Don’t understand ‘The Zero’? Ask Mr. Samsa

By now it’s common knowledge that Jess Walter , the Edgar Award -winning author of “Citizen Vince,” has been nominated for another, even more prestigious national honor. His novel “The Zero” has been named as a finalist for the National Book Award .

(Note: That makes two authors with Spokane ties to earn 2006 NBA finalist nominations. Gongaga Prep grad Tim Egan is a nonfiction finalist for his book “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.”)

One reader, an old friend of mine, just finished “The Zero.” And while she said that she enjoyed it, she said the ending confused her. She wanted me to explain it to her.

That’s problematic for a couple of reasons. One, it’s hard to explain the ending of anything without giving away specifics that will ruin the read for anyone who hasn’t yet picked up the book.

But even more important, well, I can’t be absolutely sure that I understand the novel’s ending either. Here’s the gist of what I told her:

“I think he wants to take us to a place that is pure Kafka , which is to say that ALL of what is going on in today’s post-9/11 world is beyond comprehension That existence as we know it has a patina of meaning, colored by various jingoistic or religious or emotional attitudes, but underneath everything we’re all Gregor Samsa , waking up one morning as a cockroach and wondering how the world got so crazy. And wondering why no one around you seems even to notice. I THINK that’s what he means. But, really, your guess is as good as mine.”

I should add that I don’t pretend to understand the ending to Camus’ “The Stranger,” to Charles Frazier’s “Cold Mountain,” to anything by Faulkner or Pynchon or Beckett or … the list goes on.

That’s probably not something that a so-called critic should admit. But, then, I think part of being a critic is admitting that you have only your understanding of what the author means, not THE understanding. I may have an interpretation, but that’s hardly the final word

Besides, at the moment I’m on an extended stay in the Balkans . Life here is hard to understand, period.