Fantasy Masterworks: Voice of our Shadow, Jonathan Carroll

I suppose you could label her just a shade south of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl type, but India Tate and her husband Paul are still the best and truest friends I've ever had.
I live in Vienna, I write.
I didn't know what to do with my life until I wrote a short story which got adapted into the world-famous play 'Voice of our Shadow'. It doesn't much resemble my short story and I don't like it. I suppose it's not such an odd response for an author to have. Nobody likes to see their work butchered.
Especially if that work means so much to the writer.
So, I don't like it, but it did make India and Paul reach out to me in the theater where they saw me. They had recognized me before but acted dumb on the first introductions.
I didn't have a great childhood. My brother was a grade A asshole and it's because of how he died that I began writing. A friend of his accosted me in a bar years later. He blamed me, and he wasn't wrong.
I wrote the short story then, to cope. Most people know only the play, and when they meet you they become kind of disappointed when they realize how little you actually had to do with the thing they love. But not India, not Paul. They care.
Their stories are fascinating. They watch movies, read novels, they travel and India draws.
She draws well.
There's a still-life that she's made, it hangs in their appartment. 'Little boy', it is called. It's a watercolour drawing of a table with a top hat on it. Beside it are spotless white gloves.
Paul and India smile at each other when I ask about it.
 They laugh. 
They say they will tell me soon.

Jonathan Carroll is one of those odd writers that seem to defy classification, with story-lines employing elements of fantasy under a layer of contemporary fiction, usually labelled magical realism. He frequently employs first-person narration with a tendency towards to the unreliable and offers up endings that seem abrupt and raise more questions than they give answers.

In Voice of our Shadow our narrator is Joe Lennox, who from his house on Formori, Greece, embarks on a swift but intimate account of his life leading up to this moment. Along the way we are treated to a beautiful and sometimes painful look into the troubles of growing up, a friendship in Vienna, and a third act that is undeniably memorable but hard to classify.

Part bildungsroman, part horror story, part something else, Voice of our Shadow is a fascinating and enthralling read that doesn't wholly fit into any genre and you'll find that most every blurb will give away over half of the novel in trying to present the reader with a hook.
I have, besides putting my blurb in first person, restricted myself to convey more the tone of the novel rather than the broad story line. I've tried to introduce a hook for the reader but as it's almost impossible to do that without giving huge swathes of the story away, so I ended up with introducing the Little Boy drawing because that is where things will ultimately start to get weird, and I had hoped to give a hint of that.

It's at any rate an odd novel to talk about because for the most part of the book, nothing seems to happen and to tell anything is to give parts away that should maybe experienced during the read itself, as Carrol tells it. You have to settle with going in blind and letting him whisk you away and regale you with his narrative. But this can be problematic as there's a point where the story seems to switch genres, from contemporary fiction straight into something else; something more ominous and fantastical, where elements are introduced that can only be described as surreal. The divisive ending itself is another problem, it's odd enough to leave a wide variety in its interpretation and is likely one that will leave many readers either cold or irritated. It's horrific and abrupt, and there may in fact be no resolution to be found.

But there is satisfaction from the read to be had and it comes from the author's voice which is good and engaging. Carrol, who lives in Vienna, uses that town as the backdrop for many of his stories and it is no different here in his second novel. The love for his town comes pouring out in his main character Joe, which might be that one's only pleasing quality.

At a glance Joe doesn't seem such a bad character, but the longer you read the more you notice something missing in his telling. And it might be a spine.
For all that the narrative is his, Joe doesn't seem to be such an active character, and if you look at what he does in the novel, you find that he mostly only reacts. Characters introduce themselves and guide the telling, and while Joe only lives in his relating to us, drawing us in solely through their stories, their characters, he doesn't have much going on on his own outside of them.

And maybe this is why that ending is the way it is. Unsatisfying because our main character, devoid of interactions with others, and having just offered up his only story, doesn't have anything else left to satisfy us with.
But it's more than that. Because there doesn't seem to be a resolution. It is almost a non sequitur, only acceptable after the story, because of 2 lines at its beginning.

However, there are a few ways of looking at that ending.
And I'll give a few theories on it, together with another theory which I'm not very certain about but still had too much fun in the actual writing phase to just delete.

Keep in mind. Absolute Spoilers!

The Ending

There are three ways of looking at that ending.

In one we can accept the story as it is given, take the narrator as reliable and accept every haunting and supernatural event as having happened.

In which case the story is straightforward but tremendously disappointing, given that its ending is defined by its irresolution.

In this theory the novel reveals itself to be about character first and foremost. And as Joe is our main character his identity needs to have a moment of climax, of progress through acquisition of self-knowledge.

Joe's culmination is when his own character is laid out to him as it it perceived to be by India. He stands revealed  hollow and irresolute, a parasite latching on to the stories of others, unable to move forward by his own will, a coward scumbag always running away from every confrontation.

After the initial knee-jerk denial and dismissal of her arguments, Joe is forced to concede that there is truth in her assessment of him. He accepts that he's been living his life as a coward, not committing to it and living only vicariously through the lives of others. He listens raptly to their stories, drinking them in because he doesn't have them himself.

He makes a resolution to change this and proceeds ready to take charge with his new outlook. Dressed up he arrives at India's place where he is confronted by Paul and India, and where finally the masks come off and the horror stands revealed.

Instead of sticking to his newfound outlook and resolutions (although to be fair, who the hell would at this point?), to create his own stories when he can, and here is one truly unique and original delivered to him on a platter, he immediately regresses to his previous state and he runs away. Instead of gleaning the secrets (Seeeeecrets?) that are to be gained from this incredible and horrific experience,  he once again refuses to look at his situation head on and relapses.

This makes of the story a truly character driven story, but too much so, as we are denied a resolution only by the cowardice of the main character. It puts Bobby and Ross' plan center stage, but saps its completion of meaningful impact by cutting it short and not delivering sustained follow-through. The book has in fact, no ending and only a suspended breath, a pause.

Another way to look at the story is to view the revelatory scenes as Joe's mind giving up on sanity because of relationship stress and guilt over the death of Paul.

There's no way to sift fact from fiction with this theory and in this case one might as well label the entire flashback experience as a fiction. Insanity is a difficult state to depict in a novel and it always comes with its own problems. I refuse to look at the story in this way even though Carroll has admitted that he wanted the reader to question if Joe had gone crazy at the end of the novel. But if one goes by that theory there might as well be no rules whatsoever and then there is no point to even be thinking about this novel.

And there is a third way. 

Where the haunting is real, but where Joe, who tells us he's on Formori, Greece, is actually dead.

It's a theory without much backing it up, except that the ending to the novel is tied to its beginning. It is a cycle, a full circle where certain elements and even whole scenes, one after the other, have become distorted reflections of scenes at the beginning of the novel.

When Joe steps up to the train and hears Karen's voice behind him, he turns and is treated to a 'Little Boy' exclamation and it is revealed that Karen is Ross as well. End scene.

But in the blank space between final chapter and epilogue, the scene must have moved on. And where in one theory, Joe runs again and runs to Greece, where he seems to have been left alone by his tormentors (which, to be honest, doesn't make complete sense as such an elaborate set-up by vengeful ghosts can really have only one punch line; karmic murder), in another, Joe is done unto as he once did and he is pushed onto the train tracks by his brother. It is a hidden ending, but one that boasts full circle and complete resolution, being completely in keeping with all characters present and fitting to a tee the story's structure and themes.

The only thing that seems to not work with this is the existence of the train in the train station. At a glance, there seems to be no way for Joe to land on the train tracks if the train is there. But in a story with magic and ghosts, who can still say with certainty what is real, there might as well be no train and in case; the unwitnessed scene could go any one of a hundred ways. But the fact is: Joe and Ross end up looking at each other in a train station, and Joe's back is turned to train tracks as he looks at the brother he killed on train tracks. End Scene.

Gay hauntings in Vienna.

Yeah, yeah. I know, what the fuck right? And this coming after me scoffing at Michael Dirda's 'homoerotic camaraderie' line in his introduction to Something Wicked This Way Comes. But bear with it though.

I don't fully support this one and I admit to lining up facts to suit the theory and that this part of the write-up is deliberately written to accommodate that theory, but regardless, there's some merit to it anyway.

At the end of the novel it is revealed that every interaction Joe Lennox has had with principal characters of the story was all part of a mind-numbingly elaborate, vengeful plan to torment him. When the masks come off and the faces stand revealed it swiftly, against all reason, becomes clear that Joe has been manipulated every step of the way, or rather, that he has been played with every step of the way.

At least 3 distinct characters out of a possible 5 stand revealed as 2: Paul, India, Karen, the hypothetical Miles and 'the black dragon', were roles played by Bobby and Ross who have come back from the grave to fuck with their 'little brother'.

In the revelation scene the faces come off, literally, and most trusted friends stand revealed as childhood tormentors and as soon as he's running screaming out the door there's a few thoughts that hammer home in Joe's bewildered mind. He can see the entire plan as if it's laid out in front of him, who orchestrated it, and most disturbingly:

"I had fallen in love with, made love to... my brother."

There's an undeniably odd perversion going on. But what's more odd is that this one should maybe not've come out of the blue so much.

"I think we should tell Joe the Seeeeecret! 

Are you out of your mind, man, no one hears the secret. The secret is seeeeeeecret."

Throughout the novel several elements, once put together, are implying one simple little thing.
Bobby and Ross, had at the very least a semi-sexual relationship, if not a romantic one.

In life's twilight era of budding sexuality, boys will be boys and they will explore.
There is a scene in the book that is deliberately written to put you on the wrong track. Or is it?
In the night before Ross' death Joe falls asleep in a hassock in his brother's room. He wakes up to something "Thick and warm and gooey" on his face, with both Bobby and Ross standing by his bed in the dim light.
It's established in chapter 3, quite early in the novel that Joe is an unreliable narrator, when he interrupts the flow of his story by admitting he has to double back to fill in more information that he previously did not want to tell. When a writer blatantly highlights this type of unreliability it's supposed to be a signpost, but more than that, it's meant to signpost that somewhere, something is being deliberately occluded.
The reveal that the thick, warm and gooey liquid is maple syrup comes after the scene where Ross and Bobby's collection of adult magazines is brought into the picture, and is then delayed long enough so that one has certain things in mind by the time the curtain lifts and the name is given. It's quite deliberately suggestive.

Bobby, described as tough, with dangerous rumours swirling around him, reveals himself to have a charming and sensitive nature in private. After breaking up with his girlfriend, Ross is the one who snatches her up, implying if not a subconscious yearning then at least a complete disregard for cooties. In the year before he died, Ross had a relationship (can't remember if it was the same one) which turned so toxic and bad that upon its termination he vowed never to get invested in girls again.
And then he died. And Bobby starts to lift his friend up, and he venerates him, beginning to spend exorbitant amounts of time by his graveside, making of him more than he ever was in life.
When Joe and Bobby meet in a bar, Joe physically reaches out to that one's hand on his shoulder, whereupon Bobby flinches and launches into a revealing tirade that ends with:

"Well, let me tell you something man. He was a king, and don't ever forget that.
He was a fucking king."

In a letter from his father, it's revealed to Joe that that Bobby's life had gone completely downhill and that his life had ended in a shoot-out in town, six months before, concurrent but right before the meeting with Paul and India Tate. 

The questions and speculations concerning the afterlife had already popped up in the diner scene with Joe and India, in the later part of the book. And, taking the hauntings and supernatural events as they are given, as the reality of this narrative, we can assume that when Bobby died, he finally met his friend again.
They were reunited, and for some reason Bobby instigated a lust for vengeance in Ross and then a plan was born.

But for some reason, and I can't wrap my head around why, it was brother Ross who played both India and Karen, both sexual interests for Joe.

Maybe it's because as Joe said at the end of chapter 1:

"Was I a fool? Yes. Should I have screamed bloody murder?
Yes. Did I want my brother to love me just a little? Yes."

He got what he wanted. But way too much of it.