The Eel

THE EEL
David MacKinnon
Guernica Editions
ISBN 978-1-77183-059-1
Trade Paperback
Fiction

David MacKinnon should be a household name in households where literature holds sway. Trucks groaning under the weight of boxes of his books should be making their way to campuses across the country each fall, as serious English professors make his novels required reading for skulls full of mush, in hope of transforming same into sleek, high-functioning circuitry. MacKinnon is brilliant. I became acquainted with him when I stumbled across the (then) newly-published LEOPARD TANGO in 2012. Few books at this late stage of my life could have the power to change my life. LEOPARD TANGO did that. Now, with THE EEL, MacKinnon has done it again.

MacKinnon in THE EEL channels a seamless collaboration between
Lawrence Durrell and Ernest Hemingway with prose that will haunt, startle, and yes, entertain you. It doesn’t get any darker, funnier, or better than this. THE EEL is chock full to brim with greatness. It’s a full assault on the temporal lobe of the reader. One goes from tidbits of European history and reference to the narrator’s abuse at the hands of clergymen to mention of Dostoyevsky with a nod to Erica Jong, and from what is either an LSD trip or unvarnished reality --- I’m still not sure which --- to eyewitness accounts of the two World Wars. And that’s just the start. This is not a book that you’ll bring to the beach in the closing days of summer, or one that you’ll read on the train between stops. No. MacKinnon’s orderly description of the chaos of contemporary life demands quiet, adequate lighting, a beverage of your choice, and your entire attention, all of which will be rewarded one-hundredfold by what you will encounter within. You may read THE EEL any way you wish, of course; what worked for me is to carefully peruse one chapter at a time, with an interlude for undertaking other activity, and then returning to it. It is not a dense book, by any means, and MacKinnon, however improbably this might seem, covers a great deal of ground in (relatively) short bursts. He is one of those rare authors that makes one feel much more intelligent for having read what he has written; just so with THE EEL, which uses the life and work of the French author and poet Blaise Cendrars as its linchpin. “Cendrars” was a pen name, and autobiographical information, such as it was, which was submitted by Cendrars was probably riddled with falsehood. Jack Fignon, the failed author who narrates THE EEL, is obsessed with Cendrars, to the point that he is hellbent on seeing that Cendrars’ last request be performed. That would be burying his ashes in the Sargasso Sea. I knew next to nothing about either Cendrars, or the Sargasso Sea, or, indeed, about eels, which play a pivotal part in all of this, but I am richer for the knowledge now. Fignon tells all, a reliable if extremely erratic narrator who tells his tale somewhat out of sequence while moving ever forward, unconsciously mimicking the personality of the target of his obsession as he discovers that there is much more involved to fulling Cendrars’ request than he had ever imagined. And as Cendrars is shadowed by Fignon, so too is Fignon infused with the life details of his own creator, whose life echoes through through the book from first page to last in a manner which I’ve rarely encountered.

I recommended THE EEL to a friend whose response was to the effect that “Cendrars makes me nervous.” Just so. Cendrars is one of those artistes who has influenced many but is known by few. To use him as a propelling theme, as an object of fixation, is a gutsy move; MacKinnon demonstrates in THE EEL that he is more than up to the task. Very strongly recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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