Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Heretic Books (1989), Edition: Reprint
Description
Set in an airport ("one of the rare places where twentieth-century design is happy with its own style"), In Transit is a textual labyrinth centering on a contemporary traveller. Waiting for a flight, Evelyn Hillary O'Rooley suffers from uncertainty about his/her gender, provoking him/her to perform a series of unsuccessful, yet hilarious, philosophical and anatomical tests. Brigid Brophy surrounds the kernel of this plot with an unrelenting stream of puns, word games, metafictional moments and surreal situations (like a lesbian revolution in the baggage claim area) that challenge the reader's preconceptions about life and fiction and that remain endlessly entertaining.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Othemts
This bizarre novel is a work of modern fiction set in an airport, and like the architecture of airports it is very modern but dated in the way that modern things from the 50's, 60's & 70's seem to age rather quickly. The narrator is "in transit" - between flights - at the airport having decided to
Favorite Passages:
"Have you noticed how little of the twentieth-century life is in fact conducted in twentieth-century surroundings? There are precious few places where you can glance unhibitedly round you and be sure of never placing eyes on an artifact that's an anachronism. Indeed our century hasn't yet invented a style -- only a repertory of cliche motifs which aren't in fact functional, since they can be stuck on anywhere, but which imitate the machine-turned and stream-lined and thereby serve the emotional purpose of signaling that our century prefers function to style." - p. 22
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skip the ongoing flight and reflecting on the narrator's past life and the undefined status of being in transit. Suddenly, the narrator cannot remember his/her sex and rather comically tries to figure that out. More odd events transpire eventually leading to a rebellion against the airport. The book is full of wordplay, especially puns, and satire of the modern world. It's the best book with a gender-ambiguous narrator that I've read since Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson. Favorite Passages:
"Have you noticed how little of the twentieth-century life is in fact conducted in twentieth-century surroundings? There are precious few places where you can glance unhibitedly round you and be sure of never placing eyes on an artifact that's an anachronism. Indeed our century hasn't yet invented a style -- only a repertory of cliche motifs which aren't in fact functional, since they can be stuck on anywhere, but which imitate the machine-turned and stream-lined and thereby serve the emotional purpose of signaling that our century prefers function to style." - p. 22
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LibraryThing member StellaSandberg
This novel has it all - operatic references to the central theme (the protagonist's unclear sex), a lesbian underworld to which our hero(ine) descends, plenty of silly puns, (post)modernist metanarratives going on, stereo writing, porn... I'm less keen on the (somewhat dated) revolution parody bit,
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but nevertheless this queer experimental novel is very close to my heart. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1969
ISBN
0854491007 / 9780854491001