BOO KS
151
"You're so beautiful. You're so beautiful, Alex." " I get the most amaz–
ing vibrations."
The trip itself turns out to be unsuitable, at least in this essay, to
fictional reproduction. Illuminations, or "manifestations," pour in upon
Alex and out from him when high until one is inundated by the flood
of pseudo-epiphanies. From the inside, the participant's perspective,
they may be exciting; from the outside, the reader's, they are undram–
atic and pretentious. We are not meant to be taken in, but we are not
meant, either, to
be
bored. It is very much like being sober and
sub–
jected to the profundities of a philosophizing drunk.
Lamer differs from Tyner and Neugeboren not in choosing a sub–
ject from the headlines but in treating it with didactic intent. The
overriding "irony" is the news (of '64) that the Answer Drug
yields no answers. Its most famous proponent is silly and dangerous.
His
Oriental religiosity, with all its talk about the obliteration of the
self and the reality of the Clear Light of the Void, rings with hollow
absurdity. He denies the injurious effect of the Drug, though under its
sway Benjy hangs himself and Amber, a juvenile "pilgrim" at the House,
becomes catatonic. Along with the expose goes a message, formulated
in the "Postscript" (dated in the late '70's!), that we must "face one
another, deal with our own selves - no matter how dear the cost or
brief the time." This, the "true" answer of the title, is proferred only
tersely and vaguely at the end, and wants an adequate dramatic em–
bodiment. Cathy, with whom Alex has had an affair, comes nearest to
supplying the want, for her small common sense almost passes for
wisdom among these shallow, affected and freakish characters. One
continuously feels distrustful of the narrative, and so the moralistic
argument fails of persuasiveness.
This novel might have an appeal for certain aging academic critics,
deluding them into fancying themselves au courant with the lingo and
habits of the student generation without disturbing their complacencies
or, in most cases, their literary sensibilities. For others a reading of
The Answer
will be a bad trip.
Joseph Pequignev
