Arc d'X
Encyclopedia
Arc d'X by Steve Erickson
, is an Avantpop
novel
. It has been translated into Italian
, Japanese
and other languages.
and his Afro-American mistress Sally Hemings
, a young woman with a "skin that was too white to be quite black and too black to be quite white". Erickson focuses on the period Jefferson spent in France
at the beginning of the French Revolution
(in one of the climactic scenes of the first part there is a nightmarish description of the storming of the Bastille
). After they become lovers, the couple returns to the United States
. He portrays Hemings remaining a slave although her children will be set free. This agreement seems to have a powerful symbolic value for the rest of the novel, as "it was the nature of American freedom that he was only free to take pleasure in something he possessed."
There is an abrupt change in the narrative when Hemings leaves Jefferson's demesne after he is elected President of the USA. In a departure from factual history, the character named Hemings travels West in a carriage, reaching a territory where Native Americans live who have never seen black or white people.
She goes to there and wakes up in a completely different world, a sort of alternate present where the United States have disappeared. The action is set in Aeonopolis, a strange city built near a volcano on the West Coast
of North-America (though there is no overt indication about the exact position of the city).
Aeonopolis is under the harsh rule of Priests, whose religion is not specified in the novel. Sally wakes up in a room where a murder has taken place, and there she meets the second protagonist of the novel, an Afro-American police detective called Wade. The story continues describing how Wade has Sally set free because he does not believe she is guilty of the crime, though the Police and the Priests would like to have her indicted. After a dramatic confrontation with one of the Priests, Wade deserts the Police force and hides in a vast, partly subterranean building, the Arboretum, a place which is considered out of the jurisdiction of the Church and the Police. Unspecified illegal activities take place in the Arboretum; the only one which is shown in the novel is a strip-tease show (in a nightclub called Fleurs d'X) which Wade repeatedly attends, as he is fascinated by one of the girls, Mona.
The novel then tells about Mona's relation with Wade, and Sally's relation with one of the archivists of Church Central, Etcher. The atmosphere is dream-like, both in the part of the novel focusing on Wade, and in the longer part where the protagonist is Etcher. Etcher's tormented love story with Sally ends with her death, which takes place in the Ice, a cold region north of Aeonopolis, where she and Etcher have escaped the Church and the Police.
After Sally's death, the narration abruptly moves to Paris in 1993, where a French mathemathician called Seuroq is stricken by unbearable grief for the death of his wife Helen. Seuroq begins to research a different concept of time, perhaps hoping to invert its flux; what he discovers instead is the existence of an extra day, called Jour d'X or X-Day, between December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000.
This short episode ends with this discovery, and the narrative now focuses on Erickson, the very author of the novel, travelling towards Berlin in 1998. The city he reaches is not the real Berlin of the 1990s, but an alternative version of the city which has been abandoned by many of its inhabitants notwithstanding the fall of the Wall, and barely survives after an unspecified disaster (while Erickson's home city, Los Angeles
, has been almost obliterated by an unspecified Cataclysm, possibly an earthquake).
Erickson is killed by a young naziskin, Georgie Valis, who is the son of an East German professor who attempted to escape to West Berlin. Georgie uses Erickson's passport to reach the United States and hitchhikes towards its ravaged West Coast. There he will meet, in the ruins of Los Angeles, Thomas and Sally, and this meeting will move him to the alternate universe of Aeonopolis, where he will reach the Fleurs d'X night club.
Steve Erickson
Stephen Michael Erickson is an American novelist, essayist and film critic. He is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters's Award in Literature and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation., and is considered an important representative of the Avantpop...
, is an Avantpop
Avantpop
Avantpop is an American artistic movement which derived from postmodernism in the 1990s.According to its proponents, among which there are literary critic Larry McCaffery and writer Mark Amerika, Avantpop is characterized by the use of materials coming from the mass media , that are mostly...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
. It has been translated into Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and other languages.
Plot summary
The story begins as a historical novel, telling the story of the relationship between Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
and his Afro-American mistress Sally Hemings
Sally Hemings
Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a mixed-race slave owned by President Thomas Jefferson through inheritance from his wife. She was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson by their father John Wayles...
, a young woman with a "skin that was too white to be quite black and too black to be quite white". Erickson focuses on the period Jefferson spent in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
at the beginning of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
(in one of the climactic scenes of the first part there is a nightmarish description of the storming of the Bastille
Storming of the Bastille
The storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris on the morning of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. While the prison only contained seven inmates at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint...
). After they become lovers, the couple returns to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He portrays Hemings remaining a slave although her children will be set free. This agreement seems to have a powerful symbolic value for the rest of the novel, as "it was the nature of American freedom that he was only free to take pleasure in something he possessed."
There is an abrupt change in the narrative when Hemings leaves Jefferson's demesne after he is elected President of the USA. In a departure from factual history, the character named Hemings travels West in a carriage, reaching a territory where Native Americans live who have never seen black or white people.
She goes to there and wakes up in a completely different world, a sort of alternate present where the United States have disappeared. The action is set in Aeonopolis, a strange city built near a volcano on the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
of North-America (though there is no overt indication about the exact position of the city).
Aeonopolis is under the harsh rule of Priests, whose religion is not specified in the novel. Sally wakes up in a room where a murder has taken place, and there she meets the second protagonist of the novel, an Afro-American police detective called Wade. The story continues describing how Wade has Sally set free because he does not believe she is guilty of the crime, though the Police and the Priests would like to have her indicted. After a dramatic confrontation with one of the Priests, Wade deserts the Police force and hides in a vast, partly subterranean building, the Arboretum, a place which is considered out of the jurisdiction of the Church and the Police. Unspecified illegal activities take place in the Arboretum; the only one which is shown in the novel is a strip-tease show (in a nightclub called Fleurs d'X) which Wade repeatedly attends, as he is fascinated by one of the girls, Mona.
The novel then tells about Mona's relation with Wade, and Sally's relation with one of the archivists of Church Central, Etcher. The atmosphere is dream-like, both in the part of the novel focusing on Wade, and in the longer part where the protagonist is Etcher. Etcher's tormented love story with Sally ends with her death, which takes place in the Ice, a cold region north of Aeonopolis, where she and Etcher have escaped the Church and the Police.
After Sally's death, the narration abruptly moves to Paris in 1993, where a French mathemathician called Seuroq is stricken by unbearable grief for the death of his wife Helen. Seuroq begins to research a different concept of time, perhaps hoping to invert its flux; what he discovers instead is the existence of an extra day, called Jour d'X or X-Day, between December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000.
This short episode ends with this discovery, and the narrative now focuses on Erickson, the very author of the novel, travelling towards Berlin in 1998. The city he reaches is not the real Berlin of the 1990s, but an alternative version of the city which has been abandoned by many of its inhabitants notwithstanding the fall of the Wall, and barely survives after an unspecified disaster (while Erickson's home city, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, has been almost obliterated by an unspecified Cataclysm, possibly an earthquake).
Erickson is killed by a young naziskin, Georgie Valis, who is the son of an East German professor who attempted to escape to West Berlin. Georgie uses Erickson's passport to reach the United States and hitchhikes towards its ravaged West Coast. There he will meet, in the ruins of Los Angeles, Thomas and Sally, and this meeting will move him to the alternate universe of Aeonopolis, where he will reach the Fleurs d'X night club.
External Reference
Secondary Bibliography
- Murphy, Jim. "Pursuits and Revolutions: History's Figures in Steve Erickson's Arc d'X", MFS Modern Fiction Studies - Volume 46, Number 2, Summer 2000, pp. 451–479