''Lookout Cartridge'' is
Joseph McElroy's fourth novel, published by
Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...
in 1974.
The narrator, Cartwright, had made with his friend Dagger an art film/documentary about power using loaned professional equipment, with scenes set in
Stonehenge,
Hyde Park, and other locations in England, plus one scene in
Ajaccio, Corsica. But someone destroyed it, and when acquaintances in New York press Cartwright for information about an alleged second print, the sound track, and even his personal diary, he finds himself trying to find out what really happened. Doing so involves multiple trips between New York and England, including a visit to the Hebrides and the Stones of Callanish, and increasing danger and death.
Larry McCaffery
Lawrence F. McCaffery Jr. (born May 13, 1946) is an American literary critic, editor, and retired professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University. His work and teaching focuses on postmodern literature, contemporary ...
ranked ''Lookout Cartridge'' 39th in his
top 100 20th-century English novels list.
Film summary
The separate scenes are:
*Bonfire in Wales - Supposedly come upon spontaneously, Cartwright's discovery that Dagger had planned it ahead of time is his first proof that there has been something sinister going on.
*Unplaced Room - Starring an anonymous US AWOL who arrived via remote Scottish islands.
*Suitcase Slowly Packed
*Hawaiian Hippie aka Hawaiian in the Underground - Bill Liliuokalani
*Hyde Park Softball
*Stonehenge
*Corsican Montage
*Marvelous Country House - With
Apollo 15 on the television set being ignored.
*USAF Base
Style
The language of film, computer technology, information theory, and liquid crystals permeate the novel.
McElroy tried to make the novel as "cinematic" as possible, filled with information. The sentences were made deliberately labyrinthine, meant to be on the edge of incomprehensibility, yet to always feel as if significant clues had to be present.
[Tom LeClair 1978 interview, in LeClair and McCaffery (eds.) ''Anything Can Happen'' (1983)]
In the 1985
Carroll and Graf paperback reprint, McElroy wrote an introduction "One Reader to Another". He starts by stating that he recalls some French writer "arguing that fiction can't compete with film in visual immediacy." He recalls that his reaction then and in 1985 is that, "by magic ink-sign crypto-telepathy, ''words'' in the right sequence can transmit between remote minds the ''mind's'' motion pictures."
Reception
References
Further reading
Book reviews
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Literary analysis
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**reprinted in
**The other three novels are ''
Gravity's Rainbow
''Gravity's Rainbow'' is a 1973 novel by American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, ...
'', ''
J R'', and ''
Ratner's Star
''Ratner's Star'' is a 1976 novel by Don DeLillo. It relates the story of a child prodigy mathematician who arrives at a secret installation to work on the problem of deciphering a mysterious message that appears to come from outer space. The no ...
''.
The following articles appeared in the Joseph McElroy issue of
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In addition, see
these general works on McElroy's fiction.
{{Joseph McElroy
1974 American novels
Fiction set in 1971
Techno-thriller novels
Novels set in New York City
Novels set in London
Novels set in Scotland
Novels by Joseph McElroy
Alfred A. Knopf books
Postmodern novels