The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman
I picked up this book because it sounded interesting and the cover also says, “Sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs.” I don’t know how anyone could pass that up, even if it’s not about this book.
This book plays on the idea of being invisible. Strictly speaking, being invisible would mean that no one could see you. We use this term rather loosely in our society. We say we feel like we’re invisible or we wish we were invisible. Or we say things like we wish we could make ourselves invisible from the government. Most of our definitions do not truly mean invisible. We are fascinated with the idea of being unseen though. There have been multiple movie characters and even super heroes who possess the ability to become unseen. What if someone could really do it?
This book is told through the writing of a psychiatrist. Her life is not all that interesting, but she does get to be rather selective about her clients. She takes on a strange client. He wants to pay in cash and at first he only wants to be counseled over the phone, but he’s not a normal client. He doesn’t want Vicki to ask questions. For the first couple of visits he doesn’t let on why he is talking to her.
He finally reveals it and Vicki thinks he is off his rocker, as any sane person would. Vicki simply calls her client Y_____, for the sake of brevity here, I’m just going to type “Y.” Y claims that he has a suit that makes him nearly invisible. He’s incredibly smart. He explains to Vicki that being truly invisible would mean that you couldn’t see because your retinas would also be invisible. He’s insulting and arrogant with his intelligence, but something in Vicki has peaked his curiosity.
After explaining the process and science behind becoming nearly unseen, Y explains what he is doing in the suit. It’s a sort of research, but some would call it being a peeping tom or a stalker. What Y is interested in is the genuine self of people. Y thinks that people can only be their true selves when other people are not around. When you’re alone, that’s the most true you. His life-long curiosity was sparked when he watched a classmate through his bedroom window unbeknownst to the classmate.
The funding for the program went belly up but Y continued the research on his own. He was finally able to concoct a suit and a special spray which made him nearly invisible. If you looked close enough, you could tell there was something there, but most people didn’t look close enough. At this point, he began telling Vicki of the things he had done. For a while Vicki doesn’t believe him, but she has seen him in his suit so she had to at least partially consider that he is telling the truth about his exploits.
Vicki is worried that the relationship between herself and Y will get strange and unprofessional. She does tell Y that this cannot happen, but he assures her it practically already has and she’s just going to have to deal with it. Vicki continues her sessions. Things get weirder as time progresses. The stories of Y’s exploits contain murder, drugs, death, and many other terrible things. At one point, Vicki and her husband suspect that Y is in their house and that he’s been in their house. The problem is, how do you find an intruder no one can really see? How do you tell the police that a nearly invisible man is in your house? Things get rather interesting at this point.
What I liked
Chuck must have done some research on cloaking before writing this book. It’s a thing. It’s not a common place thing, but it’s a thing and it works. If you don’t believe me, just look into it. The idea is to project the image behind an object onto an object therefore rendering the object somewhat unseen. Usually a special surface is used that will readily accept the image. Currently, this process involves at least a couple of cameras and some expensive material. The technology is still prohibited from the general public of course. It’s much too cumbersome and involves too much to be of any application to the general masses, but someday, they’ll have it figured out and people will be able to walk around somewhat unseen.
This also reminds me of an artist named Liu Bolin. Liu paints himself into his surroundings. At first glance, it would seem that he isn’t there, but if you look closer, you can see a human outline. This takes a lot of calculation on Liu’s part, but for a moment, he’s invisible. Liu reminds me very much of what Y is doing in this story.
The story is quite gritty in many aspects. The relationship between Vicki and Y takes a strange turn. Y is a mad scientist who probably has Aspberger’s or a similar condition. He thinks it’s completely ok to disregard human emotions. He’s almost typical of your evil genius. You wouldn’t look at him and call him evil, but what is a person who sneaks into people’s houses and watches them live without them knowing?
What I didn’t like
I don’t know if I love the idea of the format of the book. It’s a series of reports basically. Reports have their place, but I don’t necessarily think they are the best story-telling medium. We generally think of a story as A-Z meaning we start at the beginning and end at the end with everything in between. This story isn’t A-Z, well it is in a manner. We still get the forward moving motion most stories generally have, but we lack some of the detail.
Remember how I’ve talked about windows before? Maybe not. Stories are generally an all-access thing. You get to access what your characters are feeling and doing, but sometimes it’s as if your story is told through a window. If you looked through a window into a person’s house, it would be personal, sure, and you would get part of their story, but there would be large parts missing. What’s in the corner closest to you that you can’t see? Is there a monster hiding behind the couch? Is there a naked man standing just out of view in the hallway? You’ll never know because you’re only looking through the window. That is your one perspective. This book only has one perspective.
We only get Vicki’s abbreviated version of what happened. Maybe she’s lying. Maybe she’s omitting a lot of the truth. Maybe she made the whole thing up. Maybe it was an elaborate prank. Maybe Vicki likes pink and goes home to beat her husband every night. We don’t know for sure because we only get professional Vicki, for the most part. We only get the part of Vicki that she wants to present to the world and therefore we only get the part of Y that she wants to present to the world. The actual Y and the version of Y Vicki gives us could be completely false. I suppose you do have to like that the narrator could possibly be a big fat liar.
Overall
If you like a good story about ethical dilemmas and questioning the so-called proper way for people to behave, you just might like this book.
being invisible, chuck klosterman, cloaking devices, ethical dilemmas, insibility, invisible, stalking, the visible man, the visible man by chuck klosterman, Vicki, watching people, Y_____
Fiction, Klosterman-Chuck, Mystery, Science Fiction, Social Commentary, what if
One-elevenbooks
One-Eleven Books2 