Verbatim: A Novel [Hardcover]

 

 

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Verbatim: A Novel is a tour de force. The book is experimental in form, scathing and humorous in delivery, vast in scope, and tragic in conclusion. The author, Jeff Bursey, began his literary career writing plays, and it shows in the novel's impeccable timing. It reads in some ways as a drama, a result of the unique form Bursey employs: legislative debates in dual column Hansard format, lists of legislature members, and letters between bureaucrats (with the odd purchase order thrown in) make up the book. Using this inventive form, Bursey covers questions that range from the deepest ones of our existence (what is truth? how do we live rightly?) to the most trivial (how can I get a new fax machine? how can I make that other guy look bad?).

Though there is little in the way of "conventional plot" in Verbatim, there is a great deal of plotting as human nature in all its dirt and gold (more dirt than gold) is revealed. Asked about the narrative arc of the book, Bursey commented that he deliberately fractured it. One such fractured arc is the rise and fall of the new manager of Hansard (a scapegoat story perhaps), told in letters and memos interspersed between the legislative debates. In the course of this character's story, we learn much about the doings of Hansard workers and the implications of their decisions. What we have been reading in the transcribed Hansards is far from "verbatim" - the transcripts have been edited to make a readable account of what happens in the legislature. The letters outlining the manager's attempt to revitalize Hansard show us that what we have been reading in the debates section of the book is, in a sense, the creation of the transcribers and editors. Although the memos about working conditions might at first seem superfluous, the Hansard staff (arbiters of truth) are seen to labour without bread (to understand this point, you'll have to read the book), clean water, or appropriate shelter. In the legislature, members get up to champion the rights of the poor to have access to these same essentials for life. The new manager strives to improve the lot of his Hansard staff. Need I say that it does not end well for SV?

In the house, an arc which parallels the Hansard manager's story comes to climax just before the Easter weekend. Dr. Pym, a voice of reason, and a possible saviour, meets his crucifixion as many members revile his learned plea for a deepened discussion about democracy. Near the end of the novel a greater downfall on a larger political scale occurs, giving the book its climax. Fractured though the book's arc may be, I found Verbatim: A Novel to have a satisfying emotional and narrative pattern.

The story of the legislature itself is another such arc: it goes from bad in the opening of the novel, to worse after the election brings new parties to the house; chaos reigns as the speaker tries to bring acrimonious and grandstanding politicians to order. By the end of the book, the good, the reasonable, the compassionate, and the sane are undermined, thrown out of the chamber, or dead under unnamed circumstances and without lament. Ultimately, I had to view the whole legislature as the antagonist in the novel and society's integrity, its right to democracy, as the tragic hero, the one that dies an ignominious death.

Is there hope in this novel? If so, it is to be found in the humour, the inventiveness, the imaginative flights of rhetoric given to the characters. For example, the speech by Mr. Lewis in which he imagines the premier hearing the boots of 8,000 disgruntled rural citizens marching toward his residence is a delight to read. The book (perhaps) implies that all of this cleverness and creativity used by certain members in mud-slinging or fear-mongering rhetoric is simply misguided rather than evil; given some tweaks and adjustments these talents could be used for the forces of good rather than for the forces of idleness, attack, personal gain, and obfuscation of the truth.

A last comment: the book as an object is wonderful to hold in the hand. Beautifully produced by Enfield and Wizenty, Verbatim: A Novel has a handsome cover and a variety of typefaces used to distinguish characters' letters/memos from one another (very helpful since the Hansard staff and clerk of the house are only given initials as identification). This novel was obviously complicated to pull off in production, but it succeeds brilliantly as an artefact and as an intelligent, complex work of innovative fiction.

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