In my last personal blog post, I wrote about my admiration for Percival Everett’s work. Since I’m clearly obsessed with him, I thought that this is another great opportunity for me to unpack my thinkING one step further and stress the importance behind this author’s writing style. Not only does Everett discreetly write about social issues in his works, but he also has hidden meanings behind the structure of his stories as well. Let me explain.
In Everett’s short book re: f (gesture), the composition of poems at a first glance share no correlation. Having no idea what Solomon has to do with the letter A (p. 15) to all of the quotes and foreign languages throughout made me as a reader have to do some research so I can comprehend what message Everett is trying to evoke. This initial step of researching hidden meanings is what I love about Everett. I’m well aware that a majority of people would prefer to have the plot of the story presented right in front of them, but I happen to appreciate this scavenger hunt to fuel my epistemophilia, so to speak.
For my essay about his novel Frenzy, I’m trying to solve the mystery of what exactly Everett is trying to allude to. Is he using Euripides’s The Bacchae to allude to his audience that there’s a deeper meaning behind the subplots and characters chosen? Or is he simply exaggerating the inappropriate behavior that occurred in the ancient story? Also, the fact that Everett introduces a new character, Vlepo, into this storyline evoked a lot of questions and confusion from me. Personally, I believe that Everett is using Vlepo that same way that Plato was used in The Republic. Socrates asked fellow philosophers Plato’s life-long question of “what is justice?” It seemed to be a common trend in ancient Greek traditions to have literary writings consist of an outsider’s voice to set up the prompt. Basically, what I’m suggesting is that Everett is utilizing Vlepo as a way to speak to the reader and ask questions about society in a similar fashion to how Plato’s presence lived on through Socrates’ journey.
Now that I just reiterated my claim from before, I’ll actually explain my theory on the structure Everett uses in his works. His writing style is unorthodox, to say the least, but there’s always a powerful message behind each sentence written. He’s never given a direct answer in interviews to what his writing means. Honestly, I don’t think that Everett needs to explain the format he uses. The vagueness and the uncertainty of the literature is a learning process all of within itself.
To refer back to re: f (gesture), Everett uses multiple worldly references in an abecedarian order. The stanzas specifically are phrased “A is for… Achitophel”, “B is for…”, “C is for…”, etc., even if the word that’s referenced doesn’t start with that specific letter. The title is actually somewhat of an interdisciplinary mix between math and linguistics – referencing to both structuralist Roland Barthes’ book, S⊥V, and a general math function. All of this together insinuates “regarding the function of gesture,” or to simply put it, Everett’s way of saying “f#@! you” to the critical naysayers of his work.