tl;dr

Needless weirdness intrudes in a novel that at it’s best is a heartbreaking but optimistic look at father’s bond with his son who has Down syndrome.

opening remarks

I have Jesse Ball’s Samedi the Deafness unread in my garage.  That’s a terrible fate for a novel given I rarely ever dust.  To make it up to Jesse and my poor treatment of his 2007 book, I’ve decided to pick-up his latest novel, Census.

knee-jerk observations

Census is about a father, dying of a terminal illness, who takes his son with Down syndrome on one last road trip.  As Ball tells us in the preface, the book is an attempt to honour his brother who also had Downs, passing away in 1998.  What’s interesting is that their trip through the country includes gathering data for the census; a solemn, formal process that involves tattooing a person after they’ve been counted.  The strange nature of the census immediately positions this book in a world that’s not our own.

More on the census which has a Kafkaesque vibe.  Although as we discover on the next page, the father is loose with the truth:
The matter of fact tone makes the father’s reflection about his son’s disorder all the more painful:
A reference to a dress made from cormorants’ feathers makes the father’s retelling of the “Lone Woman of Nicolas Island” (a true story) all the more mythic and otherworldly:

The census-taker as a scabby dog.

In the next town, the father and son are accommodated by a couple who treat the man and his boy like honoured guests.  At one point the woman (we get next to no names of the people who reside in these villages) sits down and explains to the father that she and her husband had a daughter very much like the father’s son. In a book that’s a little odd, a little peculiar, her words here are profoundly moving and beautiful:
This explains the lack of names throughout the novel:
It’s in reflections like these – less about the census, more about raising a disabled child – where the novel shines:
My primary criticism toward Census is the way the weirdness – whether it’s the census itself or the fact that the father’s wife was a famous clown or frequent mention of the Shape School and its ideology – has been ladled into the narrative.  I’m sure in Ball’s mind it all serves a purpose; maybe it’s part of a general philosophy that we all need to be kinder to each other, but I’m finding it frustratingly opaque.  For example, I’m not sure why we need to know that the father’s wife (now deceased) was whipped at the Shape School:
It’s overblown set-pieces like this one that I’m finding so annoying. They’re out of step with poignant moments such as where the wife/mother teaches her son how to spin and swing a sword.

The Gist Of It

By the end, Census had me in tears.  The last ten or so pages are incredibly powerful, topped off by pictures of Jesse Ball’s brother with his parents, with his siblings, always smiling.

But for all the strong emotions, I was annoyed, bored, frustrated by the many tangents involving clowns, cormorants and, of course, the census.  At its core the census is an exciting idea – dying people travelling the country to ask questions of each citizen, leaving a tattoo under the rib – and it provides an excuse for a father and son to meet all manner of people.  The problem is that these scenes on the road are intercut with flashbacks to the father’s marriage and in particular his wife’s experience as a clown and a student at an unconventional school, recollections that feel like they’ve drifted in from another novel.

Then there’s the father’s interest in Gerhard Mutter (the pen name of Lotta Werter) and her obsession with cormorants. Symbolically speaking the cormorant is a good luck charm or a symbol of nobility and indulgence.  While I’m not sure how that would thematically tie into the novel, given the amount of time we spend discussing Mutter and quoting her works you hope there’s some significance.  If so it went well over my head.

Still, Ball always comes back to the father, his relationship with his son, and the challenges he and his wife faced bringing up a child with a disability.  It’s here, sensitive and thoughtful and moving that all talk of clowns and tattoos are forgotten.  I only wish the whole book had been like this, heartbreaking, genuine, filled with love and optimism.

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