“Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain”
by Jamil Jan Kochai
from the January 6, 2020 issue of The New Yorker
Jamil Jan Kochai published his debut novel, 99 Nights in Logar, in early 2019, and I don’t think I heard anything about it. Has anyone read it? If so, how is it?
Here we get to know his work as he writes about playing a real video game that came out in 2015. And apparently, I see in his interview here, there are some characters from his novel that appear here.
I’m still working on last week’s novella from John Jeremiah Sullivan (along with all of the usual holiday stuff), so I haven’t even read a snippet of this one. I’ll do that now, as I copy the first paragraph to entice you:
First, you have to gather the cash to preorder the game at the local GameStop, where your cousin works, and, even though he hooks it up with the employee discount, the game is still a bit out of your price range because you’ve been using your Taco Bell paychecks to help your pops, who’s been out of work since you were ten, and who makes you feel unbearably guilty about spending money on useless hobbies while kids in Kabul are destroying their bodies to build compounds for white businessmen and warlords—but, shit, it’s Kojima, it’s Metal Gear, so, after scrimping and saving (like literal dimes you’re picking up off the street), you’ve got the cash, which you give to your cousin, who purchases the game on your behalf, and then, on the day it’s released, you just have to find a way to get to the store.
Okay, so I also learned in the interview that this piece is written in the second person. I wonder if it works!
Please feel free to leave your thoughts below! And here’s to a beautiful new year of reading!
Jamil Jan Kochai’s “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” is an interesting use of second person voice. A person playing a survivalist video game is paralleled by a person playing the survivalist word game of writing a short story. Will the story survive to the degree that the story will be read by another person? Will the player of the survivalist video game survive by winning the game and continue on to play another survivalist video game a little differentfrom the first one?
The choice of mentioning Afghanistan as a continuing real life survivalist war game mirrors the fictional terrain of Playing Metal Gear Solid V. And then there is the survival day job of working at Taco Bell. There is an element of conspiracy in all of this which reminds one of Thomas Pynchon’s “The Crying of Lot 49.” Why does life seem to dwindle down to playing a survivalist game at your day job seem so similar to playing a survivalist video game without having a day job?
Then my mind wanders among the elements. Do they have Taco Bells in Afghanistan and wouldn’t distribution be a problem? And would they serve Soviet or Taliban or generic totalitarian tacos? Then you think of Mexico being colonized by the Spanish for 400 years and Afghanistan being colonized off and on for way more than 400 years.
Writing in 2nd person singular seems sort of introverted whether playing video games or writing a short story or being alone looking at one’s smart phone. But I think Jamil’s story mirrors cultural changes affecting us in a remote idiosyncratic sort of way, where the protagonist disassociates from his father and his brothers withdrawing behind the locked door to his room, into his video game where he fictionally plays with discarded elements of his actual life.
This story seems off the mainstream and yet seems to integrate elements of how everyone in society is evolving or devolving into personal loneliness or how it could seem to be moving in that direction. Most readers may not relate to this story and may not want to read it. But any small story that seems to possibly illuminate a larger truth might be worth looking at.
A really solid and clever story. ‘Clever” has a pejorative tone, but here I mean ingenious, thoughtful deployment of material. To take a real video game, which takes place In Afghanistan, have it played by an Afghani young man whose family emigrated from there, and have him begin to see real people from his own family in in the game is very creative.
What the boy is trying to do is to resurrect his family, to rescue his family’s bad fortune in the real Afghanistan by reenacting the events they suffered there in his game and having it come out differently. He is so desperate to mend their hurts — especially his injured father and his dead uncle — that he ignores the real people in his house and puts all his energy and attention into the game. He feels that his father and uncle are burrowing inside him, “To be saved.” In the end of course, that’s impossible. The writer doesn’t show us what it is like when the boy emerges from his room, he leaves it to us to imagine.
Two further comments —
The propulsive writing is powerful. It made me think of Junot Diaz. Somewhat off kilter language. And I think Diaz has written in the 2nd person.
We commented that “Sevastopol” was a somewhat intellectual story. This one is very visceral and emotional. Together they show that you can make a good story in either style.
William,
Thanks for your explanation of what’s really going on in this story. I missed what you saw in the story and went off point a bit. I was impressed with how harsh reality could illuminate a made up story effectively along parallel tracks. As you wrote, it is very effectively both visceral and emotional. The writer could approach this story from a remote intellectual remove but it wouldn’t have same impact. I guess the game player is a kind of superhero trying to save the father and hero inside the game from having been in some sense, damaged by reality outside the game. I don’t think of it as pejorative in tone rather the bombed burned out devastation of a small village in Afghanistan seems a baseline origin of the story. To attempt to achieve anything good after that is heroic. It has an urgent tone to it which is very effectively conveyed.
“I was impressed with how harsh reality could illuminate a made up story effectively along parallel tracks.”
Good observation, Larry. Also, I agree with this insight;
“I guess the game player is a kind of superhero trying to save the father and hero inside the game from having been in some sense, damaged by reality outside the game.”
I think that’s the genius of the story structure.
Two other thoughts;
First, as the story ends the game player goes deeper into a cave, where it becomes completely dark. Then he can see himself in the screen, thus reversing the initial progress of the game from external world to imagined world. Now he comes out of the game. I thought of the script direction, ‘Fade to black.” Most important, he comes out carrying a great burden. .
Second, the subtitle of the game and the story – “The Phantom Pain” evokes phantom limb pain — a pain located in a limb that has been cut off. The boy feels phantom pain from his and his family’s former life in Afghanistan, which has been cut off, but which continues to give them pain in their new country. Loss is never lost. It reminds me of that saying, “The past is not dead. It isn’t even past.”
Each sentence is a single paragraph — that’s an important aspect of the form. I’m not sure that anyone else commented on that. I think that, as has been said in this thread, he couldn’t protect his family in real life so the video gaming acts as a displacement. I don’t see any metafictional aspects here. I don’t see a commentary on the process of writing. I think the fiction editor should have encouraged more background on the family to give the video gaming more context. The story might be too short for what it tries to accomplish.
I felt the story was too short also. In a way, it’s a compliment to a writer to want more, but I ‘d have liked to continue this a bit longer. As a page turner, Kochai is kinda amazing. I was 100% riveted to this. I had many of William’s thoughts about the redemption theme and how this takes the typical escapism into a vicariously thrilling alternate reality of video games into another almost therapeutic level. The ironic contrast between the characters weight in real life and his fluid mobility in the game is also well handled. I was really impressed here.
I enjoyed this story, but my takeaways appear to have mostly been covered in the comments above, so I will simply add that Kochai’s use of the second person (a technique I don’t usually care for) suits this story well. Actually, I would argue it’s a big reason why the piece is successful. Not only does the second person “you” parallel the vicarious nature of playing a video game; it also invites the reader to identify with a character whose cultural history and milieu are likely to be very unfamiliar. From a brief Google search, it appears Kochai is a recent Iowa grad, but this story doesn’t feel at all like the “factory fiction” that comes out of a lot of MFA programs (and often appears in this magazine). Hopefully this is the herald of a strong year for New Yorker fiction.
Dave —
I’m with you. The second person voice enhances the story, and it doesn’t feel like a writers workshop piece.
Dave,
Interesting that Kochai is a recent Iowa grad and apparently went through the whole MFA program and still developed his own voice. Had not heard the term “factory fiction” but I guess that refers to MFA grads writing about protagonists in their own age group with dating issues or some such individual concerns with family often left out. Kochai seems to reconcile to a degree the conflict between individual and family by fusing them together in this short story. It may have to do with one’s survival. It seems in Western society when affluence is attained and the freedom of individuality beckons, awareness of family dwindles. But in emerging eastern Asian cultures families live together or at least band more together because individuals have a tougher time than tribal groups like in Afghanistan although there is never any guarantee of anything which also holds true in Afghanistan. “Playing Metal Gear” contrasts the two yet holds them in parallel with one another never overvaluing one more than the other. I agree with Ken that this short story may be too short which is one of the challenges, but on the other hand, it can be a blessing because the seeds, roots or origins of a provocative novel are discovered. Kind of a twofer that can be as rare as 3 sevens on a manual gaming slot machine. If this is a precursor to a good novel, I already want to read it.
In a Google search I found out that Jamil Jan Kochai published his first novel, “99 Nights in Logar” in November of last year. The paperback edition releases February 6th and can be pre-purchased from Amazon. The father and uncle are said to be part of Kochai’s book. So if “Playing Metal Gear” seemed too short, “99 Nights” might provide more to the overall story although it might be rendered a little differently. This seems a great start for a new author.