

Dark Matter is a journey and chase across dimensions via procedures that are partly controllable, but also highly random and/or subjective. Crouch describes the multiverse as a never-ending corridor with an infinite numbers of doors that could be opened, but only a finite opportunity of picking the correct portal. This is fascinating stuff and the descriptions of alt.Chicago alone make the book worth reading. Truth be told, the novel is often more intelligent than literary, and Crouch is certainly open to charges of sentimentality and contrivance. Nonetheless, I loved this book because it induced, if you will, a quantum leap in how I imagined the characters and, indeed, myself. What would I be like in other dimensions? The mind boggles! I ripped through this book at the speed of sight.  Rob Weir