Hope Redux, a book review of The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith

The Book of Job
The Divine Comedy
My own Sharing the Joke
And now The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith.
What’s the underlying message? Pretty simple: God has a sense of humor.
Shit happens, in the vernacular, but what can you do except laugh about it? No need to tie yourself up in knots about the drama going on in your life, because for all intents and purposes the rest of the world isn’t interested in it.
They don’t have the time.
‘Cause we all have our own drama, and ultimately we are all alone.
Except for those of us who know God; are on friendly terms with him—smoking cigars with him over a late-nite glass of sherry while the rest of the world sleeps fitfully.
Alex-li’s father dies on him early on in the story, and that’s a bitch; no doubt about it, but life goes on…well, it tries to go on, but as far as he is concerned, life ended on that day, at least enjoyable, sober, living-life, kind-of life, and rather like old Queen Victoria, he fades into a limbotic mourning, consciously or no; searching for the ever-elusive memorial that will pay his father proper tribute.
Ironically, the day Alex ‘s father dies; he bonds with three mates, who forge a covenant of friendship, nay, brotherhood, despite their differences, which follows them into adulthood. Four men bereft of their Father, whatever remnants of parental units linger ever after.
Three of the Four, however, manage to come to terms with their loss, excepting Alex, who refuses to say Kaddish and thereby “acquit the parent and bring him peace…”
Instead Alex hurtles through life like a pinball, bouncing and smashing through his friends lives, or as his friend Adam puts it bluntly, “the Tandem Road show.”
His closest friend Adam cannot fathom Alex’s behavior, saying: “You have the weirdest idea that everybody’s here to help you!”
Alex is a child grown larger in body, but not emotional maturity largely because he cannot accept the stages of grief over his father’s death and strives to maintain a state of denial as long as he can—probably for the rest of his life, if given his preference.
In order to stave off the inevitable, Alex takes up the odd profession/hobby of collecting autographs of the famous (or at least, once famous) because as even his friend Rabbi Mark Rubenstein admits, “…collecting things is what you are meant to do, placing them between you and death, as an obstacle course."
However, as he grows older, despite the insularity of his mediocre life in the London suburbs, Alex begins to suspect that there might be something out there besides collecting autographs and smoking pot. For years, he writes fan letters to his idol, B-movie queen Kitty Alexander, initially seeking a priceless autograph, but later, painting a life for her as seen through his mind’s eye. Though Jewish, he seeks Catholic redemption via the confessional of letters he sends blindly and without response.
He also sporadically and compulsively makes note of an ever-expanding list of Jewishness as compared to Goyishness in his own, self-absorbed struggle to come to terms with the world. “He was barely capable of faith. Confronted with spiritualism, he found only humor.”
Hence, he strives for fame in a quiet, reserved, British & Jewish sort of way, writing a book significant in meaning only to him, dreaming that when his obituary is read, the world will discover “he was the greatest, most famous person you never heard of.”
A dealer in signatures, headshots, and memorabilia--the stuff sought after by fans around the world, he thinks he has no fans himself.
But like most people who pity themselves, he is most assuredly wrong, and besides the trio of friends from youth he also is loved by at least one woman, Esther—the sister of Adam, as well as his Buddhist mother, and another Buddhist, an American woman named Honey Smith, with whom he develops an intimate, if surreal bond at an autograph convention in New York.
Most importantly, Alex is confronted by his muse, and Kitty Alexander herself takes up the mantle of mortality and ironically becomes both friend and fan of Alex.
The whole book is a joke, much as life is just a joke. There are points which are bleak and/or nonsensical, but what it boils right down to, is that we’re all in the same boat, and the ship itself is sinking, and no one gets out alive, yet, wouldn’t it be lovely if the string quartet played something stirring ere we dip below the waters?
It is indeed a fairly easy thing to become depressed and get caught up in the melodrama of all the strife and ugliness and despair going on all around us; just as easy to overlook the friends and companions who patiently wait to be noticed and appreciated.
Jessica Tandy’s character Idgie Threadgoode in Fried Green Tomatoes may have put it best when she says, “You know what I think the most important thing in life is? Friends.”
Philosopher Johann Huisinga proposed that humanity was on the edge of another stage of evolution, moving from homo sapiens—effectively “the people who know” into homo ludens, that is: “the people who laugh.”
So, it is no longer the point in life to figure out all that there is to know about the workings of the world; we ought now to appreciate the beauty, nay, the design of it. And laugh, baby, laugh!
And laughter is best, when shared with friends.