re:mote voices

Title: The Medusa Frequency
Author: Russell Hoban
Publisher: Bloomsbury

the notes on the back of hoban's fremder suggest that in some ways it is connected to the medusa frequency, at least in some thematic form. reading the medusa frquency i would propose some thematic connection between it and kleinzeit. apart from the fact that these are the earliest two of the four books that i have read by him to date, they both have references to orpheus and the underworld, they are both more straight flipped out there than the more recent works like amaryliss and the bat tattoo.

herman orf is a novelist. his first novel sold 1700 copies, his second 1200, he has been struggling to write his third for some time now. in the meantime he has been working for a company adapting the classics into comics. one day a card comes through his door, offering a treatment that will let him access the parts of his mind that he dearly needs to access to be able to start writing his own works. however it turns out that the man behind the treatment advertised was the man he stole the woman who still haunts him from. but he goes through with the treatment and as a result becomes haunted by the head of orpheus, inheriting it from the other man, who was previously haunted by orpheus.

through the medusa frequency we see the usual themes from hoban's work - the relationships between men and women, the past and futures of those, the strange ways in which people meet and interact. there is also the cultural mix that hoban uses to bring his work to life, the pop and classic culture references. in the medusa frequency like kleinzeit the core of these references is orpheus and the underworld, but rather than death as a dark figure we have the kraken, the embodyment of terror; along with recurring reference to medusa, eurydice and hermes. in some ways the medusa frequency comes across as an extension of those themes, orf bearing personal similarities to the character kleinzeit - both spending time as ad-writers, both trying to write a novel, both favouring yellow paper, both ending up in hospital.

on the whole hoban's work tends to provide slim volumes, with the medusa frequency being the shortest of the 6 books i own. still he manages to provide a story which is in some ways based in reality, and others in a defiance of reality, an embrace of the absurd. a combination which keeps me coming back for more, a mix which holds a strong appeal for me, in much the same way as the likes of murakami. with which it seems odd that hoban who has been writing for so many years doesn't have a more evident following.