PARTISAN REVIEW
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becomes Rex who becomes Tommy who becomes Roiand who becomes
Ron (Sukenick?) who becomes R., etc. And the girls too: Ova becomes
Alma who becomes Trixie, etc. Carl gets picked up hitchhiking by a kid
who tells him his name is Carl so Carl immediately tells the kid his name
is Rex. No problems! Any thins goes. And the fiction goes on, playing its
game toward its end: point z';ro. But it's very serious too. For instance,
for those who like mysteri.:s,
OUT
is also full of mysterious (tragic!)
events. Dynamite. Holdups. Stickups. Secret agents. Secret messages.
Riots. Cops. Tear gas. Guns -- lots of guns!
But that's not all!
OUT
need not be read like an ordinary novel. It could,
in fact, be read anyway you wish, starting any place you wish. And yet,
one should, perhaps, respect the order of the countdown, because
OUT,
above all, is a COUNTDOWN -- from ten to zero! Ten sections in the
book. Ten sections numbered backward (downward?). First section is
TEN, second NINE, third EIGHT, and so on. Last section is ZERO -–
it's blank. Each section is made of blocks of words (paragraphs, stan–
zas?). Section TEN is made of blocks of ten lines, section NINE blocks
of nine lines, section EIGHT blocks of eight lines, and so on. Section
ZERO is made, of course, of blocks of no lines. It's blank. As a result the
language diminishes as the fiction progresses, and accelerates as it dimi–
nishes. The less words there are, the faster it goes. Between the blocks of
lines, the white space augments -- lots of white space to stop, to rest,
to pause, to breathe, to reflect, to look around; and even (if one wishes)
to scribble one's own fiction.
OUT
moves along faster and faster, blanker
and blanker, toward its inevitable End/Zero! Toward blankness, white–
ness, emptiness -- toward the end of fiction, or the beginning of a new
fiction.
OUT
purifies itself into its own fictional space. Empties itself
into its own blank pages. It's finished. The Kids in the story have
managed to juggle themselves OUT of existence.
Unlike most traditional fiction which tells its story by starting from a
point in the past (the beginning) and moves toward another point in the
past (the middle) to finally reach a point closer to the present (the end),
OUT
begins in the present (at the end) and constructs itself on the spot
in the present (beyond its own end). Therefore no time is spent -- just
space: the space of the pages into which the fiction writes itself. The
space it takes for the kids to move around, and move OUT.
It
is in this nonmovement (except the movement of its pages) that
OUT
not only changes our reading habits, but also changes (improves rather)
our perception of the world.
To change the level of perception one has of social reality, one must
