{"id":7468,"date":"2012-05-30T14:56:01","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T18:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=7468"},"modified":"2016-07-14T18:11:27","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T22:11:27","slug":"jennifer-egan-black-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2012\/05\/30\/jennifer-egan-black-box\/","title":{"rendered":"Jennifer Egan: “Black Box”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Black Box\"<\/strong><\/span>\r\nby Jennifer Egan<\/span>\r\nOriginally published in the\u00a0June 4 & 11, 2012 issue of The New Yorker<\/em>.<\/span><\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
If you didn’t know, The New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0has made a few headlines because they’ve been tweeting this story, sentence by sentence, each evening at 8:00 p.m. EST.\u00a0I believe it is currently around the halfway point.<\/p>\n
I have been tuning in each night, and the results have been pretty dismal for me.\u00a0It just hasn’t worked.\u00a0Egan has crafted a story that can seem like a series of short tweets coming in real-time, but the sentences in “Black Box” still lack the immediacy of Twitter.\u00a0Consequently, for me it came across as very choppy and, perhaps since it was Twitter, almost like a series of independent aphorisms rather than a developing story.\u00a0Here, for example, are the first six tweets, which probably took me five minutes to read the first time.\u00a0If you’d like to simulate the Twitter experience, read the first one, go away for a minute, the come back to read the next, and proceed accordingly:<\/p>\n
People rarely look the way you expect them to, even when you’ve seen pictures.<\/span><\/p>\n
The first thirty seconds in a person’s presence are the most important.<\/span><\/p>\n
If you’re having trouble perceiving and projecting, focus on projecting.<\/span><\/p>\n
Necessary ingredients for a successful projection: giggles; bare legs; shyness.<\/span><\/p>\n
The goal is to be both irresistible and invisible.<\/span><\/p>\n
When you succeed, a certain sharpness will go out of his eyes.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now that it’s all laid out in front of me, I can see it: this is actually a pretty good beginning to this strange and satisfying story.\u00a0But on Twitter, where every night the illusion of a continuous Twitter story is killed at 9:00 (not to mention the fact that other tweets are popping up to interrupt the flow constantly, even after day three I still didn’t particularly know or care what was going on, and I really doubted my ability to dedicate ten hours to following this story in its intended form.\u00a0So I, for one, was glad to have the chance to read the story in the magazine, without distraction.<\/p>\n
In the print form, the story is still formatted as a series of sentences, but they flow better, especially once the narrative begins to emerge.\u00a0The setting is the future.\u00a0A thirty-three-year-old, American woman has volunteered for the American government.\u00a0Her job is to use her body to take advantage of common perspectives of women, all the while collecting valuable data about the men who possess her.\u00a0She is to be their “beauty,” a future term that means exactly what we today think it might.<\/p>\n
This nameless “hero” has been sent to the south of France to surveille her “Designated Mate,” a powerful enemy to America.<\/p>\n
So what about this strange form?\u00a0And can Egan, who in her most recent novel wrote a long chapter in PowerPoint, pull it off? \u00a0I think she pulled off her PowerPoint chapter, and I think she pulls of this form (though not on Twitter).\u00a0We are soon aware that the single sentences are almost like a series of real-time instructions this field agent is receiving.\u00a0For example, as the story begins, she is receiving tips as she begins to infiltrate this criminal’s life, to become “a part of his atmosphere: a source of comfort and ease.” They are swimming in the sea, and the instructions help her maintain her role as a simple, non-threatening “beauty”:<\/p>\n
Eagerness and pliability can be expressed even in the way you climb from the sea onto chalky yellow rocks.<\/span><\/p>\n
“You’re a fast swimmer,” uttered by a man who is still submerged, may not be intended as praise. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Giggling is sometimes better than answering.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Soon, the agent is receiving real-time help utilizing the Dissociation Technique, which “is like a parachute — you must pull the cord at the correct time.”\u00a0At this point, the choppy burst of single sentences works incredibly well:<\/p>\n
You will be tempted to pull the cord when he surrounds you with arms whose bulky strength reminds you, fleetingly, of your husband’s.<\/span><\/p>\n
You will be tempted to pull it when you feel him start to move against you from below.<\/span><\/p>\n
You will be tempted to pull it when his smell envelops you: metallic, like a warm hand clutching pennies.<\/span><\/p>\n
The directive “Relax” suggests that your discomfort is palpable.<\/span><\/p>\n
“No one can see us” suggests that your discomfort has been understood as fear of physical exposure.<\/span><\/p>\n
“Relax, relax,” uttered in rhythmic, throaty tones, suggests that your discomfort is not unwelcome.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
These real-time instructions are not meant just for this particular agent. They take into consideration what is happening in order to log data that may be helpful for other agents.\u00a0Once this agent has returned, her log will be downloaded for others.<\/p>\n
One aspect of this that I found confusing at first, or at least problematic, was the personal nature of some of the “instructions.”\u00a0For example, “Mirror your Designated Mate’s attitudes, interests, desires, and tastes” is a straight-forward instruction; “Cold fish is unappealing, even when served in a good lemon sauce” is not.\u00a0Just when I was getting used to the idea that I was looking at a real-time log of instructions, a sentence about, say, cold fish would arise and take me out of that.\u00a0Thankfully, Egan has reconciled this, finding an ingenious solution that allows us to follow the instructions and, to a limited extent, the agent’s own feelings and fears.\u00a0This log is not coming from some external source; it is implanted in the agent and, as it responds to the external world to give aid it also includes “stray or personal” thoughts, which may be deleted later.<\/p>\n
And it is in this area that I found most to enjoy: here is a female who is playing the role of the submissive sex object who actually has already submitted to the government.\u00a0All over her body recording and downloading devices have been implanted, as if she were a robot whose sole purpose was to bring back information in her physical body, whether she is still alive or not.<\/p>\n
“Black Box” was an exciting read, because of its formal inventiveness, its increasing tension, and the ideas of a woman being, in a few difference senses, a black box.\u00a0I hope people who were turned off as it was tweeted (and I know there were many) give it a shot in its printed form — here it shines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week’s New Yorker fiction is Jennifer Egan’s “Black Box.” Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[192,94],"tags":[1061],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-7468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jennifer-egan","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-2012-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Black-Box.jpg?fit=851%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-1Ws","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7468"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19400,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7468\/revisions\/19400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7468"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}