Sliced Americana

ISBN: 979-8985170832

Jim Watkins has emerged as a polarizing figure. The reason for his presence being cast in this manner has to do with his internet site that supports the 1st amendment concerning its implementation of free speech. This site is recognized world-wide and is called 8kun. The debate around both his and 8kun’s existence is over what free speech is, specifically on the internet. As free speech is a right, the debate is moot. If anything, the debate should revolve around what is libel and what is slander, and who or what does a person hold accountable in such instances?

When one has the above perspective lens, one can understand the influence behind the creation of the novel of Sliced Americana. Within the pages, we are thrust into the lives of many characters who are not especially good people or even all that likable. The presence of a malignant kind of Narcissism is one of the central issues in the novel. This Narcissism disallows one to follow, in the words of the novel, a person’s “angels”. A quantum perspective of reality is introduced which explains that each of these decisions leads to differing kinds of realities. Missed connections with one’s “angels” influences one’s trajectory through the hyperspace coordinate system. Usually, this missed connection does not end well for those in the book who fail to find or heed the necessary advice.

The beginning of the novel, however, is quick to give us such a moment wherein a central character undergoes a kind of Egyptian Osiris ritual and the object that defines him as a man is removed. The reason for the removal of this organ is due, in no small way, to his pursuit of love in “all the wrong places”. The themes of sex, desire, rape and murder feature heavily within the unfolding narrative. In some cases, the characters in question die. What they all share in common is that their narratives wrap around the existence of a type of ship that cruises around the Earth that is called the ROM or Read Only Memory. Each narrative introduces a character that goes through what is best termed a kind of Sci-fi purgatory complete with a purification process that literally squeezes the corruption of the flesh from the body. The ROM has its own mission, and is crewed by people or entities who have a knack for analyzing the vectors of reality in such a way as to be able to determine who will be a good addition to the team. The plot is vaguely reminiscent of the movie The Matrix although the world in which the events take place is fundamentally darker and more corrupt. Whereas in the movie The Matrix there is belief in a prophecy, in this universe, people have become Godless and are only pointed at the existence of Him fully once they are on board the ROM.

There is a moment in the book where we understand something about the scribe who is writing the tale, or at least we think we do. The writer is caught up in the interference pattern of the work as a whole, and with the collective souls who have come before and after. The reason we cannot conclude anything about the writer, at least within the confines of the tale, is that the work is also entangled with us, as the reader. If we use the metaphysical platform proffered by the author, in reading the work that Green and Watkins have made, are we listening to our angels, or have we ignored their advice? Perhaps the only thing that can be said is that there is the book, and there the reader read it.

The conclusion of the book is a poignant one and the message is important. Suffice it to say that prophecy does eventually enter into a possible version of what America might become. The future this work points to, however, is actually one of the past at least in terms of how the world unfolded. While it is true Spain tried to conquer Cambodia, it is also true that China tried to establish itself as a preeminent enlightened empire to the point that the rest of the world was not in China’s estimation and so a wall was built to keep it (the rest of the world) out. The final showdown then will not be between Egypt in an Osiris ritual and China, but rather China versus that which it rejected at the inception and then consequently aligned itself with Egypt against. Nonetheless, Watkin’s tale does make the story more relatable by cracking open the narrative from the perspective of Alexandria. In an academic world that does not believe in God, making the narrative depend on a more Egyptian mathematical understanding of its operation is a safer bet. Egypt was never a bastion off free speech, however. Here the tale takes some liberties in inviting the symmetrical comparison. Whatever it is that America is, an Osiris rite is not sufficient to convey its ideals. America aspires to be something else. 8kun certainly desires to be something else. Probably, both are closer to the characterization of Voltaire by Evelyn Beatrice Hall:

“Her book described an incident involving the French philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvétius who in 1758 published a controversial work titled “De l’esprit” (“On the Mind”). The book was condemned in the Parlement of Paris and by the Collège de Sorbonne. Voltaire was unimpressed with the text, but he considered the attacks unjustified. After Voltaire learned that the book by Helvétius had been publicly incinerated he reacted as follows according to Hall:

‘What a fuss about an omelette!’ he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that!

‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ was his attitude now."

Indeed, now that my markdown has both waxed blue and has returned to black, I must place my pen down upon the table and consider this work finished.