Этого человека звали Герати. Спустя двадцать лет после окончания Второй Мировой он вернулся в Америку и привез с собой самую большую коллекцию японской порнографии. Герати надеялся продать коллекцию какому-нибудь из университетов, но таможня не оценила ее научную значимость и конфисковала весь груз. Осознав крушение своих надежд на безбедную старость, пьяный и усталый Герати отправился в Бронкс, где его ждала вторая цель его путешествия. В небольшом баре на окраинах Бруклина Герати встретил парня по имени Квин и сказал ему о том, что может с легкостью раскрыть тайну его рождения. Для этого Квину нужно совсем немного. Отправиться на другой конец Тихого океана и найти старого канадского священника по фамилии Ламеро. Но только сделать это Квин должен не один, а в компании местного парня-дауна по кличке Большой Гоби. Именно он поможет Квинну найти ответ на вопросы “что случилось 33 года назад в поместье барона Кикути? Почему странное чаепитие, в котором принимали участие четверо людей в противогазах, смогло изменить ход мировой истории и остановить германские танковые дивизии под Москвой?” Если вы читали “Синайский гобелен” и “Иерусалимский покер”, то вы должны бежать от этой книги как от огня. Предполагаю, что первый дебютный роман Уитмора наверняка сослужит дурную службу каждому новому фанату писателя. Проблема этой книги будет даже не в том, что она покажется плохой или хорошей, а в том, что она ужасно смахивает на неуклюжий фокус начинающего фокусника. И, вроде бы, фокус вполне получается, но при этом все равно видно невооруженным глазом, что именно болтается у юного мастера из рукава и где он прячет своего розового кролика.Серьезных проблем у книги две, и про обе я уже прекрасно намекнул. Первая – это ощущение того, что автор только в процессе письма создает свою мифологию, и до самого финала даже не подозревает с чем имеет дело. Вторая проблема – это герои романа. Они не вызывают ни малейшей симпатии. Если в цикле про Иерусалим мы понимаем, что у всех великих людей, которые делали историю, всегда были много экцентричных привычек, которые и добавляли им их величия, то в “Цирке Квина” добивается совершенно иной эффект. С первых страниц мы убеждаемся а одной мысли. Историю делают одни только пид@@@сы и с этим ничего не поделаешь. (2007.02.07)
It is easy to understand why Whittemore has been compared to contemporary masters such as Pynchon and Vonnegut. It is also easy to understand why his books are overlooked. Whittemore writes a bit like Pynchon, only without the linguistic fireworks. His skill lies in writing a convoluted yet tremendously engaging narrative.You might be quick-pressed to call Quin's Shanghai Circus magical realism, and you'd be proven wrong after long. Paced like a gumshoe novel, with each "suspect" or "witness" illuminating nuggets of information freed from the previous one. It is about a son searching for his father and mother. Quin knows they might be dead, but he wants to understand them. He gets his answer when fate quite literally throws a giant old man named Geraty against him. Then Quin is plunged into an intrigue from the past in which four people, two of whom are his parents, conspire in a conspiracy code-named Gobi. Most of the narrative is spent in the near hallucinatory memories of these people, memories that pour out as stories in which Quin stews and draws connections.Quin's Shanghai Circus is a tightly knotted ball of yarn, in which connections are made almost everywhere. A more dedicated reader of Whittemore might be compelled to create a map in which to draw all the connections, the fog of war in which Whittemore drowns us until the novel's mythical conclusion.I have but one contention Whittemore's descriptions. In one scenario a character poisons people with the amanita muscaria. In my callow youth I have tried many things, and this particular mushroom, popularized and romanticized by Lewis Carroll's classic, the Super Mario Brothers, and the various blacklight posters of hobbits drowsing in mycelial valleys. A robust red spackled with white, the amanita muscaria induces hallucinations mingled with intermittent deep drowsiness. I felt as if I were shuttling rapidly in all the people of the world; as the fluorescent bulb flickers approximately 120 times per second, I was spun out in everyone, flickering so fast you got the essence everyone was really just one soul. The mushroom Whittemore probably meant is the amanita phalloides, a ghostly white visitation erupting from the moist soil. It causes acute liver and kidney failure, and is one of the leaders in deaths associated with mushrooms. The introduction and closing letters of the novel serves to romanticize Whittemore's life, especially that of his CIA employment. They also try to gloss over the fact that Whittemore basically sabotaged many of his relationships with lovers and family members, to give a rosier glow of his generosity and genius. It doesn't matter to me. You'd be hard pressed to find a writer without a lion's share of issues. If not for these things, we wouldn't have a remarkable opening gambit in a literary career unfortunately cut short.
Do You like book Quin's Shanghai Circus (2002)?
(I got an ebook copy from the publisher through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)This book was a pretty weird one, in that I couldn't honestly tell at first whether I was liking it or not, nor where it was going. At the same time, those very impressions (or lackthereof) may be what contributed to my appreciating it in the end, as paradoxical as it sounds. Reading it, seeing the story unfold, was like working on a jigsaw puzzle whose final picture I didn't know, yet wanted to see no matter what. I always found myself coming back to my tablet to get to the next chapter.It's probably not a novel for just everyone. Some of the themes it deals with expose all the crass of human nature, through conflict between Japan and China and severe misdeeds from some characters(rape, murder, mutilation...), and such scenes are often depicted in a graphic enough way to be considered as disgusting. I admit those weren't my favourite parts.On the other hand, what I found fascinating were the relationships fitting within each other. This is basically what the novel is about: relationships above everything else, how they got shaped through events, what led to certain people to work together or become friends or lovers... The characters often had features that made them unforgettable, even bigger than life—something that may not have been convincing in another story, but felt somehow oddly logical and normal here."Quin's Shanghai Circus" is definitely a strange book, sometimes disturbing, sometimes shedding light, on the contrary, on what's still good in humans. "Read at your own risk", I'd say.
—Yzabel Ginsberg
The blurbs compare Whittemore to Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jorge Luis Borges. Well, yes and no. These writers have unique voices, and so does Whittemore. These writers are high style, ditto Whittemore. Whittemore's writing is not quite as polished and elegant, but it is close. In fact, Whittemore is darn good, deserves to be more widely read, and what he may lack in writing when compared to these literary gods he makes up for in the delightful readability of "Quin's Shanghai Circus." This book is fun. It is strange, quirky, and original--but most of all just a really good time. Definitely recommended.
—Sue
Whittemore in 5 interconnected novels, three of which I have read (only Sinai tapestry reads poorly as a stand alone) presents his gonzo secret history of the 20th century. These books combine magic realism, war stories, gothic horror, tall tales, romantic adventure, allegory, and spy thriller (Whittermore can be placed on that short list of authors who was also a spy or intelligence agent hanging out with Graham Greene, James Tiptree jr./Alice Sheldon, Cordwainer Smith, and Christopher Marlow). The tone ranges from whimsical and funny to unsettling and depressing, in fact he resembles Heironymous Bosch in print when describing historical atrocities like the massacre at Smyrna or the Rape of Nanking. A bizarre cast of over the top and eccentric characters including gunrunners, gangsters, drug addicts, serial killers, revolutionaries, and lunatics move through magical and historical events in locations ranging from the far east, middle east, America, British Islands, and Europe. Fans of the romantic, doomed adventures of Alvaro Mutis, the depressed thrillers of Greene, the gothic story-weaving of Angela Carter or Dineson, and the erudite wit of Borges will find much to love here.
—Adam
