"There are imperfections everywhere. And the closer I look, the more I see. I'm disgusted ... I see that the fields are not so perfectly rectangular as Huxley thought. Some aren't rectangular at all, but triangular or simply amorphous, squeezed into the available space."
Thus does Lew, one of several narrators in "Song About a Girl," halt his story. No answers are given and no boundaries are drawn. Instead, readers are left with larger blanks and the endless, repeated meshing of ideas and concepts. Finally, there is simply nothing.
David Axe, co-author of "Song About a Girl," along with Geoff Edwards, is himself obsessed with the blurring of universally conceived boundaries. His newest novel - which can probably be accurately defined as postmodernist - was written during his time as a graduate student in Medieval History at the University.
What a combination of ideas and systems of thought. Both Axe and Edwards strive to invert universal concepts and argue for a more irrational version of our world.
For instance, there is no single narrator - the perspective continually shifts, not necessarily adding depth or insight, but instead creating a more confused view of the plot. Toward the end of the novel, readers are left to guess the identity of the narrator altogether; no longer do hints of answers exist. Concrete truth fails to exist.
Ostensibly, the story traces the lives of 11 students living and boarding together in Groningen, Denmark. Lew, the sole American student, begins to blur classically conceived ideas as he asks, "So what of the Dutch? Would they be Dutch if we called them something else ... are you proud to be an American?" Nationality means nothing - or everything - and it's never entirely clear as the 11 students blend cultures, entrenched notions and language. "Song About a Girl" painfully forces the French, Dutch and English languages into tenuous contact. Yes, the novel does become universal -- it also becomes somewhat blurred if you don't actually read all three languages.
Amidst the continual nights of pot smoking and plopping down guilders at the local bar, another American graduate student shows up. Desir
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