One might expect that a book written while the author was on an LSD high might be less than coherent, perhaps even a bit unhinged. The key is whether or not the author can make that incoherence and insanity into something meaningful. As Watson Thomas himself puts it: “And that was the problem: How does one create, in literary form, the chaos of a psychedelic experience, but make it readable, make it entertaining, make it sincere, make it thought-provoking – make it personal and universal at the same time?”
He actually succeeds rather well in THE MONKEY-BANANA REDUCTION—partly by keeping his segments short, pithy, and lively; partly by using vigorous metaphors and the intimacy of a stream-of-consciousness style; partly by finding deep significance in ordinary events and actions. For example, the act of selling a DVD that was owned but never actually unwrapped or watched becomes an intense diatribe on consumerism: the monkey-brain desire to accumulate “bananas” (consumer goods), which we then don’t even necessarily use or enjoy before trading them in for even more bananas. A short play called “An Inconsequential Exploit of Kapitan Schadenfreude” reflects and amplifies the chaos, violent rage, and essential pointlessness of social media.
The author does have a tendency to ramble, which can be part of the book’s charm. However, perhaps the best-written parts of the work are the short poems sprinkled throughout, which lend the power and profundity greater focus. Thomas is trying to communicate with a few terse, vibrant, carefully chosen words—thus intensifying their effect as a laser intensifies light. The various writings are interspersed with background images that suggest the fading in and out of a computer program, chaos and distortion becoming solid reality and then dissolving again: an excellent metaphor for the writing itself.
If you are looking for a coherent moral or philosophical argument, or a story with a beginning, middle, and end, THE MONKEY-BANANA REDUCTION is not the right book for you. It’s far more of an abstract artistic exploration. Near the end, Thomas comments: “I like the idea of an anti-novel because it’s a bit carte blanche. ‘Like jazz, baby!’ Perhaps that’s what I need, some literary jazz.” That’s a fair description of this book, and it’s well-suited for those who need some barely controlled but surprisingly thoughtful chaos to send their thinking into new and interesting places.
Written by Watson Thomas, THE MONKEY-BANANA REDUCTION is abstract art in literary form: not always coherent, but frequently profound and never boring.
~ Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader