LIGHTNING ON THE SUN
By Robert Bingham
Surely the unhappiest way for any writer to attract notice is to die young. A
case in point is Robert Bingham, whose death from a drug overdose in 1999 cut
short a promising career but ensured generous media attention for his
posthumously published first novel, Lightning on the Sun. Indeed, after
reading some of the praise that has been directed at Bingham - including
comparisons to Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene - one might feel embarrassed not
having heard more about him before his death.
Reading the book, however, leads to a different conclusion.
For one thing, if Bingham's life was anything like what he described in his
fiction, then his premature death could scarcely have come as a surprise. Lightning
on the Sun is concerned with the misadventures of three characters, all of
whom spend most of their time either stoned or drunk. Substance abuse isn't an
addiction or an escape for these people so much as it is a way of life. Even
though they are all in their thirties it is difficult to imagine them as adults,
much less making it to middle age.
Our hero is Asher, an American living in Phnom Penh. Though he originally
went to Cambodia with the noble goal of helping to restore ancient monuments, he
is now desperate to get back home. Realizing that he can't do this without a
load of cash ("America meant money. America equaled money."), he
decides to smuggle some opium to his girlfriend, Julie G-Spot, in New York
through an unwitting journalist named Reese.
At least that's the plan. But, as always in such sordid tales, there are
complications. Gangsters in both locations become involved and pretty soon
everyone is running for his life.
What happens is certainly improbable, but that is the least of the book's
problems. Bingham's characters are all of the Bret Easton Ellis variety: Young,
well-educated, relatively privileged, drugged-up, oversexed, and terminally
bored. Asher is described by his girlfriend as being "decadent nihilism
personified." Reese is a burned-out preppie. Julie is a downwardly mobile
delinquent. They are all idiots. How any of them ended up in their present rut
is never explained. It's possible Bingham wants us to see them as victims,
though of what I have no idea.
Lightning on the Sun is also very much in the modern tradition of the
novel that wants to be a movie, which means that it tries very hard to be a
second-rate, physically-oriented drama without a lot of introspection. The best
a reader can hope for is an entertaining style, which is often the saving grace
for the present generation of hip young novelists. But unlike the best of his
peers, Bingham's writing is not exceptional and does nothing to help the story
along. In fact, its very hipness is part of the problem. The sentence
"Their love had risen, then fallen like a dead cat thrown from an apartment
building" doesn't make any sense at all to me.
Finally there is the ghost of Graham Greene, invoked by an epigraph which
implores us not to abandon all faith. But if the book has any connection to
Graham Greene it is to the bad Greene, the religious bigot. Running through the
work of 20th century authors from T. S. Eliot to Walker Percy is the idea that a
sinner is at least someone who knows and appreciates what it means to sin. The
point is that no matter how much of an amoral jerk you are, you're still
better than the rest of the human herd if you have what might be labeled a
spiritual dimension.
Whatever validity this attitude had 50 years ago, I think it's fair to say
that in Lightning on the Sun the spiritual dimension has finally expired.
Asher, Julie and Reese are only cynical, soulless creations, without either the
roguish charm or sense of suffering shared by most anti-heroes.
This may say something about young people and the absence of faith in the
world today, but it's hard to believe we needed this book to say it.
Notes:
Review first published July 8, 2000.
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