spoony - adjective - foolish, tenderhearted
Andrew Sean Greer's celebrated Less (Back Bay Books, 2017), a gay take-off on Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, features forty-nine-year-old Arthur Less, a self-deprecatory, "spoony,"gay author who attempts to solder heartbreak by traveling the world to fulfill long-overdue literary obligations (and a suggestion made at a poker game). Greer's voice has a unique flair, belting the reader with one bizarre metaphor or simile after the next, humorous on occasion as some of the farfetched comparisons are so exaggerated and incongruent that the reader can't help but collapse into guffaw at the absurd imagery projected.
The hard truth is that the unsympathetic protagonist, Less, is, more or less, not likable. He comes off as a stereotype of a gay man: eternally lonely, weak, promiscuous: a fool for beautiful young boys or famous, older mentors. Ironically, at one point, his homosexual writer colleague criticizes him for denigrating the community by composing a minimally successful modernization of Homer's The Odyssey via his Kalipso! about a bi-sexual Odysseus trapped in hedonistic paradise with a beautiful man, Kalipso. Naturally, when he breaks away to rejoin wife Penelope, the critic feels slighted as no self-respecting, authentic gay man would do that even if the woman happens to be the beguiling, long-suffering Penelope. Despite the denigrating criticism, his well-written novel lands Less invitations to various literary events in Europe, all of which he accepts on account of former paramour Freddy's marriage; Less needs a valid excuse as to why he can't attend one day's nuptials, so he makes sure he is out of the country for a least a month. But it does make sense since the groom, Freddy, the son of Less's nemesis Carlos, remains his biggest love, an insurmountable emotional obstacle since it is left unrequited. Towards the end, just to elongate the book, Greer has Less venture into Morocco to visit an old friend and India to give him ideas for a new tome. At the end, he winds up in Japan to critique the food. How desultory is that?
Worthy of mention as well, but not surprising, is that there are no leading ladies in this tall tale. There are a few interesting, yet fleeting females that seem to appear and vanish like mirages in the Sahara, but not one is memorable unlike some mirages that are :).
Unfortunately, there is no real eating (but there's the drinking of champagne and there's what he does or attempts to do in Japan) or praying (Less is not religious, yet he winds up on the grounds of a Christian retreat in India) in the 259-page book. Which means there are no actual concrete motifs (unless you count the champagne) to unite the random except for the anticipated, unconnected, outlandish conceits that kept me picking up the book instead of putting it down and leaving it closed indefinitely. The novel is glorious in its wordplay. It does not surprise me that Greer won the coveted Pulitzer as he is the only young author whose work I've read lately whose creative writing comes close to inspired or inspiring, so there is that.
However, as a conservative, pedantic, Old School writer, I am pretty closed minded when it comes to rules. A half century ago, I was taught to keep the point of view of the narration consistent. Greer doesn't, and it confuses the reader as most shifts that come out of nowhere do. Going from third to first in the last few pages may suffice as the "unpredictable" touch that one learns to add into a short story in one's first fiction class, but it is just unnecessarily jarring to the reader. (Actually, I guessed the identity of the narrator from the very beginning, so I wasn't surprised at all.)
Unless I get my small group of close gay friends together in a book club, which is highly unlikely because most of them are touring actors, I think I'll pass on any "Less" sequels by Greer. But that doesn't mean that you should. This is a subjective opinion piece, after all. Read it for the uniqueness of voice and wish secretly that you could come up with comparisons as inventive as Greer's.
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