A NOVEL BY JON FERGUSON
Reviewed by M.C. Gardner
Foster’s Depression is the latest novel that author Jon Ferguson has recently shared with me. I say latest and recently because it was written half a dozen years ago and he has probably written as many more in the interim.
This novel is a delight. It is relatively short and its plot and characters easily apprehended in a single sitting. Its themes, however, are more disquieting and will resonate with the thoughtful reader for a much more extended traversal of time.
Aside from the depression of the title numerous social maladies are observed and commented upon. Our culture’s obsession with celebrity begins the novel. Foster who has not spoken to anyone for a year and a half awakens from his catatonia and becomes a hit on the national talk show circuit. As each show limits the discussion to sound bites and the sensational, he decides to tell his story in a more illuminating media–he decides to write a novel–Foster’s Depression.
He explains that he was not depressed because of his loveless, sexless marriage–that would make for a very depressed populace, indeed. Nor was the depression the hackneyed fear of mortality which companions a mid-life crisis:
I was bored with myself at thirty. “Bring on something new” has always been my mantra. And nature didn’t let me down. Before I knew what had happened I was sporting a sloping belly, grey temples, bad eyes, and pains every time I woke up.
He then relates that his job is no more or less challenging than most of those secured by his fellows in the workplace. Most of us fall into positions we occupy for a lifetime before we fall out of them at death or retirement. Nor do the social maladies of the world overly concern him:
My “depression” had nothing to do with people starving in Africa or tidal waves or terrorists bombs or the war in Iraq or September eleven, or any other insane events that mug our poor brains daily. I put all this lunacy in the same basket because it’s been going on since the beginning of time. Of course it stinks and of course the world is a cesspool. But at age fifty, it was nothing to get depressed about.
So why was he depressed? What percipitated the silence and his descent into catatonia?
It was because of a snake. I didn’t even used to like snakes. I still don’t really. But here’s what happened:
Foster goes on to explain that while pushing his daughter in a stroller he came upon the blackened body of a deceased snake. It had been run over by a car and its snaking days were now a thing of the past. You see a road kill, you perhaps feel remorse for its loss of life and maybe a nudge of your own mortatliy but then you and your life move on.
On the second day passing the same spot he noticed there was considerably less of the snake. Road kills make a tastey repaste for crows and their ilke not to mention the flies and creeping vermin that would make short work of our own flesh were it made available. All of this was still part of the observational normal.
On the third day things had taken a new turn for the snake and for Foster–neither of them good:
As we approached the spot where the snake had perished, I expected to again apprehend the snake’s remains. I looked down, forward, backward. There was nothing there. Had I gone too far? Not far enough? Neither was true. Simply there was nothing left of the snake. Absolutely nothing. Even the blood had been washed away. I froze at the sight of the clean snakeless street and felt right then and there the first tiny beads of something begin to clog my pulpous skull. Brothers and sisters, princes and ditch-diggers, dogs and cats, friends and enemies, in three days that snake had gone from happily cruising around the neighborhood to absolute nothingness… No corpse. No carcass. No coffin. No stain. No nothing. That snake was gone. Nothing. NO THING! ZERO! NILCH! NADA! NIENTE!… The next morning at breakfast I just sat there over my plate of scrambled eggs and stared ahead with my mouth open. My wife tried to talk to me. She turned on the TV and radio. She laughed. She shouted. She slapped me. She swore. She threw water at me. Then she called the doctor.
Thus begins Foster’s depression, proper. Sartre explored this same phenomenon in his first book, the justly celebrated Nausea. Antoine Roquentin’s observations also drew him into the darker corridors of a doubt that called into question the objects in world about him and his very being in that same world. Both Foster and Roquentin in the world of their respective novels have extreme encounters with nothingness. Both are called upon to question the basis of language and how language is the very basis of their being-in-the-world and the world-in-their-being. Without words to socially construct reality everything blends into a world without seam or separtation. Anything might be something other–Roquentin’s fingers might be worms on the ends of hands–a red scarf blowing in the wind might be a piece of undulating red flesh. For Roquentin these alternative obsevations fill him with loathing and revulsion. For Foster the only response is silence.
Hitchcock explored a similar malise when the James Stewart character loses his love and then his mind in the fevered Vertigo of that eventually became the film’s title. His lost love is named Madeline, which is also the name of the famed cookie that companion’s a cup of tea which erects the vast archetecture of Proust’s A la rechere du temps perdu–A Remembrance of Things Past.
Hitchcock’s film was taken from a French novel, D’entre de morts (From Among the Dead) that was specifically written for the director on the speculation that he might be intrigued into a filmed production. Each of these themes and authors are archly Gallic in their enrapturement. So we should not be surprised to discover that along with Beckett, the author of Foster’s Depression writes novels in French as well as English. We might, however, be surprised that the James Stewart character in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, is named John Ferguson. He is also known as Scottie to his friends. The most telling appellation is, however, related by his girlfriend, Midge.
The film opens with a chase, high across a series of roof tops in San Francisco. A criminal leaps to a sloping gable and scrambles up the side of the roof. A uniformed cop closely follows and successfully traverses the gap between the buildings. Detective John Ferguson is less fortunate. He slips on the shingles and in the last instant grabs a protruding gutter that frames the roof. The cop returns and offers his hand. As his hand inches toward Ferguson he loses his footing falls to his death. It is here we first experience the famous Vertigo effect developed for the film. Bernard Hermann’s score brings the sequence to a close as the Detective’s eyes bulge in terror at the body sprawled in the depths beneath him. The next scene shows the Detective recovering from his experience–but the point must be made quickly and emphatically before the plot sweeps us away. We never see Ferguson rescued. Metaphorically he is left suspended over the abyss throughout the motion picture. His girl friend’s name for him is exact and precise. She calls him–Johnny O.
Forster explains his own encounter with emptiness:
I didn’t see the people because all I could think about was the moment when they wouldn’t be there. When doctors would be in front of me I wouldn’t see them. I should say that I saw them when they weren’t there.
One of the delights of the novel is a commentary from the peanut gallery of the normal that separtes each chapter of Foster’s observations. Its a device that also separtates the the first person narration of Foster from the author and one that will later bind each to the other and to his readers, as well. Toward the end of Foster’s Depression Ferguson and Foster question the agon of their own assertions:
Isn’t there another bottom line? The one that is below the one just drawn? The one that says I’m full of shit for judging 50-Cent, Mariah Carey, and the Terminator. Of course the impulse is strong, but if I think about it, why does my judgement have one more iota of value than the judgement of one of Madonna’s desperate groupie fans or Terminator’s bloodthirty fans?
Foster ultimately leaves the final word on judgments to the “normal” commentators that are inserted between his own narration in short chapters of there own:
The idiot flips out over a little useless foot long snake. He stops talking. He stares at the wall for a year and a half. Talk about wasting away your life.
It might be noted that foundation of Zen Buddhism is predicated on the seven years that Bodhidharma remained staring silently before an equally blank wall. Foster’s silence is relieved by the nocturnal visits of a nurse, who not unlike Garp’s mother in Irving’s The World According to Garp mounts her paient’s nocturnal erections.
In religious parlance Foster’s fundamental doubt is sometimes called the dark night of the soul. In Buddhism it is a prerequiste for Satori–the ability to see the diversity as oneness and the oneness as diversity–byodo soku shabetsu and sabetsu soku shabetsu. In India it is called Prajna or the opening of the third eye which binds the division between the other two and between the divisions which define, dissect, and dismember the world. The Prajna vision acknowledges the world’s nothingness–Sunyata. Prajna is, however, companioned by a religious impulse–Karuna. From the Buddha’s Prajna he knows there is only the Buddha and there is nothing against which to measure his dukkha or suffering–so his suffering departs in the cloud of its illusion. From the perspective of his Karuna he must work among his fellows as if their suffering was real even though he knows that they are not. It is here we sense that compassion underlying Foster’s Depression:
I remember that the first while that I was wherever I was, I thought a lot about love, in particular my love for that snake. I was, in all likelihood, the only creature in the universe to have witnessed its end. Only I was in a position to pay homage to its life and death. Every time I thought of its shredded guts on that warm summer street, its blood caked to the blacktop yet shimmering in the morning light, I was filled with overwhelming love and devotion. I was its last link with anything. I knew that if I went, it would really be gone. With love comes responsibility, in my case the responsibility of being the only survivor to hold the deceased in mind. I had to keep it there, alive in thought like a last yellowing photo of a long defunct great aunt in a family album… When my wife brought my daughter to visit, I didn’t see my wife, but I did see my daughter, just like I saw the snake when I stared at the white wall.
The novel is steeped aplenty with candidly humorus observations of what there is not to love about the world. This is most aptly suggested in the nihilism that his second wife directs at their daughter:
It was “No” when she wanted to put on her basketball shoes. (My wife insisted she wear sandals.) It was “No” when she wanted to help wash the morning dishes. It was “No” when she spilled orange juice on her goddamned useless one dollar t-shirt. It was “No” when she wanted to eat her cereal in front of the TV. It was “No” when she wanted to ride her tricycle in the house. It was “No” when she wanted a candy bar after breakfast. (When my wife finally said yes, it was “No” when she wanted to take the wrapper off herself.) It was “No” when she wanted to hold the candy in her lovely fingers. It was “No, look at you” when she smeared chocolate all over her mouth. And it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. In all I counted one hundred and forty-eight “No’s”. The kid’s only awake about ten hours a day. That’s fifteen “No’s” an hour. And I wasn’t even home all day.
Ferguson seems to have the most fun with his Doctors. Doctors and scientists have become the priests of our secular worlds. Each is invested with years of spiritual instruction from the modern day seminary known as the University. Eventually Foster decides to return to the world. To effect his re-entry he must converse with his psychiatrist. Note that the response of his nurse to his return to language and sanity is the same as his wife to his imposition of silence and insanity:
I got out in February 2005 on good behavior. I never messed with anybody and finally I decided to talk again. One day a nurse was changing my sheets and I said, “The sheets in here have been wonderful.” She immediately called for the doctor.
Then begins the glorious interlocutions between Foster and his Doctor:
He asked me what my daughter’s name was again.
Gloria.
How old is she again?
She should be about five now. Depends on how long I’ve been in here.
And your wife?
Oh, what is she…? Maybe forty-one.
No, I mean her name.
Glenda.
What does she do again?
Last I knew she was scrubbing toilets.
You mean she is a cleaning lady?
No, I mean my memory of her is someone who scrubs the crap out of toilets.
What else?
She keeps a clean kitchen.
And?
She wears a lot of green and orange.
I remember that when she came here she was wearing green. Why didn’t you talk to her?
Do you really want me to tell you?
Yes.
Because I didn’t see her.
I don’t understand.
I’ve been in here how long?
Almost eighteen months.
Okay, for almost eighteen months people were phantoms for me. Their reality was only in their not being what they’re supposed to be.
What are they supposed to be?
People. But I didn’t know what a person was anymore.
Schopenauer actually went through something like that. Did you ever read Schopenauer?
No. But I’m glad to hear it. I know I’m not crazy. I just stepped out of the world.
What brought it on?
The world.
Can you be more precise?
Well, if you want to know the truth, a snake.
Do you – or did you – have snakes?
No. I saw a small one dead on the street. The next day I saw it again. Most of it was gone. The next day I came back to look at it again. There was nothing there.
I’m not sure I understand. Certainly you’ve seen many dead animals in your life. Why did the dead snake cause you to lose touch with the world.
I suddenly realized that it had gone from life to death to nothing in three days.
Does that matter?
If you’re the snake it does?
But we’re not snakes.
Yes we are.
Ferguson does a good job humanizing his doctor. His is not just a fool or foil to be eliminated by Foster’s dialectic. The doctor answers Foster’s queries with good sense, a good sense of humor, and a healthy skepticism to the questions that his patient poses. In Chapter 12 his “normal” readers or literary interlopers are specific in their response to the questions posed and answers pondered:
They better not let this guy out…
Well, they do. Foster gets his own apartment. Gets a job cooking hamburgers at a local grill. He starts seeing his nocturnal nurse romantically and basically gets on with the world–one’s option’s aren’t unlimited in this regard. He finds himself strangely compliant and not prone to confrontation:
To tell you the truth, I haven’t disagreed with her about anything in the eight months I’ve been out. Actually I haven’t disagreed with anybody about anything. There’s nothing to disagree about. What comes out of a person’s mouth is like water shooting out of Old Faithful: you don’t agree or disagree with it: you watch it, listen to it, and try to make sure you don’t get wet.
When Ferguson returns to remembered conversations with his Doctor we realize that along with his affection for his daughter and his desperate memory of a small forlorn reptile–he is the heart of the novel:
So you think I’m full of shit.
Of course you are.
Are you sure about that?
No, but all signs point to yes.
What might those signs be?
That you you think you know what you’re talking about.
That you think you’re sane.
You don’t think I am?
You’re fine in this world, but this world is insane.
Can you clarify what you mean?
You’re a psychiatrist. You’re supposed to have answers. You give answers. But there are no answers. If you’d admit there are no answers, I might take you off my list.
What list?
Of the insane.
So the sane have no answers and the insane do.
You might put it that way.
Normally it’s the other way around.
Presicely. That’s why the world is insane.
And what about you?
I have no answers. That’s why I shut up for a year and a half.
What do you have?
A daughter that I want to see.
Do you think she is sane?
For now. But it probably won’t last. She’ll probably start believing in garbage by the time she’s in second grade.
Do you believe in garbage?
If you don’t believe in anything, you can’t believe in garbage.
You believe in nothing?
My daughter.
For now…
Yes, for now.
And what will happen when she starts believing in things?
I don’t know.
We’re not there yet.
When you get there?
I guess I will still love her because I know it won’t be her fault.
Whose fault will it be?
Nobody’s.
Nobody’s?
Nobody’s at fault. This it what nobody understands. Nobody asked to be who they are. Nobody asked to have the mind or body or neighbors that they have. Nobody asked to be born into this or that culture. Nothing is more obvious, but nobody understands it.
Except you…?
You tell me. Do you know anybody else who says this?
Not in the same way.
There you go.
I’m not sure we can let you out.
I’m harmless. Far more harmless than most. When you see the world as I see it you have a tendency to be nice to people.
Why is that?
Because people can’t help being what they are. It makes you tolerant.
Do you tolerate me?
Of course. You and traffic accidents and the weather.
And do you love these people and things you tolerate? If you love your innocent daughter, do you love the innocent rest?
Yes.
But you said other people are full of shit.
Yes. There’s no contradiction.
Anything else you’d like to tell me today?
Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been thinking about for the last eighteen months?
I’ve been working here in the hospital.
So what have you been thinking about?
I haven’t had time to think about much else than my work and my family.
That’s part of the reason I stopped talking.
To make room for thinking?
If you want to put it that way.
(It was funny. The doctor didn’t say any more that day. But he came over and gave me a little hug and then walked out of the room.)
There are some wonderful interactions at the grill where Foster works. He draws his characters with affection and insight into the contradictions that one thought often follows with another. The dialogue and diction of his fellow grillmates is spot-on and worthy of an earlier master who marked twain on Mississippi river boats. He warmly draws scenes with his first wife and his current girl friend, the nurse of his nocturnal visits. It is with her that Ferguson ties a nice knot between the Thantos of the snake and the Eros of his phallus. I will leave that discovery for readers who wish to find it in its proper context at the novel’s conclusion.
The Buddhist makes peace with the nothingness of life because life and nothing are seen to be the same thing. In a Prajnaparamita Sutra, the disciple Subhuti queries the Buddha if there is any distance between an enlightened man and an unenlightened man? The Buddha answers that there is “no distance whatsoever–none at all.”
The Buddhist, like Nietzsche, takes God out of the mental equation because if He exists He is no less empty than His creation. For if the answer to the question of God’s own creation is moot–that He be without beginning or end–the same can be argued for those He created.
Even in the face of the eternal the Buddhist is keenly aware of time–its defining companion. Neither Ferguson nor I are Buddhists–practicing or otherwise. My younger brother, however, spent ten years as a robed and ordained Zen monk at a monastary near Idylwild, California. From him I always sensed the beauty and grace of the Buddhist notion of anicca–impermanence:
We are always leave taking–always saying goodbye.
It suggests something of my affection for Foster’s Depression that I have quoted it so extensively. It won’t do to have a review exceed the length of that which it reviews so I will conclude with Foster’s final interview with the Doctor. It is one of the most touching and best presented arguements in the book–which is to say it is very good, indeed.
What I mean is what if everything that all mankind has ever had in its head is false? What if what goes on the the human spirit – whatever the hell that means – has nothing to do with truth? What if the whole idea of true and false is just an invention of the human mind? Dogs probably never ask if something is true or not. In fact, nobody would ever think that what a dog thinks is true. A dog’s judgements are a dog’s judgements and nothing else. Neither more, neither less. Only a fool would imagine they are “true”. Well, what if it was the same for man. Of course we are able to function, do things, have relationships, and so forth. But we can easily do all this and not be right about what we think and believe, just like a dog does. We could easily go through life with nothing but wrong judgements. The whole animal kingdom does it. And what if man is no different from the rest of the animal kingdom? What if what he thinks is also only partial, full of holes, temporal, and limited by his perspective? What if no thought has ever actually grasped the truth?
This is what you thought about the most?
Yes, I’d say so. As I would lay in bed and look at the ceiling, I would try to imagine the world in different ways. One way was just that: a planet on which the creatures who live have no need for truth, just like lions and tigers have no need for truth. They’re thirsty, they drink. They’re hungry, they go after the gazelle. Somebody they don’t like enters their territory, they growl. Their beings function in a universe totally outside of all notions of true and false. And they function fine during their time on this earth. Ditto for fish, butterflies, cows, monkeys, and psychiatrists.
It’s possible.
It’s possibly probable.
It’s possible.
It’s possibly probably almost certain. What are the odds that the human mind is the only mind capable of truth? Very small.
Unless you put God into the picture.
Exactly. But if you take God out of the picture, the odds are next to nil that the human head is capable of truth. The only reason civilizations started popping off about truth was because they threw omniscient Gods into the picture and put man just below these omniscient Gods, hence giving man – good men, “intelligent” men, perceptive men – a shot at knowing the truths that the Gods knew. But if you take away the Gods, you’re left with a creature that might build better nesting grounds than the tigers and eat more elaborate food, but who is still roaming the jungle with a mind like a tiger’s.
So you think that the idea of a thought being true or false is a human invention.
Yes. We live in our world and it works for us. A seagull lives in its world and it works for it. No truth in the seagull head. No truth in the human head.
So we’re all crazy…
I think crazy is a judgement that makes no sense. A seagull isn’t crazy. A seagull is what it is. Crazy doesn’t have anything to do with seagullness or seagullhood. Same for man. He is what he is. Crazy has nothing to do with him. I would say we are “limited”. That’s a better word. And we’re too stupid to realize that we’re limited. Our brains are not capable of getting out of themselves to get a perspective on what they do.
Who cares?
Nobody.
So why do you care?
I don’t really. My idea won’t change anything about anything. You’ve always asked me what I thought about for those eighteen months and I’ve told you.
Might some thoughts not be closer to the truth than others?
I doubt it. They might be more like my own or your own and hence we might like them better, but closer to “the truth”…, I doubt it.
And?
And so what if there is no truth? What if the notion of truth itself is an invention of the human head?
Then I guess we live with lies.
But what if lies too are an invention of the human head?
I think it’s time we say goodbye.
So do I. Doctor, it’s been an honor and a privelege.
For me as well. Your wife will be here at eleven.
Thanks for hooking up a ride.
Your daughter will be with her I presume.
I imagine so.
Goodbye Ted Foster.
Goodbye Dr. Baker.