I just downloaded Padgett Powell's, "The Interrogative Mood" earlier this morning. It's a 164-pager filled with nothing but questions. Some are simple and fun, like, "If they came back in style and it was not a matter of kitsch, would you wear a fedora?" Others are quite pointed, such as, "Have you ever spent time in the house of a recently deceased old woman and seen her Siamese-cat, needlepoints and her baking supplies and her shoes and her inspirational saying on the wall?"
Perhaps I'd find it a bit more entertaining if I didn't live with an overly inquisitive nine-year-old, but it is interesting and thought-provoking nonetheless.
I'm struggling with reading the book like a novel (as it is categorically defined) which is probably the point. I recall numerous "death of the author" conversations from my days as an English major, but this author/character is actually forcing the reader to create and inject a new invisible character, "you". "You" evolves quickly as you reflect (or not) upon the answers. It seems almost impossible not to ponder the answers as you inhale the interrogative frenzy that just keeps coming from author/character without any thought to or influence by "your" answers.
However, a complex conversation ensues in my imagination and a whole new "text" emerges, complete with its own rythym and flow.
One major drawback: a lot of questions focus on birds, e.g., "Maybe I have asked you this already, but are you much disturbed by the prospect of putting a bird feather in your mouth?" My character immediately (and rudely) interjects:
Holy hell, yes, I am much disturbed by that! I can't imagine one single instance where I would willingly put a bird feather in my mouth, and the thought of unwillingly submitting to such a feat is currently terrifying me. Bird feathers take me back to when I was eight and we lived in a huge beautiful house right next to the woods. I'd sit and watch deer and bunnies through the picture window and use my grandfather's old binoculars to track the cardinals and woodpeckers. Until one horrifying morning, I awoke to a confused blue jay that had just slammed into the window directly located next to my bed. It did that thing where it just kept squawking and thrashing against the glass until it fell silently to the deck below, leaving behind a strange imprint of broken feathers and blood. I was too terrified to do anything. I didn't understand what it was doing or why it was doing it, its fear and pain was obvious but it just kept slamming until it couldn't slam anymore. That was my first encounter with something taking its own life, seemingly unwillingly, and I can still hear it like Jodie Foster hears the lambs.
