The first aspect of Lerner’s writing that reminded me of Whitman is simply how unique his style and form is for his day and age. There’s no doubt for each man’s respective time that they are regarded as being individually brilliant. Whitman is considered the father of American poetry because of the ideas he introduced in his works that were not only progressive for his time, but had a lasting and inspirational effect. Something I immediately noticed about Lerner was how quickly his ideas flowed back to back, and how his text asks a lot of the reader as far as references go. Keeping up with Lerner’s stories and broader ideas that he relates his stories to is rapid, to say the least. Anyone who has ever read Whitman is likely to share the same sentiments. While Lerner’s use of punctuation and sentence structure isn’t as complex or long-winded as Whitman’s, it is clear that Lerner has been influenced by Whitman both in content and stylistic form.
Take, for example, an excerpt from Lerner’s “10:04” that contains obvious Whitmanian undertones:
“It’s always a projection back into the past, the idea that there was a single moment when you decided to become a writer, or the idea that a writer is in a position to know how or why she became a writer, if it makes sense to think of it as a decision at all, but that’s why the question can be interesting, because it’s a way of asking a writer to write the fiction of her origins, of asking the poet to sing the song of the origins of song, which is one of the poet’s oldest tasks.” (p.143)
For starters, Lerner, like Whitman, uses “he or she” when speaking broadly, which points to the universal human experience and cosmic connection that are important themes to both Whitman and Lerner. In this particular passage, Lerner is discussing why a writer or a poet chooses to become a writer or a poet, even tipping his hat to Whitman by using Whitman’s idea of the old poet singing the old song. From examining this passage and reading the entirety of Lerner’s novel reveals the Whitmanian influence that runs throughout.
I can definitely attest to your observations on Lerner’s style and how it doesn’t really invoke the Whitmanian line. What Lerner is attempting to achieve with this novel is a tall task in itself; he directly states his desire to reinvent and project Whitman through his own medium, so he must demonstrate strength in his own voice while echoing another without being too heavy-handed in his references. Although I would really like to get out of his lulling stream of consciousness, I must admit I think he does a pretty good job of living up to expectations.
In our reading for today, I could get a sense of the closeness our narrator achieves with Whitman as he resides in what amounts to a temporal, isolating desert. The narrative consumes even the most mundane experiences and comes to develop a world painted by Whitman’s poetry, and capitalizes with the author’s own verse.
I also agree that the form of Lerner’s novel has it similarities to Whitman especially in the way that the novels quickly flows through different ideas. There is without a doubt a uniqueness in each writers’ style that both joins them and separates them. In the second half of the novel I felt like Lerner was deliberately addressing the reader in a way that reminded me of Whitman. It was as if he shared Whitman’s sentiment that his words and ideas had to meet each reader wherever they were. I think that this could be another example of how Lerner’s content and style is obviously related to Whitman.