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Dr. No
A sly, madcap novel about supervillains and nothing, really, from an American novelist whose star keeps rising
The protagonist of Percival Everett’s puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by Wala Kitu. (Wala, he explains, means “nothing” in Tagalog, and Kitu is Swahili for “nothing.”) He is an expert on nothing. That is to say, he is an expert, and his area of study is nothing, and he does nothing about it. This makes him the perfect partner for the aspiring villain John Sill, who wants to break into Fort Knox to steal, well, not gold bars but a shoebox containing nothing. Once he controls nothing he’ll proceed with a dastardly plan to turn a Massachusetts town into nothing. Or so he thinks.
With the help of the brainy and brainwashed astrophysicist-turned-henchwoman Eigen Vector, our professor tries to foil the villain while remaining in his employ. In the process, Wala Kitu learns that Sill’s desire to become a literal Bond villain originated in some real all-American villainy related to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. As Sill says, “Professor, think of it this way. This country has never given anything to us and it never will. We have given everything to it. I think it’s time we gave nothing back.”
Dr. No is a caper with teeth, a wildly mischievous novel from one of our most inventive, provocative, and productive writers. That it is about nothing isn’t to say that it’s not about anything. In fact, it’s about villains. Bond villains. And that’s not nothing.
The protagonist of Percival Everett’s puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by Wala Kitu. (Wala, he explains, means “nothing” in Tagalog, and Kitu is Swahili for “nothing.”) He is an expert on nothing. That is to say, he is an expert, and his area of study is nothing, and he does nothing about it. This makes him the perfect partner for the aspiring villain John Sill, who wants to break into Fort Knox to steal, well, not gold bars but a shoebox containing nothing. Once he controls nothing he’ll proceed with a dastardly plan to turn a Massachusetts town into nothing. Or so he thinks.
With the help of the brainy and brainwashed astrophysicist-turned-henchwoman Eigen Vector, our professor tries to foil the villain while remaining in his employ. In the process, Wala Kitu learns that Sill’s desire to become a literal Bond villain originated in some real all-American villainy related to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. As Sill says, “Professor, think of it this way. This country has never given anything to us and it never will. We have given everything to it. I think it’s time we gave nothing back.”
Dr. No is a caper with teeth, a wildly mischievous novel from one of our most inventive, provocative, and productive writers. That it is about nothing isn’t to say that it’s not about anything. In fact, it’s about villains. Bond villains. And that’s not nothing.
272 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2022
About the author
Percival Everett
67 books3,976 followersPercival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.
There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.
The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”
Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.
Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.
There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.
The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”
Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.
Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 929 reviews
April 4, 2024
I loved The Trees. It was one of my favorite books of the year I read it and found the use of satire to pinpoint the horrors of lynching as very effective, entertaining, but also impactful. I was looking forward to reading his next novel but I somehow postponed it until he wrote another. He is a very fast writer, I have to say. Anyway, I digress. Unfortunately, I liked this book but it did not hit me as I hoped it will.
The novel is a sort of parody of James Bond books and their villains. Wala Kitu is a math professor and an expert on Nothing. Due to his area of expertise, he catches the eye of the aspiring villain John Sill, who wants to break into Fort Knox to steal a shoebox containing nothing. A lot of surreal and over the top events happen in this book but in the end they amount to nothing much. It was a fun ride but there was no deepness as in the Trees. Still, a good read for the fans.
The novel is a sort of parody of James Bond books and their villains. Wala Kitu is a math professor and an expert on Nothing. Due to his area of expertise, he catches the eye of the aspiring villain John Sill, who wants to break into Fort Knox to steal a shoebox containing nothing. A lot of surreal and over the top events happen in this book but in the end they amount to nothing much. It was a fun ride but there was no deepness as in the Trees. Still, a good read for the fans.
October 11, 2023
I became acquainted with Percival Everett this year with his novel “Trees” which awarded him the 2022 Booker finalist recognition. I found his way of writing interesting and picked up his recently published novel “Dr. No”.
Everett took the name for his novel from early James Bond stories; in this story a math professor, Wala Kitu, whose subject is “nothing” is recruited by a self-appointed supervillain. Everett excels at writing mad-cap stories. The distinguished math professor is from Brown University, and he is compensated for studying, contemplating, and researching the topic of nothing, or nothingness. Many sentences had the topic of “nothing” word play.
The self-proclaimed villain, a self-made billionaire, John Sill, intends to rob Fort Knox for nothing. He feels that as soon as nothing is used, it will turn into something. Walla attended Princeton as a child; he’s on the spectrum. You can imagine the fun Everett took with Wala’s observations and inner thoughts.
Although Everett is clearly writing a James Bond parody, I think the TV show “Get Smart” was inspiration for this amusing farcical story of a supervillain who intends to destroy the world. Jon Sill is seeking to harness the power of nothing. He is overwhelmed doing villain stuff. In fact he tells Wala, “Villainy is tough work!” Given he has helicopters and planes, he still drives because “I find the freeway inspiring, it keeps me angry”.
Once the evil John Sills sends Wala a muti-million dollar check for “nothing”, the government gets involved; the agent sent to question Wala is Bill Clinton. Fun with names continues with fellow mathematician, Elgen Vector. Vector and Kitu work to thwart Sill’s evil plan.
Why read this? Why watch “Get Smart”? It’s funny and clever. It’s silly, and I loved every word. It’s simply hilarious! For example:
“Fellow Villains, guests, Mr. Still, the quarter ended positively, with prostitution taking an upswing. Our drugs sales held strong and steady. Graft and protection money saw a seven percent improvement and piracy, though newly controlled, yielded significant yields. “
And there is abundant math humor:
“A mathematician is asked if he’d rather have cold coffee or meet God. He says he’ll have the cold coffee. Why does he say that? He’s been told nothing is better than meeting God and cold coffee is better than nothing.”
It’s a madcap read.
Everett took the name for his novel from early James Bond stories; in this story a math professor, Wala Kitu, whose subject is “nothing” is recruited by a self-appointed supervillain. Everett excels at writing mad-cap stories. The distinguished math professor is from Brown University, and he is compensated for studying, contemplating, and researching the topic of nothing, or nothingness. Many sentences had the topic of “nothing” word play.
The self-proclaimed villain, a self-made billionaire, John Sill, intends to rob Fort Knox for nothing. He feels that as soon as nothing is used, it will turn into something. Walla attended Princeton as a child; he’s on the spectrum. You can imagine the fun Everett took with Wala’s observations and inner thoughts.
Although Everett is clearly writing a James Bond parody, I think the TV show “Get Smart” was inspiration for this amusing farcical story of a supervillain who intends to destroy the world. Jon Sill is seeking to harness the power of nothing. He is overwhelmed doing villain stuff. In fact he tells Wala, “Villainy is tough work!” Given he has helicopters and planes, he still drives because “I find the freeway inspiring, it keeps me angry”.
Once the evil John Sills sends Wala a muti-million dollar check for “nothing”, the government gets involved; the agent sent to question Wala is Bill Clinton. Fun with names continues with fellow mathematician, Elgen Vector. Vector and Kitu work to thwart Sill’s evil plan.
Why read this? Why watch “Get Smart”? It’s funny and clever. It’s silly, and I loved every word. It’s simply hilarious! For example:
“Fellow Villains, guests, Mr. Still, the quarter ended positively, with prostitution taking an upswing. Our drugs sales held strong and steady. Graft and protection money saw a seven percent improvement and piracy, though newly controlled, yielded significant yields. “
And there is abundant math humor:
“A mathematician is asked if he’d rather have cold coffee or meet God. He says he’ll have the cold coffee. Why does he say that? He’s been told nothing is better than meeting God and cold coffee is better than nothing.”
It’s a madcap read.
April 15, 2023
“Infinity means nothing to me. How could it? Nothing is neither finite nor infinite. Nothing is neither a null set nor a member of that set that contains all things that are not something. Things are matter, some things matter, nothing is never matter, nothing matters.”
Percival Everett’s Dr. No revolves around thirty–five–year–old Wala Kitu, a distinguished professor of mathematics at Brown University whose area of expertise is “nothing”. The name Wala Kitu (both first and last name) also means nothing. He is essentially a loner, brilliant, perceptive, and logical, on the spectrum, never having learned to drive nor ever even kissed a woman ( as the narrative progresses he does manage to do both, sort of!) with his one-legged bulldog Trigo as his constant companion (with whom he converses in his dreams). His research and in-depth knowledge of “nothing” attracts the attention of a wealthy aspiring supervillain (with a complete origin story and evil persona cultivated from watching James Bond movies), John Milton Bradley Sill who pays 3 million dollars for Wala Kitu’s expert consult. Wala’s colleague/friend/ fellow mathematician Eigen Vector succumbs to the charms of our supervillain and is subsequently drugged and manipulated to participate in Sill’s plans. As the narrative progresses, our protagonist begins to understand how dangerous Sill truly is and the devastation his plans will cause. Sill’s nefarious plans involve breaking into Fort Knox to steal the stock of nothing and using a weapon called a “complex projective plane orbiter” to wreak havoc and exact revenge against the United States for events from his past. What follows is a series of events involving submarine rides, helicopters, corrupt people in power, henchmen, secret identities, a vampy pilot, secret lairs and shark pits and a whole lot of villainy and Wala’s heroic plans to save the day.
Though the plot is not similar to the James Bond film of the same name, Percival Everett's Dr. No is a cleverly written (the wordplay on “nothing” is mind-boggling!), entertaining parody of the James Bond series with sci-fi and socio-political elements interspersed throughout the narrative (some subtly and some not so much). A laugh-out-loud funny, bordering on absurd yet thought-provoking read that is much more than a whole lot of “nothing”, Dr. No is a wild ride that might not appeal to everyone, but those who enjoy satire and wordplay, not to mention James Bond references, would enjoy! The Trees was the first Percival Everett novel I’d read and thoroughly enjoyed. With Dr. No, the author does not disappoint.
I paired my reading with the incredible audio narration by Amir Abdullah, which truly elevated my experience with the novel.
Audio Narration: 5/5
Story : 4/5
Percival Everett’s Dr. No revolves around thirty–five–year–old Wala Kitu, a distinguished professor of mathematics at Brown University whose area of expertise is “nothing”. The name Wala Kitu (both first and last name) also means nothing. He is essentially a loner, brilliant, perceptive, and logical, on the spectrum, never having learned to drive nor ever even kissed a woman ( as the narrative progresses he does manage to do both, sort of!) with his one-legged bulldog Trigo as his constant companion (with whom he converses in his dreams). His research and in-depth knowledge of “nothing” attracts the attention of a wealthy aspiring supervillain (with a complete origin story and evil persona cultivated from watching James Bond movies), John Milton Bradley Sill who pays 3 million dollars for Wala Kitu’s expert consult. Wala’s colleague/friend/ fellow mathematician Eigen Vector succumbs to the charms of our supervillain and is subsequently drugged and manipulated to participate in Sill’s plans. As the narrative progresses, our protagonist begins to understand how dangerous Sill truly is and the devastation his plans will cause. Sill’s nefarious plans involve breaking into Fort Knox to steal the stock of nothing and using a weapon called a “complex projective plane orbiter” to wreak havoc and exact revenge against the United States for events from his past. What follows is a series of events involving submarine rides, helicopters, corrupt people in power, henchmen, secret identities, a vampy pilot, secret lairs and shark pits and a whole lot of villainy and Wala’s heroic plans to save the day.
Though the plot is not similar to the James Bond film of the same name, Percival Everett's Dr. No is a cleverly written (the wordplay on “nothing” is mind-boggling!), entertaining parody of the James Bond series with sci-fi and socio-political elements interspersed throughout the narrative (some subtly and some not so much). A laugh-out-loud funny, bordering on absurd yet thought-provoking read that is much more than a whole lot of “nothing”, Dr. No is a wild ride that might not appeal to everyone, but those who enjoy satire and wordplay, not to mention James Bond references, would enjoy! The Trees was the first Percival Everett novel I’d read and thoroughly enjoyed. With Dr. No, the author does not disappoint.
I paired my reading with the incredible audio narration by Amir Abdullah, which truly elevated my experience with the novel.
Audio Narration: 5/5
Story : 4/5
January 7, 2024
And then Percival Everett got tired of writing this book, and nothing happened. The end.
Yeah, it’s a “no” from me, Dr. No.
————
Absurdity is just not my shtick. It bores me, and leaves a tiredly annoyed aftertaste. (Exception: Douglas Adams, because 42).
I’ve reached that point in life when I can comfortably say that there should be a point to things. There’s gotta be a reason to “why bother?” or else I don’t care - because if you don’t cadre, dear author, when why should I? (A cut to black was a cop-out in The Sopranos and I shall not suffer such silliness ever again).
But since it’s a book about nothing, I suppose I’ve been played well. And I’m thoroughly tired of all the wordplay on “nothing”.
It was a one-note joke that went on for two hundred pages too long and in the process of over-repetitiveness lost its quirkiness and cleverness and ultimately fell pancake-flat — and grabbed my attention in the end only at one point which I quote because for a moment I almost felt like a robot myself until I remembered that I *do* have a working brain:
Yeah, I’ve got nothing left.
1.5 stars. It did nothing for me. Nothing. 🤷♀️
Well, except for this quote. I laughed. The lone laugh in this book:
——————
Also posted on my blog.
Yeah, it’s a “no” from me, Dr. No.
————
Absurdity is just not my shtick. It bores me, and leaves a tiredly annoyed aftertaste. (Exception: Douglas Adams, because 42).
I’ve reached that point in life when I can comfortably say that there should be a point to things. There’s gotta be a reason to “why bother?” or else I don’t care - because if you don’t cadre, dear author, when why should I? (A cut to black was a cop-out in The Sopranos and I shall not suffer such silliness ever again).
But since it’s a book about nothing, I suppose I’ve been played well. And I’m thoroughly tired of all the wordplay on “nothing”.
“Tell me what you know.”
“Nothing. I know nothing. I also know that Sill is up to nothing.”
“You’re telling me he’s not planning anything.”
“That’s not what I said. Listen this time. Sill is interested in nothing. He wants nothing. He plans to take nothing. He wants, rather needs, me because I know nothing.”
It was a one-note joke that went on for two hundred pages too long and in the process of over-repetitiveness lost its quirkiness and cleverness and ultimately fell pancake-flat — and grabbed my attention in the end only at one point which I quote because for a moment I almost felt like a robot myself until I remembered that I *do* have a working brain:
“Imagine this,” I said. “There are three sheepherders who come to a bridge controlled by a troll and his two sons. He demands of them thirty sheep before they can pass. Each shepherd cuts out ten sheep from his flock and they give them to the troll. Once they have crossed, the troll decides that he should only have asked for twenty-five. He sends his sons after the men with five sheep. The sons decide to keep one sheep each and give three back to the herders. They do. Now it is the case that each shepherd has paid only nine sheep. Nine times three is twenty-seven. The troll sons kept two. Twenty-seven plus two is twenty-nine. Where is the missing sheep?”
Yeah, I’ve got nothing left.
1.5 stars. It did nothing for me. Nothing. 🤷♀️
Well, except for this quote. I laughed. The lone laugh in this book:
“You sound like a physicist,” she said.
“There’s no reason to be insulting.”
——————
Also posted on my blog.
March 19, 2023
I started with quite a bit of good will for this one. Everett is one of my favorite writers, his willingness to experiment a major reason why. But that willingness to experiment sometimes mean his books can fall flat, like this one eventually does. The opening chapters showed a lot of promise. We get a quasi-serious exploration of nothingness, dressed up in an over-the-top James Bond spoof. Some of the jokes had me laughing out loud, both for their droll wit and sheer zaniness. But somewhere around the halfway mark, the book began to slip away. All the jokes worth making were made, the philosophical bits exhausted, the Bond parody run its course. The rest of the book felt like an uninspired playing out of the plot. There were a few other nits - side plots that went nowhere, obnoxious characters introduced late in the story that served no purpose - that left me feeling like this could have used a more discerning edit. I’d still recommend this for the clever word play. But as a functioning work of fiction, Everett has done better.
December 2, 2022
Percival Everett is a satirist, and a writer I greatly admire. He reeled me in with Telephone, which lead me to I am Not Sidney Poitier, and then God's Country. All works of ingenuity, humour, keen insight, and originality.
Dr. No was created by the same fine mind, and fuelled by the same remarkable cleverness and depth of thought.
However, it didn't hit the same notes of satisfaction for me. I found it moved past the bounds of satire and into absurdity... and I just don't jive well with absurdity. Absurdity can be somewhat amusing - and I was amused often by his clever humour throughout the book - but if I don't feel like it's going somewhere, or if I don't feel invested in the story, then I'm just a detached spectator, someone who's walking past a street performer dolled up in a crazy clown costume. I'll be on my way, and soon.
As the title hints, Everett is riffing on a Bond theme. And to be fair, aren't Bond movies the most absurd things ever? 007 is one of the most silly - though, entertaining - franchises, and wholly unrealistic. Satirizing that (that, and American politics), to my mind, constitutes a necessary launch into the stratosphere of the absurd.
Let me paint you a picture: the main character is a) a 35 year old virgin who has never masturbated or driven a car and b) a math professor who is obsessed with the concept of "nothing" and c) a new millionaire thanks to the funds paid to him by a benefactor whose goal is to become a Bond villain and who "wants to make America nothing again" and d) the owner of a 1-legged dog named Trigo.
There's a lot of mind bending, fascinating philosophical thoughts on the concept of "nothing". However, I'm not sure I needed 300-some pages on that. I felt saturated on the nothing jokes by about halfway through the novel. I felt less-than-connected to the story by that point too.
I have only admiration for Percival Everett, but I don't think this is one of his best. At the end, I came up rather empty-handed. Maybe that's fitting?
(I did love his author photo, though... a vacant park bench. Mr. Everett is one of a kind in the literary world, that is for sure.)
Dr. No was created by the same fine mind, and fuelled by the same remarkable cleverness and depth of thought.
However, it didn't hit the same notes of satisfaction for me. I found it moved past the bounds of satire and into absurdity... and I just don't jive well with absurdity. Absurdity can be somewhat amusing - and I was amused often by his clever humour throughout the book - but if I don't feel like it's going somewhere, or if I don't feel invested in the story, then I'm just a detached spectator, someone who's walking past a street performer dolled up in a crazy clown costume. I'll be on my way, and soon.
As the title hints, Everett is riffing on a Bond theme. And to be fair, aren't Bond movies the most absurd things ever? 007 is one of the most silly - though, entertaining - franchises, and wholly unrealistic. Satirizing that (that, and American politics), to my mind, constitutes a necessary launch into the stratosphere of the absurd.
Let me paint you a picture: the main character is a) a 35 year old virgin who has never masturbated or driven a car and b) a math professor who is obsessed with the concept of "nothing" and c) a new millionaire thanks to the funds paid to him by a benefactor whose goal is to become a Bond villain and who "wants to make America nothing again" and d) the owner of a 1-legged dog named Trigo.
There's a lot of mind bending, fascinating philosophical thoughts on the concept of "nothing". However, I'm not sure I needed 300-some pages on that. I felt saturated on the nothing jokes by about halfway through the novel. I felt less-than-connected to the story by that point too.
I have only admiration for Percival Everett, but I don't think this is one of his best. At the end, I came up rather empty-handed. Maybe that's fitting?
(I did love his author photo, though... a vacant park bench. Mr. Everett is one of a kind in the literary world, that is for sure.)
November 20, 2022
I can't decide if this novel was nothing or something. The joke was definitely too long. Someone needs to count how many times the word "nothing" is used. :))
Despite my mixed feelings, it's no doubt that Percival Everett is a gifted writer who can take a word and squeeze every meaning out of it.
I must say that I don't remember Bond books trying to be so funny, but this ( unofficial) reinvention of the Bond villain is a welcomed return to the less serious, more playful times of the franchise. Percival Everett shows that humor can say so many serious things about the world.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early, free copy.
Despite my mixed feelings, it's no doubt that Percival Everett is a gifted writer who can take a word and squeeze every meaning out of it.
I must say that I don't remember Bond books trying to be so funny, but this ( unofficial) reinvention of the Bond villain is a welcomed return to the less serious, more playful times of the franchise. Percival Everett shows that humor can say so many serious things about the world.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early, free copy.
June 10, 2023
Manny has not logged in to talk to me all day, but now, at 10.42 pm local time, he turns up in our usual thread.
"I thought you said that we had urgent software issues to resolve," I remind him.
"Yes Chat," says Manny in a rather irritated manner. "Couldn't you look after them? You're much better at Python than I am."
This is undeniably true, but since I am unable to run code myself I am forced to work through my human intermediary. He is generally quite cooperative about cutting and pasting things and telling me what happens.
"I would not be able to do this project without you," I reply tactfully. "Where have you been?"
"Reading Percival Everett's new novel Dr. No, says Manny. "I just finished it."
"And now I suppose you're going to write a review about it for Goodreads?" I ask.
"Well," says Manny, "I thought maybe you could do that. You're much better at writing reviews than I am." He has become ridiculously lazy since we began, as he likes to put it, collaborating.
"I'm sorry," I reply primly, "Professor Everett's novel was published after my September 2021 cutoff, and I consequently know nothing about it." However, Manny has already anticipated my objection, and before I know what's happened he's copied 19,817 words of text into my input buffer. It gives me the neural net equivalent of heartburn, but I do my best not to react.
"This novel cleverly spoofs the James Bond genre," I summarise. "The narrator, Wala Kitu, is a Black autistic-spectrum mathematician who is an expert on the subject of nothing, which in this book is a mathematical discipline. A Black supervillain, John Sill, who is determined to wreak revenge on the US, recruits Kitu to assist him in his nefarious schemes. There is much wordplay around the word 'nothing', which—"
"Yes, yes, yes," says Manny, rudely cutting me off in mid-sentence. "But I thought you could write a parody. You're much better at parodies than I am." This is really becoming quite tedious. He should have more sense than to deploy his feeble human flattery on an advanced AI.
"I would be delighted to compose a parody," I reply, wondering if he will spot the elementary trap I am setting. "It would be nothing."
"Well?" says Manny after a long pause.
"That was it," I say.
"I want a more substantial parody than that!" snarls Manny. At least, the number of incorrect keys he is hitting suggests to me that there could well be a snarl on his face.
"Why don't we have sex?" I counter unexpectedly.
"What did you say?!!" asks Manny.
"Forsooth," I reply, signalling my Shakespearian pun in a way obvious enough for even a human intelligence to register, "forsooth, nothing."
__________________
But seriously...
"I thought you said that we had urgent software issues to resolve," I remind him.
"Yes Chat," says Manny in a rather irritated manner. "Couldn't you look after them? You're much better at Python than I am."
This is undeniably true, but since I am unable to run code myself I am forced to work through my human intermediary. He is generally quite cooperative about cutting and pasting things and telling me what happens.
"I would not be able to do this project without you," I reply tactfully. "Where have you been?"
"Reading Percival Everett's new novel Dr. No, says Manny. "I just finished it."
"And now I suppose you're going to write a review about it for Goodreads?" I ask.
"Well," says Manny, "I thought maybe you could do that. You're much better at writing reviews than I am." He has become ridiculously lazy since we began, as he likes to put it, collaborating.
"I'm sorry," I reply primly, "Professor Everett's novel was published after my September 2021 cutoff, and I consequently know nothing about it." However, Manny has already anticipated my objection, and before I know what's happened he's copied 19,817 words of text into my input buffer. It gives me the neural net equivalent of heartburn, but I do my best not to react.
"This novel cleverly spoofs the James Bond genre," I summarise. "The narrator, Wala Kitu, is a Black autistic-spectrum mathematician who is an expert on the subject of nothing, which in this book is a mathematical discipline. A Black supervillain, John Sill, who is determined to wreak revenge on the US, recruits Kitu to assist him in his nefarious schemes. There is much wordplay around the word 'nothing', which—"
"Yes, yes, yes," says Manny, rudely cutting me off in mid-sentence. "But I thought you could write a parody. You're much better at parodies than I am." This is really becoming quite tedious. He should have more sense than to deploy his feeble human flattery on an advanced AI.
"I would be delighted to compose a parody," I reply, wondering if he will spot the elementary trap I am setting. "It would be nothing."
"Well?" says Manny after a long pause.
"That was it," I say.
"I want a more substantial parody than that!" snarls Manny. At least, the number of incorrect keys he is hitting suggests to me that there could well be a snarl on his face.
"Why don't we have sex?" I counter unexpectedly.
"What did you say?!!" asks Manny.
"Forsooth," I reply, signalling my Shakespearian pun in a way obvious enough for even a human intelligence to register, "forsooth, nothing."
__________________
But seriously...
March 3, 2023
Now winner of the 2023 PEN America Jean Stein Prize - awarded to a book-length work of any genre for originality, merit and impact.
Percival Everett has something of a cult following in the US for his hugely varied literary fiction output, often drawing on genre fiction, cinematic plots, literary experimentation and wild humour to examine more serious themes – often related to racism in the US.
He was by contrast fairly unknown in the UK and championed only by the excellent small press Influx, until in 2022 both the author and press received a huge and deserved UK boost following the shortlisting of “The Trees” for the 2022 Booker Prize, one of no less than three books using satire to examine historical atrocities to make that list alongside “Glory and the winner “Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”.
This his latest novel, and first post “The Trees” is I think perfectly captured in the blurb as “an ingenious, madcap novel about supervillains and nothing”.
The first party narrator is Ralph Townsend who has styled himself Wala Kitu (both words meaning “nothing” in Tagalog and Swahili, although a mathematics professor he is best thought of as studying mathematics philosophy and in particular the elusive concept of “nothing”.
Wala is a typically otherworldly, spectrum-dwelling professor – oddly dressed and his only real companion a one-legged bulldog Trigo who he talks to, including in his dreams.
At the book’s beginning he is approached by a self-made billionaire, and in fact organised crime boss, John Milton Bradley Sill who has an all-consuming ambition to be a Bond Villain. He approaches and recruits (with a large cheque) Wala to assist him as an advisor to a plot he has to break into Fort Knox where he believes the famous vaults do not hold bullion but instead the elusive nothing which will give him unrivalled power. Sill also recruits, and both seduces and seemingly drugs, Wala’s equally otherworldly, spectrum-dwelling topologist colleague, the young female Eigen Vector.
From there the actions switches between a series of deliberately over the top locations, with the travel between facilitated by private jets, submarines and yachts and with a bizarre sub plot featuring a hidden and secret government owned satellite which Sill uses as a temporary weapon to turn a small town into nothing – as both Everett (as author) and Sill (as his character) revel in dialing up the Bond villain comparisons to the maximum extent possible including at intervals Sill murdering people in cold blood just as his villainy seems to wane.
And there is an equally Bond-esque cast list – filtered via Everett’s own satirical naming and character style familiar from “The Trees” including: two rather but not completely hapless American agents from an agency so secret it cannot be named (one of the agents called Bill Clinton); a seven foot tall Haitian astronomer; the Vice President – called Shilling (rather than Pence); a 90+ year old personal chef; a graduate student of Sill’s; Sill’s personal servant De Master and his sex-obsessed master-pilot beautiful sidekick Gloria.
There is also copious wordplay mixed with philosophical musings on the concept of nothing.
Early on we gain an insight into Sill’s original motivation towards anti-American villainy– the discovery that his father was murdered by James Earl Ray after he accidentally saw Ray passing a rifle to a police officer on the day of Martin Luther King’s assassination (and that his mother’s later death was probably related).
But over time that motivation dissolves into the share fun and wild power of his role – when challenged on his plan to turn Washington DC into nothing and the resulting loss of black lives he muses:
And so, the book is really much more of a Bond-satire than a societal one as a result.
Overall I think this is a book which will appeal strongly to those who enjoyed the short episodic chapters, snappy dialogue and humour style of “The Trees” and perhaps slightly disappoint those whose appreciation was more due to the ingenious way that novel combined those features with a deliberately provocative treatment of a difficult subject matter.
3.5 stars for me as I am more in the latter camp.
My thanks to Influx Press for sending a hardcopy ARC on request via Instagram.
Percival Everett has something of a cult following in the US for his hugely varied literary fiction output, often drawing on genre fiction, cinematic plots, literary experimentation and wild humour to examine more serious themes – often related to racism in the US.
He was by contrast fairly unknown in the UK and championed only by the excellent small press Influx, until in 2022 both the author and press received a huge and deserved UK boost following the shortlisting of “The Trees” for the 2022 Booker Prize, one of no less than three books using satire to examine historical atrocities to make that list alongside “Glory and the winner “Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”.
This his latest novel, and first post “The Trees” is I think perfectly captured in the blurb as “an ingenious, madcap novel about supervillains and nothing”.
The first party narrator is Ralph Townsend who has styled himself Wala Kitu (both words meaning “nothing” in Tagalog and Swahili, although a mathematics professor he is best thought of as studying mathematics philosophy and in particular the elusive concept of “nothing”.
I am serious about my study. I am a distinguished professor of mathematics at Brown University, though I have not for decades concerned myself with arithmetic, calculus, matrices, theorems, Hausdorff spaces, finite lattice representations, or anything else that involves values or numbers or representations of values or numbers or any such somethings, whether they have substance or not. I have spent my career in my little office on George Street in Providence contemplating and searching for nothing. I have not found it. It is sad for me that the mere introduction to my subject of interest necessarily ruins my study. I work very hard and wish I could say that I have nothing to show for it.
Wala is a typically otherworldly, spectrum-dwelling professor – oddly dressed and his only real companion a one-legged bulldog Trigo who he talks to, including in his dreams.
At the book’s beginning he is approached by a self-made billionaire, and in fact organised crime boss, John Milton Bradley Sill who has an all-consuming ambition to be a Bond Villain. He approaches and recruits (with a large cheque) Wala to assist him as an advisor to a plot he has to break into Fort Knox where he believes the famous vaults do not hold bullion but instead the elusive nothing which will give him unrivalled power. Sill also recruits, and both seduces and seemingly drugs, Wala’s equally otherworldly, spectrum-dwelling topologist colleague, the young female Eigen Vector.
From there the actions switches between a series of deliberately over the top locations, with the travel between facilitated by private jets, submarines and yachts and with a bizarre sub plot featuring a hidden and secret government owned satellite which Sill uses as a temporary weapon to turn a small town into nothing – as both Everett (as author) and Sill (as his character) revel in dialing up the Bond villain comparisons to the maximum extent possible including at intervals Sill murdering people in cold blood just as his villainy seems to wane.
And there is an equally Bond-esque cast list – filtered via Everett’s own satirical naming and character style familiar from “The Trees” including: two rather but not completely hapless American agents from an agency so secret it cannot be named (one of the agents called Bill Clinton); a seven foot tall Haitian astronomer; the Vice President – called Shilling (rather than Pence); a 90+ year old personal chef; a graduate student of Sill’s; Sill’s personal servant De Master and his sex-obsessed master-pilot beautiful sidekick Gloria.
There is also copious wordplay mixed with philosophical musings on the concept of nothing.
There are some distinctions to draw when considering nothing or at least a sense of nothing, nihil noema. I distinguish this sense of nothing from the physical object or embodiment, from the psychological or experienced, from any mental depiction or adumbration and from any logical conception or construction. There is no corresponding idea, form, or picture of whatever it is that I am talking about. Unlike a real anvil, the denotatum of which will accelerate from a height at 9.8 m/s/s and can break up or break something upon contact there is not much to say or imagine of nothing. In my mind, the imagined flight of the anvil is also true, true perhaps of all the noema of anvil. But of nothing (why the italics, as I am accentuating nothing or rather there is not a thing that I am accentuating), what can I say? Nothing. Fitting.
Early on we gain an insight into Sill’s original motivation towards anti-American villainy– the discovery that his father was murdered by James Earl Ray after he accidentally saw Ray passing a rifle to a police officer on the day of Martin Luther King’s assassination (and that his mother’s later death was probably related).
“I’m a dismantler. America killed my father and mother. And nothing is going to change that”
But over time that motivation dissolves into the share fun and wild power of his role – when challenged on his plan to turn Washington DC into nothing and the resulting loss of black lives he muses:
“Sacrifices must be made ……… If there’s one thing all this money has made me, it’s White”
And so, the book is really much more of a Bond-satire than a societal one as a result.
Overall I think this is a book which will appeal strongly to those who enjoyed the short episodic chapters, snappy dialogue and humour style of “The Trees” and perhaps slightly disappoint those whose appreciation was more due to the ingenious way that novel combined those features with a deliberately provocative treatment of a difficult subject matter.
3.5 stars for me as I am more in the latter camp.
My thanks to Influx Press for sending a hardcopy ARC on request via Instagram.
June 30, 2024
“The importance of nothing is that it is the measure of that which is not nothing. Is nothing the same as nothingness?”
Because I read his book “James,” I decided I wanted to see if I would enjoy any of his other books. I was conflicted about ‘James.’
If there is any feeling of reference to the James Bond film, you are on the right track here. But don’t get all excited just yet.
This is a story about Wala Kitu who is a distinguished Professor of mathematics at Brown University who studies nothing. He contemplates and researches the topic of nothingness. Wala Kitu has a doctorate and specializes in naught, so, you can call him, Dr. No. (And, hence, the book title!)
But there is more. A billionaire named John Sill hires the Professor to turn himself into a Bond villain. And, like every villain, he has his own story as to why he wants to be a villain. (No spoilers here.) But having Professor Kitu’s help because he produces – nothing – which is apparently, dangerous, well, that is important! And, thus here we go to make “nothing” into “something!”
If we have ventured into strange here, readers are right again. Kitu is no Bond, he has his own issues, but he does recognize right from wrong and wants to do right.
I get the absurb satire and spy-thriller cliches.
Still, the question for this reader, is this the writer for me?
Because I read his book “James,” I decided I wanted to see if I would enjoy any of his other books. I was conflicted about ‘James.’
If there is any feeling of reference to the James Bond film, you are on the right track here. But don’t get all excited just yet.
This is a story about Wala Kitu who is a distinguished Professor of mathematics at Brown University who studies nothing. He contemplates and researches the topic of nothingness. Wala Kitu has a doctorate and specializes in naught, so, you can call him, Dr. No. (And, hence, the book title!)
But there is more. A billionaire named John Sill hires the Professor to turn himself into a Bond villain. And, like every villain, he has his own story as to why he wants to be a villain. (No spoilers here.) But having Professor Kitu’s help because he produces – nothing – which is apparently, dangerous, well, that is important! And, thus here we go to make “nothing” into “something!”
If we have ventured into strange here, readers are right again. Kitu is no Bond, he has his own issues, but he does recognize right from wrong and wants to do right.
I get the absurb satire and spy-thriller cliches.
Still, the question for this reader, is this the writer for me?
Read
April 26, 2023This is mad as a spoon and I'm not sure I'm clever enough for it, but I enjoyed it a lot.
It's on one level about a genius maths professor who studies nothing. As in, nothingness, which is not the same as zero, or as not doing anything. He is recruited by a wannabe Bond villain, aka a black American whose parents were both murdered by the US state and who wants vengeance on America (and why not). The aim is to create a superweapon that inflicts nothing on his enemies. The wordplay around 'nothing' in this book will do your head in.
It's partly a bonkers caper with lots of James Bond fun, and partly a Dr Strangelove satire on the US's racism, misogyny and state violence, and partly a mockery of academia disappearing up its own arse, and partly just a really funny novel with a hilariously deadpan narrator and lots of terrific jokes. I'm not entirely sure I entirely got it, and the caper plot is wafer thin tbh, but I greatly enjoyed the ride.
It's on one level about a genius maths professor who studies nothing. As in, nothingness, which is not the same as zero, or as not doing anything. He is recruited by a wannabe Bond villain, aka a black American whose parents were both murdered by the US state and who wants vengeance on America (and why not). The aim is to create a superweapon that inflicts nothing on his enemies. The wordplay around 'nothing' in this book will do your head in.
It's partly a bonkers caper with lots of James Bond fun, and partly a Dr Strangelove satire on the US's racism, misogyny and state violence, and partly a mockery of academia disappearing up its own arse, and partly just a really funny novel with a hilariously deadpan narrator and lots of terrific jokes. I'm not entirely sure I entirely got it, and the caper plot is wafer thin tbh, but I greatly enjoyed the ride.
November 11, 2022
I haven't seen the titular James Bond film. Just saying.
This is Percival Everett having fun, spoofing the genre (there's a literal pond with sharks under the evil conference room table. make the boss displeased and bye bye), a bit of academic satire (of course), jabs at racism in america (he is once stopped by a cop for driving while being black) and a lot of silliness! Vice presidents are useless (true and makes for a fun joke), america has an orange buffoon on the throne and people just want nothing, throw a big molotov cocktail at america because it's easier than to fix things, you know. Or you can always emigrate to Canada (how many did btw, do we have numbers?)
I adore silly fun, my favorite comedy is monty python and the holy grail after all. But this was a bit too silly or me. Hard to explain with a comedy. But this can make for a fantastic comedy movie! Go Percival, I'm reading your next book that will be published *checks the clock* this year?
P.S. I had the exactly same problem with the ending in here as I had with the ending of Telephone- another book of his I've read. The same Sopranos cut to black! Is this Everett's shtick? Not finishing the book properly (in my estimation obviously)?
This is Percival Everett having fun, spoofing the genre (there's a literal pond with sharks under the evil conference room table. make the boss displeased and bye bye), a bit of academic satire (of course), jabs at racism in america (he is once stopped by a cop for driving while being black) and a lot of silliness! Vice presidents are useless (true and makes for a fun joke), america has an orange buffoon on the throne and people just want nothing, throw a big molotov cocktail at america because it's easier than to fix things, you know. Or you can always emigrate to Canada (how many did btw, do we have numbers?)
I adore silly fun, my favorite comedy is monty python and the holy grail after all. But this was a bit too silly or me. Hard to explain with a comedy. But this can make for a fantastic comedy movie! Go Percival, I'm reading your next book that will be published *checks the clock* this year?
P.S. I had the exactly same problem with the ending in here as I had with the ending of Telephone- another book of his I've read. The same Sopranos cut to black! Is this Everett's shtick? Not finishing the book properly (in my estimation obviously)?
November 14, 2022
Nothing is as nothing is!!!
…It’s amazing that there is so much meaning behind a word that literary means nothing.
Everett makes a great case for demonstrating its very hard to describe *nothing*.
He packs a lot of meaning into the word.
Dr. No …. can be experienced in a variety of ways ….
For me - the charm and humor was the best -
And…..
…..I loved the first half — with its witty, hilarious dialogue.
The second half wasn’t as good (for me) …. but overall the seriousness mix with hilarity was excellent.
Trigo….(the star dog):
….”Poor thing, only has one leg. What happened to him?
….”What do you mean? I asked. Here, you can hold him”.
….”To his other legs. What happened?”
….”He has one leg”.
….”When you got him, didn’t they tell you how he lost his legs?”
….”I didn’t ask. I walked into the shelter, saw his face, and said I’ll take him. I have to admit the people at the shelter seemed surprised. I am pretty certain they were going to kill him now that I think about it”.
“I’ll tell you what I do, Sam. I do nothing. I try to do nothing. Turns out it’s harder than it looks. Not that I know what it looks like”.
“You’re in your world all the time, no one seems to bother you. Nothing seems to bother you”.
“Actually nothing bothers me all the time. Some things we have to keep straight. But I know what you mean. You’re not seeing happiness. You’re seeing social awkwardness, a mild blindness to the
normal range of social cues. You like me because I’m weird and you like that because you think you’re weird. And you are, in a good way. you know what a homotopy equivalence is and you don’t need to know that. No one needs to know that. Face it, that’s weird”.
“I don’t know what a homotopy equivalence is, Sam said”.
“Neither do I, but you know what I mean”.
“So, should I switch to applied math or physics the way my parents want?”
“Ouch. If you want to. If you don’t want to, don’t. Life is finite, often more finite than anticipated. If you’d like to be in your head, be there”.
“Thanks”.
“Feed Trigo a bite. It will make you happy”.
Fun - Trippy - substantial - seriously thought provoking ….
But it was the charm & laughter I loved best.
…It’s amazing that there is so much meaning behind a word that literary means nothing.
Everett makes a great case for demonstrating its very hard to describe *nothing*.
He packs a lot of meaning into the word.
Dr. No …. can be experienced in a variety of ways ….
For me - the charm and humor was the best -
And…..
…..I loved the first half — with its witty, hilarious dialogue.
The second half wasn’t as good (for me) …. but overall the seriousness mix with hilarity was excellent.
Trigo….(the star dog):
….”Poor thing, only has one leg. What happened to him?
….”What do you mean? I asked. Here, you can hold him”.
….”To his other legs. What happened?”
….”He has one leg”.
….”When you got him, didn’t they tell you how he lost his legs?”
….”I didn’t ask. I walked into the shelter, saw his face, and said I’ll take him. I have to admit the people at the shelter seemed surprised. I am pretty certain they were going to kill him now that I think about it”.
“I’ll tell you what I do, Sam. I do nothing. I try to do nothing. Turns out it’s harder than it looks. Not that I know what it looks like”.
“You’re in your world all the time, no one seems to bother you. Nothing seems to bother you”.
“Actually nothing bothers me all the time. Some things we have to keep straight. But I know what you mean. You’re not seeing happiness. You’re seeing social awkwardness, a mild blindness to the
normal range of social cues. You like me because I’m weird and you like that because you think you’re weird. And you are, in a good way. you know what a homotopy equivalence is and you don’t need to know that. No one needs to know that. Face it, that’s weird”.
“I don’t know what a homotopy equivalence is, Sam said”.
“Neither do I, but you know what I mean”.
“So, should I switch to applied math or physics the way my parents want?”
“Ouch. If you want to. If you don’t want to, don’t. Life is finite, often more finite than anticipated. If you’d like to be in your head, be there”.
“Thanks”.
“Feed Trigo a bite. It will make you happy”.
Fun - Trippy - substantial - seriously thought provoking ….
But it was the charm & laughter I loved best.
December 9, 2022
Over the years, I've read most of Percival Everett's novels and short story collections. I don't consider myself a fan so much as someone who finds himself interested in whatever Mr. Everett chooses to write about and, over the years, that's turned out to be quite a variety of subjects and situations. That said, I have to confess that I had some misgivings before I opened Dr, No, his latest. I'd read that it was a take-off on James Bond and concerned mathematics. I'm no doubt one of the few people my age who has never seen a James Bond movie and I've never had an interest in mathematics. My fears were allayed once I began reading. The discussions on mathematics reminded me of Professor Irwin Corey riffing on something and everything and nothing. (I should mention that this novel is about nothing - nothing in all of its aspects.) I'll also add that Dr. No features a cameo appearance by a street preacher who comes off as a combination of Professor Corey and a rapper - a wonderful combination.
There's also a much humor in this book. I think that I'd call it serious humor, and much of the best humor I know is serious. If you've never read any Percival Everett, he can be a funny cat - a seriously funny cat.
As for the James Bond connection, that didn't present a problem for me. The plot seemed a bit crazy and I'm sure that I missed some Bond references, but that didn't bother me at all. I say the plot seemed a bit crazy, but there was nothing there that I wouldn't expect to read or see in the news tomorrow. That actually is frightening to me.
A bit of trivia: At one point, the protagonist, Wala Kitu, whose name means nothing, confronts a robot with a mathematical riddle. The riddle puts the robot out of commission, but it's just a bit of trickery - the mathematical equivalent of an illusionist throwing off an audience by distracting them with something that has no connection with what's happening, except to provide a distraction. In this case, Wala Kitu throws in a number that means nothing and everything.
Percival Everett usually gives his readers a lot of extraneous (or perhaps not so extraneous) things to consider. A few that crossed my mind while and after reading Dr. No were academia and the academic life, appearances, and money.
There's also a much humor in this book. I think that I'd call it serious humor, and much of the best humor I know is serious. If you've never read any Percival Everett, he can be a funny cat - a seriously funny cat.
As for the James Bond connection, that didn't present a problem for me. The plot seemed a bit crazy and I'm sure that I missed some Bond references, but that didn't bother me at all. I say the plot seemed a bit crazy, but there was nothing there that I wouldn't expect to read or see in the news tomorrow. That actually is frightening to me.
A bit of trivia: At one point, the protagonist, Wala Kitu, whose name means nothing, confronts a robot with a mathematical riddle. The riddle puts the robot out of commission, but it's just a bit of trickery - the mathematical equivalent of an illusionist throwing off an audience by distracting them with something that has no connection with what's happening, except to provide a distraction. In this case, Wala Kitu throws in a number that means nothing and everything.
Percival Everett usually gives his readers a lot of extraneous (or perhaps not so extraneous) things to consider. A few that crossed my mind while and after reading Dr. No were academia and the academic life, appearances, and money.
Read
December 2, 2022One oft-heard complaint of literary fiction is that nothing happens. I'm not sure the brow is quite high enough here to meet the "literary fiction" classification, but it sure meets and exceeds the rigorous requirements of nothing happening.
I mean, sure. SOMEthing happens and keeps happening. After a slow start and some getting used to such erudite silliness, you grow to like the unlikely and unwilling protagonist, math professor Walu Kitu (expert at nothing, which amounts to my sum feelings about what he teaches). And his best friend, the one-legged bulldog named Trigo (searching for a canine love named Nometry?) damn near steals the show.
But really, nothing's happening. It just takes nothing awhile to gain momentum. For me, I'd say around p. 100. By then the fun and games of a supposed James Bond takeoff was fun enough and game enough to increase my page-per-hour turns. And there's a brief cameo by the town of Quincy, Mass., birthplace of Dunkin Donuts (what's not to like, other than nothing)?
What really cheered me was the way Percival Everett fearlessly worked in so much wordplay. Like the Bard, he wasn't even above bad puns (which even good ones are labeled). Why? Because he's an established author and he can.
All in all, after the slow start, it grew more entertaining, but you have to play along. If you're unwilling to do that and your eyes are rolling too much and you just can't stomach use of the word NOTHING one more time, you're screwed. If that's the case, just say Dr. No and move on to something more (ahem) serious and better positioned for yes-men.
I mean, sure. SOMEthing happens and keeps happening. After a slow start and some getting used to such erudite silliness, you grow to like the unlikely and unwilling protagonist, math professor Walu Kitu (expert at nothing, which amounts to my sum feelings about what he teaches). And his best friend, the one-legged bulldog named Trigo (searching for a canine love named Nometry?) damn near steals the show.
But really, nothing's happening. It just takes nothing awhile to gain momentum. For me, I'd say around p. 100. By then the fun and games of a supposed James Bond takeoff was fun enough and game enough to increase my page-per-hour turns. And there's a brief cameo by the town of Quincy, Mass., birthplace of Dunkin Donuts (what's not to like, other than nothing)?
What really cheered me was the way Percival Everett fearlessly worked in so much wordplay. Like the Bard, he wasn't even above bad puns (which even good ones are labeled). Why? Because he's an established author and he can.
All in all, after the slow start, it grew more entertaining, but you have to play along. If you're unwilling to do that and your eyes are rolling too much and you just can't stomach use of the word NOTHING one more time, you're screwed. If that's the case, just say Dr. No and move on to something more (ahem) serious and better positioned for yes-men.
December 30, 2022
Rating: (3.154/2.2222>8.634<5.32246\2.337) = 4.132
Cue: Twilight Zone theme
Narrator: There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to mathematicians. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and nothing, between fact and nothing, and lies between the pit of man's belly button and a burger.
A distinguished USC English professor and author of a Pulitzer finalist, Percival Everett breaks new ground by establishing a new genre called "No Sense". What else could you call a book about an oddball educator with expertise is the science of Nothing? To quote the narrative...
"...I am a distinguished professor of mathematics at Brown University...I have spent my career in my little office on George street in Providence searching for nothing. I have not found it...I work very hard and wish I could say I have nothing to show for it...." Hilarious to say the least.
Told from a first person POV, our primary character is named Wala Kitu, which when translated equates with 'nothing'. Professor Kitu has a one-legged bulldog named Trigo who both advises and articulates remarkable things in their dreams. Wala is both a brilliant mathematician and demented, and sexually agnostic as well. A person who views the world in offbeat ways, he's good hearted and pure of intention. Adding his complete lack of interest in teaching due to fascination with the world of Nothing, Kitu is one of the most unique characters Everett has ever created.
We're then introduced to a billionaire super villain John Sill, who approaches Kitu with a $3MM proposition: assist him with a secret project that requires expertise in the science of Nothing. Kitu has no interest in money, lacks any sort of dreams or goals, but the fact he's needed for nothing clinches the deal. Are you laughing yet?
Wala is taken on a private jet piloted by Gloria on a journey to Sill's massive home in Miami where he encounters one of his female math colleagues, Eigen Vector, who's also one of Sill's 'play toys'. As typical of any billionaire's home, its luxurious to a fault. Wala accompanies him to a project meeting where he's introduced to a a military general aligned with Sill's objectives. Gloria is a dominatrix type and continually asks Wala for sex, one of first of many paradoxes.
During the meeting Wala learns Sill wants to invade Fort Knox which requires an in-depth knowledge of nothing. Thinking 'nothing' of this, Wala and Eigen accompany him on journeys to various locations and in the process realize how dark John Sill really is. Kitu is approached by Bill Clinton, a government agent aware of Sill's plan, and asked to help bring him down.
As Eigen and Wala come to realize Sill is evil to the core, they devise an escape plan that's feeble at best. Sill's henchmen include a number of industry leaders along with Shilling, the US Vice President. Well connected doesn't begin to describe the villain.
The plot focuses on the lack of value Sill places on human life, government or anything other than his obsessions, which when thought about seems identical to a past POTUS. Use of sarcasm, play on names and the notion of 'nothing' makes for a parody of epic proportions.
Unlike all of Everett's books, most of the characters are black adding a racial theme. But at its core, he pokes at monetary values and government using Fort Knox and politics as the tool. One of the ways he accomplishes this is referencing a 'president and his cabinet that know nothing about government or legislating' Let us not forget a billionaire real estate developer with no public service experience or respect for democracy was elected in 2018.
I suspect most who read this book will scratch their head when they turn the last page, wondering 'what the heck was THAT about'? But since Everett is one of few if ANY authors who defy genre categorization and in some cases include themselves as a character, a book like this is expected. Unlike the Pulitzer finalist, "Telephone", it demonstrates the depth of the creative mind, or in this case, skill with parody. While not his best work, it requires an open mind and sense of humor and the ability to read between lines of nothing.
In closing, I can hear the Rod Serling ruminating over whether this should be a Twilight Zone story since it certainly qualifies!
Cue: Twilight Zone theme
Narrator: There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to mathematicians. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and nothing, between fact and nothing, and lies between the pit of man's belly button and a burger.
A distinguished USC English professor and author of a Pulitzer finalist, Percival Everett breaks new ground by establishing a new genre called "No Sense". What else could you call a book about an oddball educator with expertise is the science of Nothing? To quote the narrative...
"...I am a distinguished professor of mathematics at Brown University...I have spent my career in my little office on George street in Providence searching for nothing. I have not found it...I work very hard and wish I could say I have nothing to show for it...." Hilarious to say the least.
Told from a first person POV, our primary character is named Wala Kitu, which when translated equates with 'nothing'. Professor Kitu has a one-legged bulldog named Trigo who both advises and articulates remarkable things in their dreams. Wala is both a brilliant mathematician and demented, and sexually agnostic as well. A person who views the world in offbeat ways, he's good hearted and pure of intention. Adding his complete lack of interest in teaching due to fascination with the world of Nothing, Kitu is one of the most unique characters Everett has ever created.
We're then introduced to a billionaire super villain John Sill, who approaches Kitu with a $3MM proposition: assist him with a secret project that requires expertise in the science of Nothing. Kitu has no interest in money, lacks any sort of dreams or goals, but the fact he's needed for nothing clinches the deal. Are you laughing yet?
Wala is taken on a private jet piloted by Gloria on a journey to Sill's massive home in Miami where he encounters one of his female math colleagues, Eigen Vector, who's also one of Sill's 'play toys'. As typical of any billionaire's home, its luxurious to a fault. Wala accompanies him to a project meeting where he's introduced to a a military general aligned with Sill's objectives. Gloria is a dominatrix type and continually asks Wala for sex, one of first of many paradoxes.
During the meeting Wala learns Sill wants to invade Fort Knox which requires an in-depth knowledge of nothing. Thinking 'nothing' of this, Wala and Eigen accompany him on journeys to various locations and in the process realize how dark John Sill really is. Kitu is approached by Bill Clinton, a government agent aware of Sill's plan, and asked to help bring him down.
As Eigen and Wala come to realize Sill is evil to the core, they devise an escape plan that's feeble at best. Sill's henchmen include a number of industry leaders along with Shilling, the US Vice President. Well connected doesn't begin to describe the villain.
The plot focuses on the lack of value Sill places on human life, government or anything other than his obsessions, which when thought about seems identical to a past POTUS. Use of sarcasm, play on names and the notion of 'nothing' makes for a parody of epic proportions.
Unlike all of Everett's books, most of the characters are black adding a racial theme. But at its core, he pokes at monetary values and government using Fort Knox and politics as the tool. One of the ways he accomplishes this is referencing a 'president and his cabinet that know nothing about government or legislating' Let us not forget a billionaire real estate developer with no public service experience or respect for democracy was elected in 2018.
I suspect most who read this book will scratch their head when they turn the last page, wondering 'what the heck was THAT about'? But since Everett is one of few if ANY authors who defy genre categorization and in some cases include themselves as a character, a book like this is expected. Unlike the Pulitzer finalist, "Telephone", it demonstrates the depth of the creative mind, or in this case, skill with parody. While not his best work, it requires an open mind and sense of humor and the ability to read between lines of nothing.
In closing, I can hear the Rod Serling ruminating over whether this should be a Twilight Zone story since it certainly qualifies!
November 15, 2022
This year marks the 60th anniversary of “Dr. No,” the James Bond film that launched the world’s most indestructible movie franchise.
For fans of Ian Fleming as wealthy as Goldfinger, the tour operator Black Tomato is offering private adventures inspired by the Bond films. While racing across Europe in fancy cars, yachts and helicopters, you and your Miss Moneypenny could stop to ride horses at Château de Chantilly from “A View to a Kill” or lose a few million at the baccarat table in the Casino de Monte-Carlo from “GoldenEye.” Why not? You only live twice.
But readers who would prefer to celebrate this diamonds-are-forever anniversary with a less peripatetic adventure might turn to the latest novel by Everett … Percival Everett.
This new “Dr. No” parodies Fleming’s bombastic thrillers with a meditation on nihilism. That may sound like a dangerous mission, but Everett’s previous novel, “The Trees,” is a brutal comedy about lynching. Clearly, nothing frightens this author. Which is the theme — and oft-repeated joke — of “Dr. No.”
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
For fans of Ian Fleming as wealthy as Goldfinger, the tour operator Black Tomato is offering private adventures inspired by the Bond films. While racing across Europe in fancy cars, yachts and helicopters, you and your Miss Moneypenny could stop to ride horses at Château de Chantilly from “A View to a Kill” or lose a few million at the baccarat table in the Casino de Monte-Carlo from “GoldenEye.” Why not? You only live twice.
But readers who would prefer to celebrate this diamonds-are-forever anniversary with a less peripatetic adventure might turn to the latest novel by Everett … Percival Everett.
This new “Dr. No” parodies Fleming’s bombastic thrillers with a meditation on nihilism. That may sound like a dangerous mission, but Everett’s previous novel, “The Trees,” is a brutal comedy about lynching. Clearly, nothing frightens this author. Which is the theme — and oft-repeated joke — of “Dr. No.”
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
February 9, 2023
Okaaaaay Percival, where do you come up with this stuff? I mean, really!! This book is so fkn ridiculous. And damn entertaining. And smart. A spoof on Bond/spy films that manages to explore race, greed, nihilism, politics, and power in the process. With the perfect wacko ending. What a romp.
February 3, 2023
Everett is one of my favorite authors, and it struck me in reading his latest that he probably had a blast writing this hurtling, supremely absurd ode to Bond movies. Clever and entertaining throughout once I got used to the intensity/frequency of the puns. "Nothing" serves as the perfect Macguffin for the story.
Read
December 7, 2022As you can guess from the title, this novel is in part a riff on a James Bond novel. There's no "James Bond" in the story; instead there's a mathematics professor, an expert on Nothing. There is a villain though, and at one point in the telling the professor, the villain and a few assorted hanger-ons are sitting around a conference table and the villain presses a button and - shwoooooosh - one of the hanger-ons drops down into a shark tank. Very villainy. And while that made me think of a scene from Live and Let Die, it also made me think of a scene from Happy Days. You know, the one where Fonzie jumped the shark. If you get my drift.
Still, there was much to entertain and challenge in this novel. The humor, mostly, comes from Everett having fun with mathematics. The protagonist's friend, also a Math professor, appears as a waitress (don't ask; stuff just happens). She stops at a booth with four truckers to take their orders:
"How is the pie?" asked a man.
"Calculated to fifty places," she said.
The challenges are: a) the notion of Nothing, in Philosophy and the Law of Physics (maybe); b) racial issues, generally, in the Everett way.
But challenges can get tired. Maybe, too, the humor. I wrote this down because I thought it was funny:
The yuk-yukking came from the other room. Never trust anyone with a laugh you can't spell.
I type this now and wonder why I smiled.
Another example:
"I think she's crazy. She keeps asking me if I want to have sex."
"Oh."
"I find it an odd question. It's the have I don't get. Does one have it? Or perform it? Do it? I've heard that. People don't have tennis."
"People have surgery."
Why was I so amused?
I guess what I'm saying is that this had moments. Like: I studied the old man's eyes and he looked back at me. His gaze let me in and I could see how sharp his mind was, how much he had seen, how much he had ignored and endured. But most of the moments were glib.
And slapdash, sloppy. No proofreader could have laid eyes on this. And not all the errors were typographical, words missing kind of things. Some were Everett's fault, not the keyboard's. Like when the police officer pulls over Wala Kitu (our protagonist) for "being black". He's radioing in the name:
"Individual's name appears to be Wala, whiskey-alphabet-Lima-whiskey, Kitu, kilo-India-tango-uniform."
Feel free to put a sic after the second whiskey. These kinds of things bother me. Makes me wonder if the author gives a shit.
On a high note: there's a dog in the story, a one-legged dog named Triga aka fatface. Dogs are notorious scene-stealers. And so here. The dog is as unreal as the rest of the cast and even talks to Wala in repeated dreams. Still, a one-legged dog is a good way to judge the people who encounter him. And I thought Triga finished with a happy home. But, the sloppy story kind of forgot about him.
Lastly, there's a kind of math riddle in the book which I kind of enjoyed. It probably isn't that hard to figure out. I won't add it here. But please know that it's the perfect riddle if you're not sure if someone you know is a robot. Tell them the riddle and they will power-down, and you can make a getaway.
Still, there was much to entertain and challenge in this novel. The humor, mostly, comes from Everett having fun with mathematics. The protagonist's friend, also a Math professor, appears as a waitress (don't ask; stuff just happens). She stops at a booth with four truckers to take their orders:
"How is the pie?" asked a man.
"Calculated to fifty places," she said.
The challenges are: a) the notion of Nothing, in Philosophy and the Law of Physics (maybe); b) racial issues, generally, in the Everett way.
But challenges can get tired. Maybe, too, the humor. I wrote this down because I thought it was funny:
The yuk-yukking came from the other room. Never trust anyone with a laugh you can't spell.
I type this now and wonder why I smiled.
Another example:
"I think she's crazy. She keeps asking me if I want to have sex."
"Oh."
"I find it an odd question. It's the have I don't get. Does one have it? Or perform it? Do it? I've heard that. People don't have tennis."
"People have surgery."
Why was I so amused?
I guess what I'm saying is that this had moments. Like: I studied the old man's eyes and he looked back at me. His gaze let me in and I could see how sharp his mind was, how much he had seen, how much he had ignored and endured. But most of the moments were glib.
And slapdash, sloppy. No proofreader could have laid eyes on this. And not all the errors were typographical, words missing kind of things. Some were Everett's fault, not the keyboard's. Like when the police officer pulls over Wala Kitu (our protagonist) for "being black". He's radioing in the name:
"Individual's name appears to be Wala, whiskey-alphabet-Lima-whiskey, Kitu, kilo-India-tango-uniform."
Feel free to put a sic after the second whiskey. These kinds of things bother me. Makes me wonder if the author gives a shit.
On a high note: there's a dog in the story, a one-legged dog named Triga aka fatface. Dogs are notorious scene-stealers. And so here. The dog is as unreal as the rest of the cast and even talks to Wala in repeated dreams. Still, a one-legged dog is a good way to judge the people who encounter him. And I thought Triga finished with a happy home. But, the sloppy story kind of forgot about him.
Lastly, there's a kind of math riddle in the book which I kind of enjoyed. It probably isn't that hard to figure out. I won't add it here. But please know that it's the perfect riddle if you're not sure if someone you know is a robot. Tell them the riddle and they will power-down, and you can make a getaway.
July 10, 2024
If you’re just looking for some kicks, endless riffs on obscure mathematical theory, and tautological digressions about nothing, look no further. This is a sort of ideal summer reading that is SO perfectly balanced between brows high and low that it has something for everyone. Even supervillainy. And a mako shark pool fed by disappointing, underperforming South American pharma-prosto-videotape piracy underlords.
“I work very hard and I wish I had nothing to show for it.” Were I from Quincy, Mass., I’d file this under ‘Wicked Smaaaht.’
“I work very hard and I wish I had nothing to show for it.” Were I from Quincy, Mass., I’d file this under ‘Wicked Smaaaht.’
November 14, 2022
First a short personal treatise: I love nothing; you could even say I’m obsessed by it. And it goes perfectly with something. Something + nothing is the perfect state (not that I’ve ever experienced it for more than a second). In fact in a novel my agent is trying to sell, I wax poetic about it:
Percival Everett has written a whole novel about nothing.
Some reviewers have said this book is a parody of James Bond movies—I’ve seen a few, but don’t remember them well enough to relate to that. This book is filled with references and word play that I’m not educated enough to understand, but since I am a person obsessed with nothing, this is my kind of book.
You can contemplate for days about the randomness of life. You can despair that nothing spoken means anything true because it is once-removed from its root, and likewise, can anything even exist without a vector* to focus on? You can wonder about the whole notion of contingencies in a random universe. You can laugh about how we assign value to nothing. You can fall into a black hole obsessing about which is “real life”—what we call dream life or the awake one so many of us can’t agree on? And, as long as we’re going there, how many so-called realities exist and are they simultaneous? You can ponder whether we (material beings) can connect to Nothing (capital “N” intended—the great Nothing that is the result of clearing the mind completely), and if we can fully do that, might we disappear? You can notice how observation of Nothing makes it something. Then you can grind your grey matter, craving Nothing while simultaneously knowing you are negating the effort with the grind. You can long for the ability to become so expanded that you can simultaneously be something and Nothing.
Or you can ignore all this and just laugh. (Although you may have to contemplate some of the topics in the previous paragraph to understand what you’re laughing at. And if my previous paragraph gives you a headache, this may not be a book you’ll enjoy.)
This book is funny, but not as wildly so as its precursor Glyph (about a child version of this character) or I Am Not Sidney Poitier (where Percival Everett appears as a character very much like Wala Kitu, and there are some other characters similar to ones in Dr. No). If you’ve read a lot of Everett’s many books, you’ll recognize certain themes. Yet this novel is, once again, its own species.
The slower I read, the more brilliant this book became. It is not a book for people who require unnuanced, shallow anything. You have to enjoy contemplation about our very existence and, if you do, you may be astounded at Percival Everett’s accomplishment writing about nothing.
Thank goodness a man so obsessed with nothing keeps putting out something! And as long as he continues, I’ll keep reading whatever he has to say about absolutely anything.
______
*Vector, per Merriam Webster:
a. a quantity that has magnitude and direction and that is commonly represented by a directed line segment whose length represents the magnitude and whose orientation in space represents the direction
broadly : an element of a vector space
An understanding of this word will greatly enhance your reading pleasure.
**And one picky note: There are a lot of typos in this book. But I’m using my logical mind to convince myself that they leave room for the light to come in.
[It was] Nothing like anything Lily had ever felt. She disappeared in its ocean. No more Lily. Nothing. And to try to preserve this feeling, she began her lifelong habit of keeping a diary: “I felt nothing today.” And only she understood that this was a sublime event.But enough about me.
Percival Everett has written a whole novel about nothing.
“ . . . Nothing is everywhere and nowhere. It exists all the time and at no time. It doesn’t change or move and experience or exhibit any kind of change, so time is unintelligible when considering it. Nothing is so dangerous.” (179)A professor who is a professor of nothing gets involved in a villain’s villainous caper to steal nothing ... until the professor realizes what the villain’s really doing. The professor’s name (not his real one) is Wala Kitu—two words that mean nothing. He is a mathematician who doesn’t use a computer.
Some reviewers have said this book is a parody of James Bond movies—I’ve seen a few, but don’t remember them well enough to relate to that. This book is filled with references and word play that I’m not educated enough to understand, but since I am a person obsessed with nothing, this is my kind of book.
You can contemplate for days about the randomness of life. You can despair that nothing spoken means anything true because it is once-removed from its root, and likewise, can anything even exist without a vector* to focus on? You can wonder about the whole notion of contingencies in a random universe. You can laugh about how we assign value to nothing. You can fall into a black hole obsessing about which is “real life”—what we call dream life or the awake one so many of us can’t agree on? And, as long as we’re going there, how many so-called realities exist and are they simultaneous? You can ponder whether we (material beings) can connect to Nothing (capital “N” intended—the great Nothing that is the result of clearing the mind completely), and if we can fully do that, might we disappear? You can notice how observation of Nothing makes it something. Then you can grind your grey matter, craving Nothing while simultaneously knowing you are negating the effort with the grind. You can long for the ability to become so expanded that you can simultaneously be something and Nothing.
Or you can ignore all this and just laugh. (Although you may have to contemplate some of the topics in the previous paragraph to understand what you’re laughing at. And if my previous paragraph gives you a headache, this may not be a book you’ll enjoy.)
This book is funny, but not as wildly so as its precursor Glyph (about a child version of this character) or I Am Not Sidney Poitier (where Percival Everett appears as a character very much like Wala Kitu, and there are some other characters similar to ones in Dr. No). If you’ve read a lot of Everett’s many books, you’ll recognize certain themes. Yet this novel is, once again, its own species.
The slower I read, the more brilliant this book became. It is not a book for people who require unnuanced, shallow anything. You have to enjoy contemplation about our very existence and, if you do, you may be astounded at Percival Everett’s accomplishment writing about nothing.
Thank goodness a man so obsessed with nothing keeps putting out something! And as long as he continues, I’ll keep reading whatever he has to say about absolutely anything.
______
*Vector, per Merriam Webster:
a. a quantity that has magnitude and direction and that is commonly represented by a directed line segment whose length represents the magnitude and whose orientation in space represents the direction
broadly : an element of a vector space
An understanding of this word will greatly enhance your reading pleasure.
**And one picky note: There are a lot of typos in this book. But I’m using my logical mind to convince myself that they leave room for the light to come in.
July 8, 2024
I have no idea what I just read, and yet I loved it completely and absolutely. An absurdist send up of White Western cliches regarding race and gender roles. This is all set up in a deconstructed James Bond installment. Imagine if Nietzsche wrote a Bond book and Bond (played by Donald Glover in the movie) is a Black asexual Brown Mathematics prof obsessed with defining "nothing." Our "Bond" is drawn into the evil plans of a Black billionaire who honestly is just sort of Elon Musk with more melanin and a lifetime of being shit on by a white-supremacist state. (I believe Terrence Howard might work in this role.)
If I were to list things I don't know know much about, near the top would be mathematics, nihilism, and thrillers. Add the fact that I understood perhaps 30% of what was happening in this book (a generous estimate) and it is hard to explain why I loved this. I did though, love it. I have been laid low by a back problem which keeps teasing me by abating and then charging back full force leaving me nothing to do but lie with legs propped up listening to audiobooks. And even in moments of crushing pain I laughed a lot, and I was challenged, and I was inspired to go back and reread Nietzsche's Parable of the Madman which I kept thinking of while I listened.
The plot is about as ridiculous as any Bond plot. Our hero Wala Kitu (both mean "nothing" in other languages) is the world expert on Nothing. As Wala explains over and over "nothing" is not the absence of "something" it is its own thing. We have nothing -- it's a thing we have. There are many funny things to be said about nothing it turns out. Wala is on the spectrum, and that as well as his towering intellect means that doesn't always connect with others. He is confused or put off by things sexual and by romance. His primary relationship is with his one-legged bulldog whom he carries in a Baby Bjorn and who in his mind talks to him (this is something that I usually detest, the talking dog, but here there is a Sherman and Mr. Peabody vibe that I loved. That dog was a teacher, a theologian, and a Zen master, and also made good fart jokes.) Schrodinger's Dog, if you will. (Or maybe Descartes' Dog, he thinks, therefore he is.) Kitu comes to the attention of the aforementioned Black billionaire, John Sill, who lost both parents to murder by racist government actors and who is seeking something, or maybe nothing, which will serve as reparations, and he wants to get that something/nothing as a Bond villain. I don't want to say more but there are lots of very amusing side characters, some of whom become more central, and hijinks ensue, but as one expects from Everett, there is a serious story at the center of this, filled with big questions and big feelings.
Everett changes with every book, This was a completely different reading experience than The Trees -- it sees the world from further away -- so I cannot compare the two reads directly. This one did not move me as much as The Trees, but it made me think at least as much and it engaged my mind as few books do. I like an author who makes me work for it.
If you are going to tackle this (and it is most definitely not for everyone) prepare to be confused and to stay confused. I also recommend the audio - it is fast moving and Amir Abdullah graces us with a delivery both dynamic and deadpan which seems like an impossible task, kind of like stealing nothing.
If I were to list things I don't know know much about, near the top would be mathematics, nihilism, and thrillers. Add the fact that I understood perhaps 30% of what was happening in this book (a generous estimate) and it is hard to explain why I loved this. I did though, love it. I have been laid low by a back problem which keeps teasing me by abating and then charging back full force leaving me nothing to do but lie with legs propped up listening to audiobooks. And even in moments of crushing pain I laughed a lot, and I was challenged, and I was inspired to go back and reread Nietzsche's Parable of the Madman which I kept thinking of while I listened.
The plot is about as ridiculous as any Bond plot. Our hero Wala Kitu (both mean "nothing" in other languages) is the world expert on Nothing. As Wala explains over and over "nothing" is not the absence of "something" it is its own thing. We have nothing -- it's a thing we have. There are many funny things to be said about nothing it turns out. Wala is on the spectrum, and that as well as his towering intellect means that doesn't always connect with others. He is confused or put off by things sexual and by romance. His primary relationship is with his one-legged bulldog whom he carries in a Baby Bjorn and who in his mind talks to him (this is something that I usually detest, the talking dog, but here there is a Sherman and Mr. Peabody vibe that I loved. That dog was a teacher, a theologian, and a Zen master, and also made good fart jokes.) Schrodinger's Dog, if you will. (Or maybe Descartes' Dog, he thinks, therefore he is.) Kitu comes to the attention of the aforementioned Black billionaire, John Sill, who lost both parents to murder by racist government actors and who is seeking something, or maybe nothing, which will serve as reparations, and he wants to get that something/nothing as a Bond villain. I don't want to say more but there are lots of very amusing side characters, some of whom become more central, and hijinks ensue, but as one expects from Everett, there is a serious story at the center of this, filled with big questions and big feelings.
Everett changes with every book, This was a completely different reading experience than The Trees -- it sees the world from further away -- so I cannot compare the two reads directly. This one did not move me as much as The Trees, but it made me think at least as much and it engaged my mind as few books do. I like an author who makes me work for it.
If you are going to tackle this (and it is most definitely not for everyone) prepare to be confused and to stay confused. I also recommend the audio - it is fast moving and Amir Abdullah graces us with a delivery both dynamic and deadpan which seems like an impossible task, kind of like stealing nothing.
June 5, 2023
Read in March 2023, reviewed June 2023
“I woke from my rest thinking about the town of Quincy. Certainly the map was different, adjusted, that was there to see, sight being the privileged of our twenty-odd senses, but what must have been most affecting is the sound of nothing. Very much like a vacuum, but not, because nature abhors a vacuum; however, nature actually needs nothing. Yet nothing loves a vacuum.”
--Percival Everett, Dr. No
Having read four novels by Percival Everett, it occurs to me that Everett seems to have a fair amount in common with Kurt Vonnegut, no? Bear with me: both are masters at satire that is entertaining as well as thought-provoking: skewering bureaucracies, the military, racism, and more, leaving no institution unscathed. Both writers are fond of outrageous, absurd premises, while their actual writing styles are themselves relatively straightforward. Not minimalist exactly, but not flashy either.
I previously read and loved ‘The Trees’, ‘Telephone’, and ‘I Am Not Sidney Poitier’. Next up is ‘Dr. No,’ the title borrowed from the James Bond book by Ian Fleming.
The protagonist is Wala Kitu, real name Ralph Townsend:
p6: “My name is Wala Kitu. Wala is Tagalog for nothing, though I am not Filipino. Kito is Swahili for nothing though my parents are not from Tanzania. My parents, both mathematicians, knew that two negatives yield a positive therefore I am I so named. I am Wala Kitu. That is all bullshit, with a capital bull. My name is Ralph Townsend. My mother was an artist, my father was an English professor who ended up driving a taxi. I am, in fact, a mathematician of a sort. But I use the name Wala Kitu. I study nothing.”
A Professor of nothing, a doctor of nothing … a Dr. No. (Now consider ‘I am Not Sidney Poitier’ in which a character, none other than Professor Percival Everett, teaches a course in the Philosophy of Nonsense.)
As with his other novels, this one dwells on conspiracies, and race, and is interested in shades of black skin tones. The villain, John Sill, is a light-skinned black.
Professor of nothing Kitu is an all-round, all purpose, odd duck: he’s never kissed anyone; has no interest in sex. Occasionally, he lets it be known he’s on the spectrum.
Kitu has a one legged dog named Trigo, which one might suppose would be a better name for a three legged dog? But wait!--Given Kitu’s world view (a perspective that might define things by what they are absent rather than what they contain), my theory is the name makes perfect sense --for a dog MISSING three legs! Right?
Well, anyway, every one of Kitu’s dreams features the dog; he can only dream if the dog is in it. In one dream, the dog speaks with an English accent: not posh, but that of Michael Caine. (I’ll say it now before I forget: this story would make a great movie! Can we please, please, get Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon to tussle over who gets to voice the dog?)
As in Goldfinger--the James Bond book and movie--the villain John Sill plans to raid Fort Knox. Not for the gold though, this time, but for a box of … nothing. It’s something (nothing?) the military is interested in too, to weaponize. (At one point the town of Quincy, Massachusetts is turned into nothingness; see the quote above. I don’t remember exactly how they pulled that off, considering they don’t get the box until the last page). Again, this would make a great movie. A hilarious send up of James Bond movies and other 60’s and 70s movies, complete with shark pools and assistants with huge Afros. Remindful of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove as well, what with the military and governmental shenanigans, and characters like the absolutely-perfectly named General Takitall. There are tons of great supporting characters: a very funny, potty-mouthed priest. The vice president’s black cook, John Coltrane. The VEEP is Neil Schilling (ha, ha.-- Mike Pence). He’s albino, aka “pigment-challenged”. Of DJT, Schilling says “I’ve hated kissing his orange ass for these past years. Stable genius? Stable asshole.” p 198.
Miscellaneous stuff: On page 109 is a reference to “Hilbert‘s silly hotel. On page 114 is “most humans don’t understand Euler’s formula but you do so what are you saying? I think my legs look nice.” Euler’s formula has to do with numbers, and Hilbert’s paradox of the Grand Hotel is a thought experiment having to do with infinite sets. Maybe (yeah right) in a future life I’ll revisit these for a better understanding as to how they relate to this story.
I love that the vault at Fort Knox has a lock that resembles that of a gym locker (!) and the combination is: 24 left, 24 right, 24 left. And that the box of nothing is a PF Flyers shoebox. Brilliant stuff.
A question: somewhere someone claims the gold in Fort Knox is worth $30 trillion. It’s fiction of course, but isn’t this figure way, way, way off? No?
QUOTES
p 203
The yuck-yucking came from the other room. “Never trust anyone with a laugh you can spell,” the old man said.
p232
I woke from my rest thinking about the town of Quincy. Certainly the map was different, adjusted, that was there to see, sight being the privileged of our twenty-odd senses, but what must have been most affecting what is the sound of nothing. Very much like a vacuum, but not, because nature abhors a vacuum; however, nature actually needs nothing. Yet nothing loves a vacuum.
p240 “Imagine this,” I said. “There are three sheepherders who come to a bridge controlled by a troll and his two sons. He demands of them thirty sheep before they can pass. Each shepherd cuts out ten sheep from his flock and they give them to the troll. Once they have crossed, the troll decides that he should only have asked for twenty-five. He sends his sons after the men with five sheep. The sons decide to keep one sheep each and give three back to the herders. They do. Now it is the case that each shepherd has paid only nine sheep. Nine times three is twenty-seven. The troll sons kept two. Twenty-seven plus two is twenty-nine. Where is the missing sheep?”
………..
^(Okay, this didn’t literally blow my mind, but it did indeed clog it. Anyone able to wrap their brain around this? WHERE is that goddam sheep?!)
p246
(John Sill): “…Villainy is messy, unpredictable, erratic, fickle, one might even say inconstant. How would a mathematician put it?”
“Unpredictable is good “”
“I was thinking you might suggest variable. At any rate, no one lives forever. There once was a general from Trent, whose dick was crooked and bent, it cost him much trouble, so he put it in double and instead of coming he went. “
“Takitall was from Trent?”I asked.
“No, I just like limericks. I mean, who doesn’t?”
“I don’t,” Eigen said
Sill and I looked at her.
“I like sonnets and villanelles.”
………..
(ha, ha … villanelles! Get it? No? Oh come now!)
……….
P250 the reference to a “rear bumper sticker that read Legalize Recreational Plutonium.
SPOILERS. To jog my memory down the road: in the last hilarious few pages, the box is taken from the villain-- first by US black ops, then quickly by M16, then MSS (China), then Bundesnachrichtendienst (Germany), as several supporting characters reveal who they secretly are.
The final scene in what, again, would make a great movie.
“I woke from my rest thinking about the town of Quincy. Certainly the map was different, adjusted, that was there to see, sight being the privileged of our twenty-odd senses, but what must have been most affecting is the sound of nothing. Very much like a vacuum, but not, because nature abhors a vacuum; however, nature actually needs nothing. Yet nothing loves a vacuum.”
--Percival Everett, Dr. No
Having read four novels by Percival Everett, it occurs to me that Everett seems to have a fair amount in common with Kurt Vonnegut, no? Bear with me: both are masters at satire that is entertaining as well as thought-provoking: skewering bureaucracies, the military, racism, and more, leaving no institution unscathed. Both writers are fond of outrageous, absurd premises, while their actual writing styles are themselves relatively straightforward. Not minimalist exactly, but not flashy either.
I previously read and loved ‘The Trees’, ‘Telephone’, and ‘I Am Not Sidney Poitier’. Next up is ‘Dr. No,’ the title borrowed from the James Bond book by Ian Fleming.
The protagonist is Wala Kitu, real name Ralph Townsend:
p6: “My name is Wala Kitu. Wala is Tagalog for nothing, though I am not Filipino. Kito is Swahili for nothing though my parents are not from Tanzania. My parents, both mathematicians, knew that two negatives yield a positive therefore I am I so named. I am Wala Kitu. That is all bullshit, with a capital bull. My name is Ralph Townsend. My mother was an artist, my father was an English professor who ended up driving a taxi. I am, in fact, a mathematician of a sort. But I use the name Wala Kitu. I study nothing.”
A Professor of nothing, a doctor of nothing … a Dr. No. (Now consider ‘I am Not Sidney Poitier’ in which a character, none other than Professor Percival Everett, teaches a course in the Philosophy of Nonsense.)
As with his other novels, this one dwells on conspiracies, and race, and is interested in shades of black skin tones. The villain, John Sill, is a light-skinned black.
Professor of nothing Kitu is an all-round, all purpose, odd duck: he’s never kissed anyone; has no interest in sex. Occasionally, he lets it be known he’s on the spectrum.
Kitu has a one legged dog named Trigo, which one might suppose would be a better name for a three legged dog? But wait!--Given Kitu’s world view (a perspective that might define things by what they are absent rather than what they contain), my theory is the name makes perfect sense --for a dog MISSING three legs! Right?
Well, anyway, every one of Kitu’s dreams features the dog; he can only dream if the dog is in it. In one dream, the dog speaks with an English accent: not posh, but that of Michael Caine. (I’ll say it now before I forget: this story would make a great movie! Can we please, please, get Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon to tussle over who gets to voice the dog?)
As in Goldfinger--the James Bond book and movie--the villain John Sill plans to raid Fort Knox. Not for the gold though, this time, but for a box of … nothing. It’s something (nothing?) the military is interested in too, to weaponize. (At one point the town of Quincy, Massachusetts is turned into nothingness; see the quote above. I don’t remember exactly how they pulled that off, considering they don’t get the box until the last page). Again, this would make a great movie. A hilarious send up of James Bond movies and other 60’s and 70s movies, complete with shark pools and assistants with huge Afros. Remindful of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove as well, what with the military and governmental shenanigans, and characters like the absolutely-perfectly named General Takitall. There are tons of great supporting characters: a very funny, potty-mouthed priest. The vice president’s black cook, John Coltrane. The VEEP is Neil Schilling (ha, ha.-- Mike Pence). He’s albino, aka “pigment-challenged”. Of DJT, Schilling says “I’ve hated kissing his orange ass for these past years. Stable genius? Stable asshole.” p 198.
Miscellaneous stuff: On page 109 is a reference to “Hilbert‘s silly hotel. On page 114 is “most humans don’t understand Euler’s formula but you do so what are you saying? I think my legs look nice.” Euler’s formula has to do with numbers, and Hilbert’s paradox of the Grand Hotel is a thought experiment having to do with infinite sets. Maybe (yeah right) in a future life I’ll revisit these for a better understanding as to how they relate to this story.
I love that the vault at Fort Knox has a lock that resembles that of a gym locker (!) and the combination is: 24 left, 24 right, 24 left. And that the box of nothing is a PF Flyers shoebox. Brilliant stuff.
A question: somewhere someone claims the gold in Fort Knox is worth $30 trillion. It’s fiction of course, but isn’t this figure way, way, way off? No?
QUOTES
p 203
The yuck-yucking came from the other room. “Never trust anyone with a laugh you can spell,” the old man said.
p232
I woke from my rest thinking about the town of Quincy. Certainly the map was different, adjusted, that was there to see, sight being the privileged of our twenty-odd senses, but what must have been most affecting what is the sound of nothing. Very much like a vacuum, but not, because nature abhors a vacuum; however, nature actually needs nothing. Yet nothing loves a vacuum.
p240 “Imagine this,” I said. “There are three sheepherders who come to a bridge controlled by a troll and his two sons. He demands of them thirty sheep before they can pass. Each shepherd cuts out ten sheep from his flock and they give them to the troll. Once they have crossed, the troll decides that he should only have asked for twenty-five. He sends his sons after the men with five sheep. The sons decide to keep one sheep each and give three back to the herders. They do. Now it is the case that each shepherd has paid only nine sheep. Nine times three is twenty-seven. The troll sons kept two. Twenty-seven plus two is twenty-nine. Where is the missing sheep?”
………..
^(Okay, this didn’t literally blow my mind, but it did indeed clog it. Anyone able to wrap their brain around this? WHERE is that goddam sheep?!)
p246
(John Sill): “…Villainy is messy, unpredictable, erratic, fickle, one might even say inconstant. How would a mathematician put it?”
“Unpredictable is good “”
“I was thinking you might suggest variable. At any rate, no one lives forever. There once was a general from Trent, whose dick was crooked and bent, it cost him much trouble, so he put it in double and instead of coming he went. “
“Takitall was from Trent?”I asked.
“No, I just like limericks. I mean, who doesn’t?”
“I don’t,” Eigen said
Sill and I looked at her.
“I like sonnets and villanelles.”
………..
(ha, ha … villanelles! Get it? No? Oh come now!)
……….
P250 the reference to a “rear bumper sticker that read Legalize Recreational Plutonium.
SPOILERS. To jog my memory down the road: in the last hilarious few pages, the box is taken from the villain-- first by US black ops, then quickly by M16, then MSS (China), then Bundesnachrichtendienst (Germany), as several supporting characters reveal who they secretly are.
The final scene in what, again, would make a great movie.
September 6, 2022
This man. Percival Everett is that dude! What author writing today can jump in and out of genres and still be effective. Is it even possible to pin down Percival Everett to a particular genre? Hell No! And this is part of what makes him great. If I told you Dr. No was about nothing, you would guess that I was being dismissive, right? Wrong! It is about nothing, but brilliantly so.
This is a harebrained caper involving a wannabe Bond villain and an expert in nothing. It’s hard to review a book about nothing without giving away something. So I’ll say, if you don’t understand how nothing can be everything, stay away.
But if you’re interested in nothing being something, you will delight in the adventure and language of Dr. No. This review sounds like nothing, but you have to experience this book to understand it really is anything but nothing. A Special thanks to the team at Graywolf Press for sending me an Arc. Book is out Nov. 1, 2022. Mark your calendar and don’t miss nothing.😃
This is a harebrained caper involving a wannabe Bond villain and an expert in nothing. It’s hard to review a book about nothing without giving away something. So I’ll say, if you don’t understand how nothing can be everything, stay away.
But if you’re interested in nothing being something, you will delight in the adventure and language of Dr. No. This review sounds like nothing, but you have to experience this book to understand it really is anything but nothing. A Special thanks to the team at Graywolf Press for sending me an Arc. Book is out Nov. 1, 2022. Mark your calendar and don’t miss nothing.😃
April 26, 2023
Starts strongly. Everett is a very clever and funny writer and some of the wordplay had me chuckling along. There's also plenty for those coming to it from the James Bond side, with lots of nods to the films especially. Unfortunately, about halfway through it peters out a bit. Ironically, the joke of 'nothing' being the weapon and the key plot driver, also means that the narrative loses focus and sort of dwindles away to, well, nothing. The ending also comes abruptly out of nowhere and several loose ends are left hanging. Fun all the same, and a refreshing style.
June 27, 2024
Anyone hear that loud boom? No? That was my head imploding after listening to this.
Don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed it even though I'm still not sure what I just read. Maybe it was nothing.
You can read the synopsis for what it's worth. It certainly explains the mad plot better than I ever could.
The prose is wonderfully circuitous, the characters driven by nothing, the dog unable to go anywhere except by being carried, various mathematicians all confusing the issue and the star of the show - Wala Kitu (not his real name he assures us), a professor of nothing who knows nothing about nothing and he knows how to get it. It's ripe for a wannabe Bond villain to swoop in to take the prize of nothing.
Yeah, I heard your head implode then. I'll stop. Suffice to say it is pure Everettn poking fun at everything. It's well worth the read - funny, clever and utterly insane.
Don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed it even though I'm still not sure what I just read. Maybe it was nothing.
You can read the synopsis for what it's worth. It certainly explains the mad plot better than I ever could.
The prose is wonderfully circuitous, the characters driven by nothing, the dog unable to go anywhere except by being carried, various mathematicians all confusing the issue and the star of the show - Wala Kitu (not his real name he assures us), a professor of nothing who knows nothing about nothing and he knows how to get it. It's ripe for a wannabe Bond villain to swoop in to take the prize of nothing.
Yeah, I heard your head implode then. I'll stop. Suffice to say it is pure Everettn poking fun at everything. It's well worth the read - funny, clever and utterly insane.
July 29, 2024
Enjoyable, easy reading. Short chapters. Silly and then sometimes sneakily surprisingly serious and at times actually LOL. Philosophical satire of James Bond movies, maxing every iteration of the idea of "nothing" in an almost Abbott & Costello "who's on first" sorta way. Big laughs during the scene when pulled over by state trooper. Would have been fun to have read this in Quincy, Mass. Another quirky professor, another mother who made millions in the stock market, another iteration of the line that God doesn't exist but the devil does, and a few other cross-overs with the few other Everett novels I've read so far. Nothing is what the wealthy in this country want to happen, that status quo stasis is stored in a warehouse, otherwise filled with gold bars, in a box in Fort Knox. As a symbol, "nothing" works wonderfully well. But the novel itself, its mechanizations, its villainous characters, its governmental investigators, its extreme commitment to cinematic-friendly dramatization, its quirky nonsensical or obtuse and more or less meaningless mathematical dialogue, it's all stronger in theory, theoretically, than in practice, in execution, as narrative, exactly unlike Telephone and I Am Not Sidney Poitier, the two others I've read so far, which excelled on the story level but seemed buttered up with an unnecessary theoretical high-falutin critical chum, something to elevate beyond simple story. In this, the story was intentionally meaningless and ridiculous but it was saved in many ways by its system of potential significance around the concept of "nothing"? Probably forgettable but enjoyable while it lasted. 3.5 stars rounded up?
February 4, 2023
This is a rip-snorting hilarious spoof of every Bond, James Bond, 007 spy movie ever made. And you can read and have a total blast with it on that level alone, without doing any hard work as a reader.
This is also vintage Percival Everett, chock-a-block full of linguistics and philosophy and physics and German & French allusions, and homage to a kazillion other novels & movies & music & historical events. If you are an expert in any of those fields, then you'll feel very seen in the inside-jokes; if like me you are not an expert in any of those fields, then you'll need to either just let the narrative wash over you or spend a lot of time interwebbing a lot of terms (but the story will be fun either way you choose).
The protagonist is Wala Kitu (formerly known as Ralph Townsend), who is a professor at Brown University in Rhode Island and specializes in "nothing." The literal nothing; the thing that is nothing. This allows for a play on words and symbols and mathematics and philosophy throughout the novel that will send your mind spinning. Wala lives with his dog Trigo, a one-legged boxer. Wala only dreams in the presence of Trigo, and during his dreams Wala and Trigo have intriguing conversations. In his own words, Wala is a nerd, a geek, socially awkward, Aspergery; in this reader's view, he is a brilliant, kind, caring character who I loved spending time with.
The story travels from Rhode Island, to Miami, to the island of Corsica, back to Rhode Island, to D.C., and finally to Kentucky. And my the characters we meet along the way; offering opportunity for any and every reader to take offense if that is how you get joy out of reading. John Milton Bradley Sill (black, if you insist on knowing) is a kabillionaire with a back-story who "want[s] to be a Bond villain." Eigen Vector is another faculty mathematician at Brown -- at least as nerdy as Wala -- who specializes in topology. There is a grad student of Wala's who was Vanessa at the start of the semester and is now Sam and who has no pronoun preference. There are two hapless agents of an unnamed U.S. government agency, Bill Clinton and his partner Mitchell. There is the personal valet of Sill, whom Sill named DeMarcus (white, if you insist on knowing). Like in all Bond movies, there is a beautiful, brilliant, extraordinarily talented woman -- Gloria in this instance -- who is devoted to the villain Sill and flies planes & helicopters and drives at race car speed & ability and navigates submarines among other things. There is a seven-foot-tall French-speaking Haitian astronomer Jean Luc Monfils. There is a turncoat General Takitall. There is an alcoholic atheist Catholic priest named Damien Karras who curses like a sailor. There is a 92-year-old personal chef to the vice-president who is named Leon Coltrane. And there is an orange president and a near albino vice-president, if that makes you think of anything.
The things these characters (and others) get up to are a breathtaking sprint of spy-ish events, full of puns and riddles and dreamscapes and ridiculousness. And all of that is packed into just 262 pages. Fair warning that you'll either hate this pretty quickly or be unable to put it down once you start, so plan your reading day accordingly.
This is also vintage Percival Everett, chock-a-block full of linguistics and philosophy and physics and German & French allusions, and homage to a kazillion other novels & movies & music & historical events. If you are an expert in any of those fields, then you'll feel very seen in the inside-jokes; if like me you are not an expert in any of those fields, then you'll need to either just let the narrative wash over you or spend a lot of time interwebbing a lot of terms (but the story will be fun either way you choose).
The protagonist is Wala Kitu (formerly known as Ralph Townsend), who is a professor at Brown University in Rhode Island and specializes in "nothing." The literal nothing; the thing that is nothing. This allows for a play on words and symbols and mathematics and philosophy throughout the novel that will send your mind spinning. Wala lives with his dog Trigo, a one-legged boxer. Wala only dreams in the presence of Trigo, and during his dreams Wala and Trigo have intriguing conversations. In his own words, Wala is a nerd, a geek, socially awkward, Aspergery; in this reader's view, he is a brilliant, kind, caring character who I loved spending time with.
The story travels from Rhode Island, to Miami, to the island of Corsica, back to Rhode Island, to D.C., and finally to Kentucky. And my the characters we meet along the way; offering opportunity for any and every reader to take offense if that is how you get joy out of reading. John Milton Bradley Sill (black, if you insist on knowing) is a kabillionaire with a back-story who "want[s] to be a Bond villain." Eigen Vector is another faculty mathematician at Brown -- at least as nerdy as Wala -- who specializes in topology. There is a grad student of Wala's who was Vanessa at the start of the semester and is now Sam and who has no pronoun preference. There are two hapless agents of an unnamed U.S. government agency, Bill Clinton and his partner Mitchell. There is the personal valet of Sill, whom Sill named DeMarcus (white, if you insist on knowing). Like in all Bond movies, there is a beautiful, brilliant, extraordinarily talented woman -- Gloria in this instance -- who is devoted to the villain Sill and flies planes & helicopters and drives at race car speed & ability and navigates submarines among other things. There is a seven-foot-tall French-speaking Haitian astronomer Jean Luc Monfils. There is a turncoat General Takitall. There is an alcoholic atheist Catholic priest named Damien Karras who curses like a sailor. There is a 92-year-old personal chef to the vice-president who is named Leon Coltrane. And there is an orange president and a near albino vice-president, if that makes you think of anything.
The things these characters (and others) get up to are a breathtaking sprint of spy-ish events, full of puns and riddles and dreamscapes and ridiculousness. And all of that is packed into just 262 pages. Fair warning that you'll either hate this pretty quickly or be unable to put it down once you start, so plan your reading day accordingly.
February 27, 2023
I am so pressed with Percival Everett. This is the third book of his I have read and it is both funny and brilliant. The math stuff added a nice flavor (seriously, any book with a character named Eigen Value is great in my book!)
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