Grisham
became a Christian at eight years of age.
Now that
we're armed, Jesse Ventura-style, with the facts:
- that fiction is
something that doesn't exist, created by sentences;
- that Grisham
became a Christian when he was eight; and
- that sentences consist of words
that are different from morphemes,
we can begin to approach
Grisham's compositional method. For instance, he starts his novel
The Litigators, the subject of the present study, with the sentence “The law firm of Finley &
Figg referred to itself as a 'boutique firm.'”
Grisham then
writes another sentence: “This misnomer was inserted as often as
possible into routine conversations, and it even appeared in
print in some of the various schemes hatched by the partners to
solicit business."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “When
used properly, it implied that Finley & Figg was something above
your average two-bit operation." Grisham then writes another
sentence: “Boutique, as in small, gifted, and expert in one
specialized area." Grisham then writes another sentence:
“Boutique, as in pretty cool and chic, right down to the
French-ness of the word itself." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “Boutique, as in thoroughly happy to be small,
selective, and prosperous." Grisham then writes another
sentence: “Except for its size, it was none of these things."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “Finley & Figg’s scam
was hustling injury cases, a daily grind that required little skill
or creativity and would never be considered cool or sexy."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “Profits were as elusive as
status." Grisham then writes another sentence: “The firm was
small because it couldn’t afford to grow." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “It was selective only because no one wanted to
work there, including the two men who owned it." Grisham then
writes another sentence: “Even its location suggested a monotonous
life out in the bush leagues." Grisham then writes another
sentence: “With a Vietnamese massage parlor to its left and a lawn
mower repair shop to its right, it was clear at a casual glance that
Finley & Figg was not prospering." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “There was another boutique firm directly
across the street—hated rivals—and more lawyers around the
corner." Grisham then writes another sentence: “In fact, the
neighborhood was teeming with lawyers, some working alone, others in
small firms, others still in versions of their own little
boutiques." Grisham then writes another sentence: “F&F’s
address was on Preston Avenue, a busy street filled with old
bungalows now converted and used for all manner of commercial
activity." Grisham then writes another sentence: “There was
retail (liquor, cleaners, massages) and professional (legal, dental,
lawn mower repair) and culinary (enchiladas, baklava, and pizza to
go)." Grisham then writes another sentence: “Oscar Finley had
won the building in a lawsuit twenty years earlier." Grisham
then writes another sentence: “What the address lacked in prestige
it sort of made up for in location." Grisham then writes another
sentence: “Two doors away was the intersection of Preston, Beech,
and Thirty-eighth, a chaotic convergence of asphalt and traffic
that guaranteed at least one good car wreck a week, and often more."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “F&F’s annual overhead
was covered by collisions that happened less than one hundred yards
away." Grisham then writes another sentence: “Other law firms,
boutique and otherwise, were often prowling the area in hopes of
finding an available, cheap bungalow from which their hungry
lawyers could hear the actual squeal of tires and crunching of
metal." Grisham then writes another sentence: “With only two
attorneys/partners, it was of course mandatory that one be declared
the senior and the other the junior." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “The senior partner was Oscar Finley, age
sixty-two, a thirty-year survivor of the bare-knuckle brand of law
found on the tough streets of southwest Chicago." Grisham then
writes another sentence: “Oscar had once been a beat cop but got
himself terminated for cracking skulls." Grisham then
writes another sentence: “He almost went to jail but instead had
an awakening and went to college, then law school." Grisham then
writes another sentence: “When no firms would hire him, he hung
out his own little shingle and started suing anyone who came near."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “Thirty-two years later, he
found it hard to believe that for thirty-two years he’d wasted his
career suing for past-due accounts receivable, fender benders,
slip-and-falls, and quickie divorces." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “He was still married to his first wife, a
terrifying woman he wanted to sue every day for his own divorce."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “But he couldn’t afford
it." Grisham then writes another sentence: “After thirty-two
years of lawyering, Oscar Finley couldn’t afford much of anything."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “His junior partner—and
Oscar was prone to say things like, “I’ll get my junior partner
to handle it,” when trying to impress judges and other lawyers and
especially prospective clients—was Wally Figg, age forty-five."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “Wally fancied himself a
hardball litigator, and his blustery ads promised all kinds of
aggressive behavior." Grisham then writes another sentence:
““We Fight for Your Rights!” and “Insurance Companies Fear
Us!” and “We Mean Business!” Such ads could be seen on park
benches, city transit buses, cabs, high school football programs,
even telephone poles, though this violated several ordinances."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “The ads were not seen in
two crucial markets—television and billboards." Grisham then
writes another sentence: “Wally and Oscar were still fighting
over these." Grisham then writes yet another sentence: “Oscar
refused to spend the money—both types were horribly expensive—and
Wally was still scheming." Grisham then writes another sentence:
“His dream was to see his smiling face and slick head on
television saying dreadful things about insurance companies
while promising huge settlements to injured folks wise enough to call
his toll-free number.” Grisham then writes another sentence: “But
Oscar wouldn’t even pay for a billboard." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “Wally had one picked out." Grisham then
writes another sentence: “Six blocks from the office, at the
corner of Beech and Thirty-second, high above the swarming traffic,
on top of a four-story tenement house, there was the most
perfect billboard in all of metropolitan Chicago." Grisham then
writes another sentence: “Currently hawking cheap lingerie (with a
comely ad, Wally had to admit), the billboard had his name and face
written all over it." Grisham then writes another sentence:
“But Oscar still refused." Grisham then writes another
sentence: “Wally’s law degree came from the prestigious
University of Chicago School of Law." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “Oscar picked his up at a now-defunct place that
once offered courses at night." Grisham then writes another
sentence: “Both took the bar exam three times." Grisham then
writes another sentence: “Wally had four divorces under his belt;
Oscar could only dream." Grisham, then, writes another sentence:
“Wally wanted the big case, the big score with millions of dollars
in fees." Grisham then writes another sentence: “Oscar wanted
only two things—divorce and retirement." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “How the two men came to be partners in a
converted house on Preston Avenue was another story." Grisham
then writes another sentence: “How they survived without choking
each other was a daily mystery." Grisham then writes another
sentence: “Their referee was Rochelle Gibson, a robust black woman
with attitude and savvy earned on the streets from which she came."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “Ms. Gibson handled the
front—the phone, the reception, the prospective clients arriving
with hope and the disgruntled ones leaving in anger, the occasional
typing (though her bosses had learned if they needed something typed,
it was far simpler to do it themselves), the firm dog, and, most
important, the constant bickering between Oscar and Wally."
Grisham, then, writes another sentence: “Years earlier, Ms. Gibson
had been injured in a car wreck that was not her fault." Grisham
then writes another sentence: “She then compounded her troubles by
hiring the law firm of Finley & Figg, though not by choice."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “Twenty-four hours after the
crash, bombed on Percocet and laden with splints and plaster casts,
Ms. Gibson had awakened to the grinning, fleshy face of Attorney
Wallis Figg hovering over her hospital bed." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “He was wearing a set of aquamarine scrubs, had
a stethoscope around his neck, and was doing a good job of
impersonating a physician." Grisham then writes another
sentence: “Wally tricked her into signing a contract for legal
representation, promised her the moon, sneaked out of the room as
quietly as he’d sneaked in, then proceeded to butcher her case."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “She netted $40,000, which
her husband drank and gambled away in a matter of weeks, which led to
a divorce action filed by Oscar Finley." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “He also handled her bankruptcy." Grisham
then writes another sentence: “Ms. Gibson was not impressed with
either lawyer and threatened to sue both for malpractice."
Grisham then writes another sentence: “This got their
attention—they had been hit with similar lawsuits—and they worked
hard to placate her." Grisham then writes another sentence: “As
her troubles multiplied, she became a fixture at the office, and
with time the three became comfortable with one another. Grisham then
writes another sentence: “Finley & Figg was a tough place for
secretaries." Grisham then writes another sentence: “The pay
was low, the clients were generally unpleasant, the other lawyers on
the phone were rude, the hours were long, but the worst part was
dealing with the two partners." Grisham then writes another
sentence: “Oscar and Wally had tried the mature route, but the
older gals couldn’t handle the pressure." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “They had tried youth but got themselves sued
for sexual harassment when Wally couldn’t keep his paws off a busty
young thing." Grisham then writes another sentence: “(They
settled out of court for $50,000 and got their names in the
newspaper.) Rochelle Gibson happened to be at the office one morning
when the then-current secretary quit and stormed out." Grisham
then writes another sentence: “With the phone ringing and partners
yelling, Ms. Gibson moved over to the front desk and calmed things
down." Grisham then writes another sentence: “Then she made a
pot of coffee." Grisham then writes another sentence: “She
was back the next day, and the next." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “Eight years later, she was still running the
place." Grisham then writes another sentence: “Her two sons
were in prison." Grisham then writes another sentence: “Wally
had been their lawyer, though in all fairness no one could have saved
them." Grisham then writes another sentence: “As teenagers,
both boys kept Wally busy with their string of arrests on various
drug charges." Grisham then writes another sentence: “Their
dealing got more involved, and Wally warned them repeatedly they were
headed for prison, or death." Grisham then writes another
sentence: “He said the same to Ms. Gibson, who had little control
over the boys and often prayed for prison." Grisham then writes
another sentence: “When their crack ring got busted, they were
sent away for ten years." Grisham then writes another sentence:
“Wally got it reduced from twenty and received no gratitude from
the boys." Grisham then writes another sentence: “Ms. Gibson
offered a tearful thanks." Grisham then writes another sentence:
“Through all their troubles, Wally never charged her a fee for his
representation.” Grisham, clearly gaining his stride, writes
another sentence: “Over the years, there had been many tears in Ms.
Gibson’s life, and they had often been shed in Wally’s office
with the door locked." And Grisham then writes another sentence:
“He gave advice and tried to help when possible, but his greatest
role was that of a listener.”
See how it works?
This brief
but fortunately unobtrusive survey gives us insight into Grisham's tidy but idiosyncratic
approach to the art of fiction: he tends to favor the writing of one
sentence after another in an act of repetition that itself is
tautonymically doubled, forming a process that we might call a
irradical radial duplication of cloning. We can happily term this
fact of immobility something that, in its irremediable brazenness,
defeats every conceivable effort of the world of action and
efficiency – in other words, the world of law– to somehow dislodge
it. Mariah Carey met actor and comedian Nick Cannon while they shot
her music video for her song Bye Bye on an island off the
coast of Antigua; likewise, an anarchic status of claiming refractory
immunity to every single concept, category, cat, distinction, taco,
logic of integration, sunspot of delight (well, that's a little
private, sorry) or rule of identity illustrates in a somewhat okay
fashion the profound elusiveness of Grisham's life and work; it is a
wholly Christian form of the secular sacred notion of an outside
(dehors) without-horizon: in other words, a nullified area of a space
without sections that takes its place to the externality of any
alternatives to the binary oppositions trafficking in the same old
things: inside/outside, Scylla/Charybdis, synchronic/diachronic,
here/there, fries/that, Annia/noncuteness, native/foreign, ice/neat,
etc.
But the real paradox isn't that all this “absence of horizon”
stuff is more than a presupposition of finitude: what's surprising,
indeed circonflexual, if Sylvia will let me get away with that, is
that in both his fictional guises and his discursive ramblings
Grisham is the last to shy away from a sheer, untrammeled, almost
unquestionably “Jeb Bushy” exploratory committee dedicated to the
resumption of (re-)questioning the phenomenological question of what
it's like to actually dive in and experience this totally excessive
land of exile, exodus, extravagance, exaltation, exanthesis,
excalceation, ex-girlfriends, and what the Jew said to the Catholic:
“exceptio beneficium ordinis seu excussionis, but hold the mayo.”
What happens, or what happened, or what will happen, or all three of
these things, is, we guess, evidently even more radical than the
initial reversal of consciousness that Hegel talked about in his
supposedly famous account of experience (Erfahrung) in the
introduction to the Phenomenology thing that he went on and on about.
If the possibility of experience itself is literally turned inside
out, then the way one figures in Grisham-derived mystical experiences
might be a way in which one is no longer a subject who can see or
hear or think or be or listen or talk or sense or swim or swear or
really experience anything at all ever and that's it.
Finally,
the reader might leave the hundredth reading of The Litigators in a
way not unlike the way the reader might have left the first reading
or the thousandth. (When you get to the 3000th reading,
though, truly interesting stuff starts happening. But that's the
subject of our next paper.)
In the end, is The Litigators really
holding a place in its creator's oeuvre so different from, say, where
people tend to place Witch Hunt in their rankings of Rush albums? I
still like Moving Pictures. It's not my number one or anything. People tend to
not mention The Camera Eye as much. Which is by far the best track on
the album. By. Far. And Vital Signs really holds it back, I never cared for
that type of thing much.
NOTES
4.34]
Vietnamese massage parlor... not prospering: Saint Alphonsus Liguori
(1696-1787), Italian prelate and author of many theological works,
including The Glories of Mary (see 23.34) and Theologia Moralis.
5.36] enchiladas:
The Nahuatl word for enchilada is chīllapītzalli
/t͡ʃiːlːapiːˈt͡salːi/, from the Nahuatl word for chili, chīlli /ˈt͡ʃiːlːi/ and the Nahuatl word for flute, tlapītzalli /t͡ɬapiːˈt͡salːi/. In the
19th century, as Mexican cuisine was being memorialized, enchiladas
were mentioned in the first Mexican cookbook, El cocinero mexicano
("The Mexican Chef"), published in 1831, and in Mariano
Galvan Rivera's Diccionario de Cocina, published in 1845. An
early mention, in English, is a 1914 recipe found in The California
Mexican-Spanish Cookbook by Bertha Haffner Ginger. The expression "the whole
enchilada" means the whole thing, the total, like when numbers are added sequentially from left to right, and any intermediate result is a partial sum, prefix sum, or running total of the summation, the enchilada.
15.36] couldn’t
afford much of anything: Grisham here likely means that Finley lacks
money, which is this thing accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of
debts.
20.36] blustery
ads: counter-examples might include "the blustering (or blusterous) winds of Patagonia"; "a typically cold, blustery day"; "a gusty storm with strong sudden
rushes of wind that Herbert, had he not died twelve seconds prior, might well have called blustery"; and others.
25.36] University
of Chicago School of Law: a law school at a university in the
Midwestern city of Chicago, which is where the story imagined by
Grisham takes place. The city is real, while the story is pretend. This scenario is the inverse of a situation where the story is real, but the city is pretend (see Angeles, Los).
35.36] a robust
black woman with attitude and savvy: Grisham subtly defies ethnic
stereotypes not by subverting them – that would be too obvious –
but by ironically employing what we've described above as the
irradical radial duplication of cloning of them.
35.36i] robust black woman. “She
has sought to steer my robust Muse in the direction of Chestertonian
charity and away from Bellocian bellocisity but oft times in vain”
(J. Pearce, The Quest for Shakespeare, 2008 – I'm seriously not kidding, this dude wrote that in 2008, it's on Google Books); "Little in the middle but she got much back; he can tell I ain't
missing no meals, come
through and fuck 'em in my automobile [and] let him
eat it with his grills: he keep
telling me to chill, keep
telling me it's real, that he love my sex appeal because he
don't like 'em boney, [that] he want something he can grab; so, I
pulled up in the Jag, Mayweather with the jab like dun-d-d-dun-dun-d-d-dun-dun" (Onika Maraj, Jamal Jones, Jonathan Solone-Myvett, Ernest Clark, Marcos Palacios, Anthony Ray, Polow da Don, Anonymous, and Da Internz, The Pinkprint, 2014, digital
download: Glenwood Recording Studios, Burbank, California).
35.36ii] black woman with attitude: "That’s
been an image that people have tried to paint of me since, you know,
the day Barack announced, that I’m some angry black woman”, Michelle Obama ("Michelle Obama: No tension with husband's aides," CBS News, January 11, 2012). Grisham seems to expect the reader to understand that while a buppie is a black urban
professional, a huppie
is a Hispanic urban professional, but a guppie
is a gay urban professional, whereas a DINKs
(DINKY in the UK edition) is a childless couple of two people each with a source of income, a situation that gives rise to the phrase Dual Income, No Kids (Yet), shortened into the acronyms DINKs or DINKY. The scuppie, a socially-conscious, upwardly-mobile person may refer to a variety of ethnicities of both the controversial and friendly species of type. At some point in the duration of their precious lives, which are exactly no more and no less precious than any lives, black women will face “the angry black woman” stereotype, leading many furious females of color to self-silence in order to not appear angry or black. But it's okay. Asian-American women, for example, are engaged in a daily, fight-to-the-death, hand-to-hand catfights against images of submissiveness while being both praised and penalized for raising their voices. Luckily, with their extensive training in the mysterious martial arts of the Near East and Orient– arts that use the vulnerabilities of heart, brawn, and mind against their opponents– these wily, svelte females are more than well-equipped for the confrontation against cultural stereotypes, a status that their smiling, fat, bald versions of our God provided them. And Latina women aren't free from being continually stymied with pre-existing and pop cultural stereotypes: these enchilda-lovers are often assumed to be non-native speakers of English, per favore.
35.36iii] black woman with attitude and savvy: Wikipedia tells us that "The BAP Handbook: The Official Guide to the Black American Princess (ISBN 978-0767905503, or, for those who hate notational symbols that represent numbers, nine hundred seventy-eight, dash, zero, seven sixty-seven, ninety, five, fifty, and– here's the clincher– three) written by Kalyn Johnson, Tracey Lewis, Karla Lightfoot, and Ginger Wilson offers a behind-the-scenes look at BAP speech, style, and history." Behind what scenes? You'd think that's a good question, since educated black women of upper middle class background, rather than hovering as phenomena of performed scenaria staged for the benefit of audiences, exist. Anyway, Wikipedia goes on to describe the subject of the official word on BAPs. "Her life experiences give her a 'sense of entitlement,' and she is accustomed to the best and nothing less."
Whoa.
Well, listen. If you're struck by what seems as a bewildering cultural sensitivity on the parts of Wikipedia and Grisham respectively, that probably means that you're currently working to raise your vibration and follow your highest path, and thus, you naturally find it difficult to interact with lost souls. The present writer should be honest here and state that he meant to introduce the essential thesis of this project– that Grisham is his generation's fullest example of a lost soul – gradually, over the course of these 5337 pages, and gently. Yet here we are, on page 479, and your humble author can defer the inevitable no longer, delay the inexorable no further.
So be it, then. Damn the sunrise. We will grasp, passionately, but with care, at what we have. We will bring these elements that grace us to the surface of the liquid of our losses, rendering them tender adornments of our scars. Make tomorrow our tonight. As a far better writer (in French) once wrote,
Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui
Va-t-il nous déchirer avec un coup d'aile ivre
Ce lac dur oublié que hante sous le givre
Le transparent glacier des vols qui n'ont pas fui !
Lost souls like Grisham can be some of the most frustrating people to deal with because they radiate lower vibrational energy, and the way that they interact with others can be quite off-putting. However, if we want to help Grisham we must react with sympathy, rather than anger and hostility. Grisham needs unconditional love more than the rest of us, because he's so starved for it. Although this may be challenging at times, love and acceptance are really the only things we can give to help Grisham, and others, who have lost their way.
45.36] Wally
couldn’t keep his paws off a busty young thing: Wally briefly
turns into an animal. The most common form of shapeshifting myths is
that of therianthropy, which is the transformation of a human being
into an animal or, conversely, of an animal into human form. In the
Earthsea books, Ursula K. Le Guin – along with Grisham and
notorious prostitute Emily Brontë, one of three writers of fiction – depicts an animal form as slowly transforming the wizard's mind, so
that the dolphin, bear or other creature forgets it was human, making
it impossible to change back.
45.36i] busty young thing: I mean, look. For one thing, morphologically, all the breast is, is just a cone, with the base at the chest wall, and the apex at
the nipple, the center of the NAMIC (nipple-areola military-industrial complex). The
superficial tissue layer (superficial fascia, a currently unpopular political ideology – its mass market appeal was tarnished by its tendencies toward genocide and shallowness) is separated from the
skin by 0.5–2.5 cm of subcutaneous fat (adipose tissue, named after the detox yoga pose). The
suspensory Bradleycooper's ligaments are fibrous-tissue prolongations that
radiate from the superficial fascia to the skin envelope. The
dimensions and weight of the breast vary among women, ranging from
approximately 500 to 1,000 grams (1.1 to 2.2 pounds) each. Depraved pornographic stars like Emily Brontë would be found on the further end of this continuum.
65.36] Wally
never charged her a fee for his representation: Grisham's source material here is unclear. In Punjabi,
the sentence could be rendered ਵੋਲੀ
ਨੇ ਆਪਣੇ ਨੁਮਾਇੰਦਗੀ ਲਈ ਉਸ ਨੂੰ
ਇੱਕ ਫੀਸ ਲਈ ਕਦੇ ਵੀ, or Vōlī nē āpaṇē numā'idagī la'ī usa nū ika phīsa la'ī kadē
vī. Grisham here probably wants to suggest to the reader that a character, Wally, at no time asked a female person to render a
price in exchange for his services.
65.36] Over the
years, there had been many tears in Ms. Gibson’s life: Unusual in that Grisham's internal rhymes usually don't occur within a single lines, but between internal phrases across multiple lines. Compare "We been
together for a few years, shared a
few tears, called
each other nicknames like Sugar
Plum and Poo Bear" (Busta Rhymes, I Know
What You Want, date unknown); "So many homies in the cemetery, shed so many tears: I suffered through the years" (2Pac, Me Against the World, 1994); but definitely not Tennyson, who not only does not rhyme "idle tears" with any sort of years but adamantly refuses to rhyme anything with anything in an absurd showcase of misplaced machismo. Graham Hough, in a 1951 essay, suggests that something must be "very skillfully put in
[rhyme's] place" if many readers do not notice its absence. He
concludes that "Tears, Idle Tears" does not rhyme
since "it is not about a specific situation, or an emotion
with clear boundaries; it is about the great reservoir of
undifferentiated regret and sorrow, which you can brush away
[...]
but which nevertheless continues to exist." Whateves. No face to stomp; advantage: nightmare-pod. tl;dr lol
