“Those first days of the residency, days that were nights, I would sit at my desk and read Specimen Days, his bizarre memoir, for hours.” Throughout 10:04, Lerner’s narrator alludes to Whitmanian ideas and even Whitman himself. By the time he travels to the residency, the narrator explains how he spent most of his time reading Whitman’s book. He goes on to explain the confusing tone of Whitman’s work claiming that the poet “wants to stand for everyone, because he wants to be less historical person than a marker for democratic personhood.” While our class clearly recognizes this all-encompassing Whitman persona, this notion seems to perturb Lerner’s narrator. He finds it strange that Whitman’s personal memoir reads as a story that could be almost anyones. However, when it comes to Lerner’s own story, I find that 10:04 similarly presents readers with a narrative attempting to weave in as many human experiences as possible. Of course the story revolves around the male lead character, but I feel as if the plot thinly stretches itself out to incorporate a multitude of themes, ideas, and events.
Such events include everything from Alex asking him to be the father of her child, the storms approaching New York, the narrator tutoring a young hispanic child, and his frustrating sexual desire for the artist Alena. Reading these interwoven plots which flow from one to the other so naturally in Lerner’s novel, I began to realize this Whitmanian influence. If someone were to ask me what Whitman as a poet was about, it would be hard to pick just one topic. For example, although Whitman mentions the slavery in many of his works, I could not simply claim that Whitman was a voice for African Americans, because his work encompasses almost a hyperbolized list of grand themes. This is exactly how I feel about Lerner’s novel 10:04. It becomes almost too complicated to explain the plot of his novel, because like Whitman, it transcends too many topics.
I found your comment interesting because, as 10:04 begins, it seems to praise the Whitmanian tradition; however, something does seem to linger beneath the surface within Lerner’s overblown prose. Even the manner in which this novel proves meta-fictitious pinpoints the narrator’s disconnection from himself in his sentiments of inadequacy (e.g., such as in his relationship with Alex and his care of Roberto). This could mirror how Whitman’s all-inclusive vision suffers from dispersion. Thus, Lerner’s numerous “strands” in his plot, such as his desire for Alena, and his schooling of Roberto, might serve a dual purpose. On one hand, it praises how Whitman encompasses all peoples. One sees an example of this when, as I mentioned in my prior post, the “Hasidic Jew” and “West Indian nurse” share the same space as a result of common knowledge of the storm (22). While this seems to mirror Whitman’s focus on human connectedness, I would argue it serves as a gentle mockery, which becomes more evident later in the novel.
As the narrator increases his mention of Whitman, he exposures inherent problems with his all-encompassing philosophies. For one, as his sexual relationship with Alena ends, it does so in a manner characterized by apathy. While the narrator’s prose appears overblown, this occurs in the midst of emotionlessness, which indicates how aesthetic skills, such as in Whitman’s excessive prose, can fall short. Thus, as 10:04 progresses, Lerner’s views of Whitman becomes more complex in nature. In the latter half of this novel Lerner addresses Whitman in increasingly direct terms. Meanwhile, the narrator isolates himself, reads Whitman’s work, and considers what Whitman would do in advising the young intern in his drug-induced state. Lines such as “Whitman would have taken the intern’s fear of the loss of identity as seriously as a dying soldier’s,” seem to identify with Whitmanian inclusiveness (190). However, because the intern’s state occurs as a result of drug use, as opposed to a war spoil, either of which Whitman would provide equal weight, Lerner creates a gentle critique, or aesthetic parody, of Whitman’s desire to encompass all peoples, and how this leads to dispersion.
I think it’s interesting that you pick up on the similarity between Lerner and Whitman primarily in their joint abilities to encompass and dramatize a wide range of personal and interpersonal experiences. Both their works, as you note, “encompass an almost hyperbolized list of grand themes” and in this way, speak as various personhoods rather than definitively historical people. Lerner’s novel not only addresses seemingly unrelated and unequally important events with equal and unifying intimacy, his narrator also fluidly inhabits the inner experiences of his characters (which in themselves seem compounded from the different qualities and personalities of various individuals). I think one of the most interesting examples of this in Lerner’s novel is “The Golden Vanity” section in which he transposes an event in the character Alex’s life (wisdom teeth removal) onto the seemingly biographical narrator of this story-within-the-story. “Time and distance” begin to collapse in this moment as it also makes the reader hyper-aware of it within the meta-fictional framework.