Book Review : Two Real Characters in a Novel Devoid of Magic

The Real World by Tim Paulson (E. P. Dutton: $18.95, 360 pages)

West Coast readers may have a little trouble with this book. “The Real World” is a story about how admirable it is for a woman to give up poetry and dance--and a man to give up writing a novel--so that they can learn to live in the “real world,” which is a place where you get to work in a PR firm that promotes asbestos and polyvinyl fluoride. Also a place where, although you may prepare for childbirth with Lamaze classes, naturally you end up having a Caesarean. Also--since this is New York--when you buy a house it’s riddled with asbestos; Puerto Ricans with ghetto blasters keep you awake all night, and your home is burglarized the first weekend you go away.

“The Real World” is about the adventures of Tom and Julie Peterson. For a critic, the trouble with a name like that is if you don’t call attention to the similarity of the names of the author and the hero, you’re a dimwit; and if you do, you’re a clod. Tom Peterson/Tim Paulson; maybe Paulson wanted the reader to notice; maybe not. Be that as it may--Tom and his wife, Julie, children of the ‘60s, have finished a tour of Europe, which convinces them they’re “different,” and have moved to New York. Julie manages a small modern-dance troupe, and Tom (though he’s billed as sensitive and, again, a child of the ‘60s) takes a job with the PR firm, defending asbestos.

Flat Narrative

Well, OK. If that’s what the author wants to do with his hero, let him go for it. (Although there’s a strange flatness in the narrative that makes it unclear at first what the author thinks about all this.) The modern-dance lady that Julie works for is a self-centered, ambitious creep, and you know things will go bad for Julie even before her firing, her Caesarean, her arthritis. But Tom thinks he’s finding adventure--discovering how the big boys live in the real world.

Tom’s immediate boss is Jack Trill, a mean-spirited, self-hating, unattractive lizard. But Tom finds him attractive because of his penchant for self-destruction. To his surprise, when the “boys” go out on trips to Toledo--or even in town--they do things like drink hard liquor, smoke dope, snort coke, visit porn movies and even--strictly as observers--visit a gay bathhouse or two. Gosh, Tom! What do you think happens when the boys get out from under the little woman’s thumb? Would they learn how to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together?

The reader keeps waiting for the novel to “turn,” for there to be some magic involved here for the author-magician to pull a rabbit out of the hat. But there’s only the hat lining inside the hat, and you begin to realize this through internal repetition, extreme carelessness and pure, thudding prose. There is nothing ironic here. This is a paean to dullness and inattention to detail: so what if on Page 9 Tom and Julie lived in a 7th-floor walk-up in Paris, and on Page 246 they lived in a 6th-floor walk-up? So what if on Page 117 Tom’s sister “hams up” her Southern accent and on Page 119 Mac Stuart “hams up” a Southern accent? So what if on Page 334, after Tom and Julie move to Brooklyn, “their real friends braved the three subway transfers” and on Page 335 Tom remarks: “We find out who our real friends are when they come to see us?” This is the real world, for Pete’s sake! And whoever said the real world was anything more than dull, repetitive and boring?

Editor Wanted

Unfortunately, you can’t have it both ways. This is a novel Paulson’s writing, and a novel should--some say--carry a little structure, maybe some prose style, maybe some elegance. Mr. Paulson could start by cutting some ham-handed explanations of story material he’s already covered: “It alarmed Tom for Julie to be so listless. Partly, his own self-preservation instincts were threatened. Unlike the past summer, he was not looking forward to being alone.” Well, OK, but by Page 283 that’s been said 50 times or so.

Two thoughts here: (1) Where was the editor on this book? Or does Mr. Paulson reject editing, and if so, why? (2) It really doesn’t matter. There will always be dull men and women who want their lives validated, and they don’t give a magician’s rabbit about thudding prose. Go for it, Mr. Paulson!