Mind Crime of August Saint - Softcover

Arias-Misson, Alain

9780932511799: Mind Crime of August Saint

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0932511791 ISBN 13: 9780932511799

Publisher: Fiction Collective 2, 1993

Determined to solve a dual crime-on the one hand an abstract Millennial Conspiracy perpetrated against the conventional "logocentric" mind, on the other a gruesome murder-litterateur-detective August Saint embarks on a most peculiar investigation, one that requires him to unravel the collusion of a dazzling assortment of unlikely characters. In his investigation Saint wanders through a distinctly familiar European landscape, but simultaneously, inexplicably, finds himself traversing parallel media-spawned realities. He discovers that movies, comic strips, news articles, biographies, and fiction have each captured a channel on some formerly unimaginable, universal, television-like network. There characters and incidents, while indulging in spatio-temporal experimentation and dodging astrogel intervention from outer space, evolve infinitely and cross media with impunity. In this reconfigured universe Saint mingles with celebrities from movies, television, and literature; courts a beautiful Cuban maiden; and witnesses the twentieth century's most magnificent and horrific events. His discovery, after these endless and exhausting adventures? The conspirators in the crime are legion. They include a Belgian comic book hero, and agile "bi-locating" friar, an aristocratic Proustian masochist, a sinister clerical familiar, an NYPD chief of Detectives, a distinguished Italian film director, the Baader-Meinhof gang, assorted literary luminaries, and possibly even Dr. Spock. At last, the criminal is captured and brought to trial, and in his features Saint recognizes a very familiar face.In The Mind Crime of August Saint, Alain Arias-Misson mines the epistemological fault-line where the old world of the written word lies uneasily against twenty-first-century electronic media culture. His latest novel is a fascinating fictive experience of a culture in the process of transformation.

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From Publishers Weekly:

This mishmash of experimental fiction featuring both imagined and historical characters and scenes of seedy sex and death reads like a collection of first chapters that never lead anywhere. August Saint is an amateur detective who wanders through space, time and media. The most entertaining thing about this novel is the inclusiveness of the characters he meets on his journeys--from Italian film director Pasolini to Captain Kirk and Dr. Spock to Pontius Pilate and Jesus himself, whose crucifixion August eggs on along with a murderous crowd. There is also a lot of talk about the Vatican Connection--a rumored plot to kill Pope John Paul I--and a girl named Elena, whose strange relationships with men are influenced by the fact that she was raised by her two uncles. There are some beautiful descriptions here: When Saint visits a strip club called Lucifer's Follies, he sees a naked female dancer as "pale, a mollusc deprived of its protective shell." But with no narrative structure to hang on to, these passages are meaningless. A coy reference to Leopold Bloom accusing Saint of plagiarism hints at what Arias-Misson ( The Visio-Verbal Sins of a Literary Saint ) is trying to accomplish.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

The only things that tie together this impenetrable, obtuse novel are the personalities of August Saint, a detective who is trying to solve a murder, and his supposed love interest, Elana, who is as unappealing as the rest of the characters. Saint's quest for the killers takes him to many countries and in and out of time zones. He meets up with personages from books, history, television, and the movies; the plot is filled with literary allusions and religious and erotic overtones. In his travels, Saint also experiences such notable events as the mass suicides at the People's Temple and the murder of a pope. Arias-Misson, who has published books of visual poetry, doubtless has a point, but unfortunately it is as murky as his plot, theme, and characters. This will not appeal to many readers.
- Harriet Gottfried, NYPL
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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