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Naked Defiance: A Comedy of Menace
by Patrik Sampler (New Star)
Review by Gene Homel
Members of a strange, secret cult being stalked by a man in an animal mask? You, too, could be stalked if you hang out with Naked Defiance, a radical art group that stages subtle but odd public performances in the name of challenging capitalism.
Patrik Sampler’s new novel is a jumbled mix of narrative tricks, young-adult hijinks and surreal scenarios packaged with a bit of a mystery story about that fellow hiding behind an animal mask. All these occur in a city covered in smog from forest fires, a city suggestive of Sampler’s Vancouver-area domicile.
The narrative tricks start on the first page when Sampler places himself into the story. He says he was engaged by a publisher to edit the manuscript into a book, write an introduction and pose as the author. So, hey, if you don’t like what follows, don’t blame Sampler and don’t shoot the messenger as he “was only doing a job.” And “it’s simply nice to have one’s name in print as an author.” (For the record, Sampler’s first novel, The Ocean Container, appeared in 2017).
The name of the allegedly real author and narrator is presented as Florian Moore, a one-time rock musician with an ordinary McJob. Moore tells the tale of Naked Defiance, “the vaguely Marxist, anti-authoritarian art group” to which he belongs. Apart from sitting around naked at planning meetings, the group, inspired by avant-garde art movements, stages public happenings at the explicit directions of the group’s mysterious and charismatic leader, Ganbold Mirzoyan. Unlikely name? No worries. Moore tells us that all names, events and locations have been altered, including the name Florian Moore. Sampler is clearly infatuated with pseudonyms.
The art group’s purpose is to oppose the “spectacle” of consumer capitalism “in a crumbling environment.” Mirzoyan, rejecting his own capitalist past, explains Defiance’s strategy to combat “miserabilism—the miserabilism of ecophobia and the cyborg body,” and the “endless production of inauthentic needs.” He says: “We see ourselves as just one kind of animal, with no more rights than any other kind of animal.” Active, not passive, nihilism is good. Mirzoyan adds that his group will bring “delight, mystery, surprise or any combination” to the miserable: “we will be a Heimlich maneuver for the mind.”
In one performance, members arrive at a Wreck Beach locale at precisely the same moment, remove their clothes in precisely the same order, and enter the water identically; then they return to the shore, dress and leave, without speaking to each other. In other performances, a man rides the subway without pants or underwear, and a woman walks a coastal hiking trail wearing nothing but a loincloth and a Noh-style Japanese mask. Members are intrigued by philosopher John Berger’s book Ways of Seeing.
In another narrative jest, the Florian author/narrator admits to the publisher in an interjected note that the book is boring but promises things will spice up soon, asking them to please keep reading. In a wink to readers, he says he’s concerned the publisher “might object to what seems to be a self-consciously ‘postmodern’ move —whatever that means,” because the author and protagonist are the same person. But he’s assured that now it’s old-fashioned, standard practice. Two more interjections are dropped in, the last by a copy editor who takes over from Florian when he’s fired.
Soon the narrative does spice up a little when members on their performances are stalked and chased threateningly by a man wearing animal masks. Who is that masked man? As some members begin to suspect that the stalker is Mirzoyan himself, the group degenerates into bickering and power struggles. Mirzoyan is taken into custody by a sex-obsessed police officer named Xenakis (sharing the name with a real-life European avant-garde composer). Not long after, Mirzoyan is shot to death in a police cell. Florian’s investigation of the death proceeds, but in the end, he takes to another cult, Nazism.
Sampler’s narrative—or that of alleged editor/narrator Florian—takes frequent hairpin turns into tangents about subjects various and sundry. We’re treated, for example, to digressions occasioned by a Soviet-era gas mask found at a military surplus store, and a Roland TR-808 rhythm drum machine, “getting quite trendy among techno freaks.”
The name dropping produces a heavy shower of miscellaneous nouns: obscure and more familiar rock bands, unusual European sports cars, bookstore titles, and writers’ names such as those of Jorge Luis Borges and Michel Houellebecq. The shower of random references may remind the reader of that Wikipedia daily feature that posts various bits of unrelated information from the encyclopedia’s entries.
The book cover describes Naked Defiance as a “turn-of-the-century” group. For those who might think the turn of the century is the early 1900s, this novel may have more limited appeal. But for those born 20 or 35 years ago, the appeal of a story on the slippery nature of truth should be much stronger. 9781554202003
Gene Homel has been a faculty member at universities, colleges, and institutes since 1974.
[BCBW 2023]
by Patrik Sampler (New Star)
Review by Gene Homel
Members of a strange, secret cult being stalked by a man in an animal mask? You, too, could be stalked if you hang out with Naked Defiance, a radical art group that stages subtle but odd public performances in the name of challenging capitalism.
Patrik Sampler’s new novel is a jumbled mix of narrative tricks, young-adult hijinks and surreal scenarios packaged with a bit of a mystery story about that fellow hiding behind an animal mask. All these occur in a city covered in smog from forest fires, a city suggestive of Sampler’s Vancouver-area domicile.
The narrative tricks start on the first page when Sampler places himself into the story. He says he was engaged by a publisher to edit the manuscript into a book, write an introduction and pose as the author. So, hey, if you don’t like what follows, don’t blame Sampler and don’t shoot the messenger as he “was only doing a job.” And “it’s simply nice to have one’s name in print as an author.” (For the record, Sampler’s first novel, The Ocean Container, appeared in 2017).
The name of the allegedly real author and narrator is presented as Florian Moore, a one-time rock musician with an ordinary McJob. Moore tells the tale of Naked Defiance, “the vaguely Marxist, anti-authoritarian art group” to which he belongs. Apart from sitting around naked at planning meetings, the group, inspired by avant-garde art movements, stages public happenings at the explicit directions of the group’s mysterious and charismatic leader, Ganbold Mirzoyan. Unlikely name? No worries. Moore tells us that all names, events and locations have been altered, including the name Florian Moore. Sampler is clearly infatuated with pseudonyms.
The art group’s purpose is to oppose the “spectacle” of consumer capitalism “in a crumbling environment.” Mirzoyan, rejecting his own capitalist past, explains Defiance’s strategy to combat “miserabilism—the miserabilism of ecophobia and the cyborg body,” and the “endless production of inauthentic needs.” He says: “We see ourselves as just one kind of animal, with no more rights than any other kind of animal.” Active, not passive, nihilism is good. Mirzoyan adds that his group will bring “delight, mystery, surprise or any combination” to the miserable: “we will be a Heimlich maneuver for the mind.”
In one performance, members arrive at a Wreck Beach locale at precisely the same moment, remove their clothes in precisely the same order, and enter the water identically; then they return to the shore, dress and leave, without speaking to each other. In other performances, a man rides the subway without pants or underwear, and a woman walks a coastal hiking trail wearing nothing but a loincloth and a Noh-style Japanese mask. Members are intrigued by philosopher John Berger’s book Ways of Seeing.
In another narrative jest, the Florian author/narrator admits to the publisher in an interjected note that the book is boring but promises things will spice up soon, asking them to please keep reading. In a wink to readers, he says he’s concerned the publisher “might object to what seems to be a self-consciously ‘postmodern’ move —whatever that means,” because the author and protagonist are the same person. But he’s assured that now it’s old-fashioned, standard practice. Two more interjections are dropped in, the last by a copy editor who takes over from Florian when he’s fired.
Soon the narrative does spice up a little when members on their performances are stalked and chased threateningly by a man wearing animal masks. Who is that masked man? As some members begin to suspect that the stalker is Mirzoyan himself, the group degenerates into bickering and power struggles. Mirzoyan is taken into custody by a sex-obsessed police officer named Xenakis (sharing the name with a real-life European avant-garde composer). Not long after, Mirzoyan is shot to death in a police cell. Florian’s investigation of the death proceeds, but in the end, he takes to another cult, Nazism.
Sampler’s narrative—or that of alleged editor/narrator Florian—takes frequent hairpin turns into tangents about subjects various and sundry. We’re treated, for example, to digressions occasioned by a Soviet-era gas mask found at a military surplus store, and a Roland TR-808 rhythm drum machine, “getting quite trendy among techno freaks.”
The name dropping produces a heavy shower of miscellaneous nouns: obscure and more familiar rock bands, unusual European sports cars, bookstore titles, and writers’ names such as those of Jorge Luis Borges and Michel Houellebecq. The shower of random references may remind the reader of that Wikipedia daily feature that posts various bits of unrelated information from the encyclopedia’s entries.
The book cover describes Naked Defiance as a “turn-of-the-century” group. For those who might think the turn of the century is the early 1900s, this novel may have more limited appeal. But for those born 20 or 35 years ago, the appeal of a story on the slippery nature of truth should be much stronger. 9781554202003
Gene Homel has been a faculty member at universities, colleges, and institutes since 1974.
[BCBW 2023]
