The milieus are open [in the/to] chaos which threatens them with exhaustion or intrusion.

Deleuze and Guattari

Intrusion – a recurring concept which haunts and tempts me at the same time. My simultaneous nemesis and salvation. My imperishable confirmation and, synchronously, the unscrupulous pitfall within which I ensnare myself all too often. I had to put my 6-part farewell review on hold due to its unfathomable and unpredictable machinations. Yet, somehow miraculously – miraculously as if I had once again gone back in time to unintentionally exploit my past serendipity towards literature which moves and dances – I have put my hands on a novel which not only grants you insight into how different and multifaceted nothingness of the 21^st Century appears to be, but also shows the other concept mentioned in the opening quote – exhaustion. And its puckishly splendorous consequences.

The Panda Theory by Pascal Garnier, is one of these novels which you can only read once, just like Iain Reid’s I’m thinking of ending things, yet it perches on the opposite side of the concept-inducing spectrum. So closely does the Frenchman’s novel resemble a beautiful inevitability of not being able to resist a new dimension of meaninglessness associated with life itself, it takes a courageous mind not to crumble under its sentences. ‘Courageous’ here meaning being able to withstand the stares, with which uncharted types of abysses – ‘granddaughters’ and ‘grandsons’ of Nietzschean Abyss – so gladly and eagerly x-ray us each and every day. Provided the novel ‘accepts’ you. Contrary to the Canadian’s book which retains the accessibility of a mystery novel, The Panda Theory, with its post-existential vibe, is highly exclusionary. How so? It’s time to meet our Protagonist.

It’s fairly safe to assume, the only precise method of defining things is by way of showing. Pointing your grubby finger, your not-so-square chin, your presupposedly round head. Not only is this ostensive brazenness required to demonstrate who Gabriel – The Panda Theory protagonist – is, but there simply is no other way to depict what remains of everything a human being constitutes after nothingness has overthrown it all. That’s why I would like you to imagine my words are fingers, chins and heads. At least, until the following paragraph ends.

Gabriel appears in a small Breton town where the devil says goodnight. At first, he seems like a regular type of guy, although a bit introverted one. He knows how to get by and has some money. What he has more, though, is a somewhat penetrative ability to get into the orbit of other people’s lives. Yet, this penetrative passiveness of his – that’s what my crooked finger would point at – somehow escapes the clear definition. As if it were peppered with something unnamable which enriches it with frank dejection, a bold, stout, self-evident refusal to become fully attached to something and/or someone. Or to anything and everyone in general. A presence without being, an unfounded appearance, a banshee of the state-of-the-art Nothingness, Gabriel is an intrusion, a ‘grandson’ of Nietzschean Abyss, whose eyes neither reject nor approve, neither judge nor do they cut anybody any slack. He is an active man – he wanders around the town, talks to people, befriends them and – first and foremost – cooks for them. Just like any other open-hearted fellow would do. However, there is something irrevocable about him, something which separates him from everything and everyone, existentially, almost metaphysically. As if he were molded from a different type of clay, a more exhausted one. From the second, also pretty intrusive, narrative we get to know why is that so, and suddenly the slow-paced yet lucid goings-on accelerate through the build-up and twist phase… and we are struck by sensations which escape well-trodden paths of description.

What strikes the most in The Panda Theory, though, is the straightforward delicacy of language. I like to call it “The French Subtlety”. Name-wise, a slightly questionable trait, especially for authors of different nationalities who also possess it, nevertheless, it fits like a glove. Garnier himself oftentimes claimed that he kept his narratives plain and simple due to his insufficient education. A gross exaggeration bordering on self-flagellation, especially when the instantly perceptible intensity of his writing style hits us like a bludgeon. The book reads smoothly, surprisingly, considering the weight it carries on its back. Garnier’s pen ‘strokes’ (apparently, the Frenchman was also a painter), distinctively calm, with unpretentiously poetic touches here and there, are as far from numbing your thoughts and making your heart yawn as a fingerless vet is from becoming an origami master. The brilliance of Garnier’s writing lies in his honesty. He is one of those authors who write not with their blood, but the blood of their spirits, blood of their hearts, blood of their souls. This “trisomy” of blood springs warrants there is no beating about the bush, every sentence is like a finely oiled cog and sprocket, fitting seamlessly into the true-to-life machinery of narrative, being only one step removed from the natural flow of events. The memorable mimetic prowess of Garnier’s prose is almost unmatched and resembles a harmonious melody of necessities. Perhaps that’s why we have no objections believing Gabriel is an intrusion, or, rather, inTRUEsion…

Juxtaposing Garnier’s main character with protagonists of David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress and Georges Perec’s A Man Asleep, we witness another type of outsider-ish alienation. It is less of a post-skeptical metaphysical somersault of Kate’s “no-other-wayness” than obtuse obfuscations experienced by the nameless hero penned in the 2^nd person by the OuLiPean Prince himself, however, by way of sheer tangibility of silent disgruntlement with reality, Gabriel is on a par with them both. He retains the firmest grip on it, though. The reality exhausted him thoroughly, sucked him dry, true, thus he resorts to the last thing remaining – becoming an intrusion, turning “antiseptic” to all identifiable internal human affects and afflictions. Yet, he rides the more subordinate wave of oddity, dejectedness and inexpressibility than Markson’s and Perec’s protagonist do. He is less philosophically flamboyant and oblivious than Kate from Wittgenstein’s…, as well as less language-bound and separated from externality than Perec’s ‘sleepwalker’ is. He may be patted on the back, smiled at, talked to, yet he is absent, his internal qualities are abject, depleted, nonexistent. He is a shadow of a shell, a none – if I may transform this indefinite pronoun into a regular noun – a none which is so used to its own exhaustion, it strips him down to the bare necessity of continuing to be without everything. If every facet of reality is laced with illusions, then Gabriel has to be what he is – a dis-illusioned none, a harbinger of unassuming nothingness. A nothingness which might be approached, even high-fived, yet it remains untouched. And will carry on doing so, from the bleak beginning on a grim train station to… well, I am not going to spoil the wide grin of Panda.

Amonne Purity

You were the baby of the class you know
You were so young and so uncertain
Suffer little children
Oh what a poor soul

Erasure

Hey now, hey now
Don’t dream, it’s over.

Crowded House

The Litera(p)ture of Ontological Desire

Or should I have written The Holy Innocents (1988) Redux, perhaps? For when Gilbert Adair’s agent was approached by Jeremy Thomas – a British movie producer of such memorable flicks like Oscar-ridden The Last Emperor, totally whacky Naked Lunch, or Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence – one of only six movies in which David Bowie starred as a male lead – and acknowledged that Bernardo Bertolucci himself was not only whetting his appetite for the movie adaptation of the novel, but also wished Adair wrote a screenplay, the British author immediately gave in, tempted by the occasion to rewrite and re-entitle or – as he himself put it – “overwrite” The Holy Innocents with which he had grown strangely dissatisfied. That’s pretty much how The Dreamers came to life.

The above lightweight “forewordy” anecdote straight from the cinema world was a bit telltale, as you will see for yourselves in a minute or two. But now, let’s face the slight inconvenience with continuity… Each and every time, a flawless attention to detail is needed to deject the possibility of stirring up the atmosphere of the scene, the vibe of the plot, the general ambience of the Mansion of Litera(p)ture. Ah, yesss… The Baroque House buffed up, unfolded, the premises (here, the double meaning in full bloom) of its geometry based upon smoldering glances of the Silver Screen starlets… We leave its enchanting foreground of Frothy Vestibule and, with our hearts pounding wildly, as if a hummingbird on coke desired to outflutter its ever-eager wings, enter another room. What is it?

The Kitchen-sink (Ir)realism

The common knowledge says most accidents occur at home. Leaving the statistics for more justified and rational circumstances, what room seems to be the most dangerous, then? Garage? Nah. Not everyone likes tinkering with their cars, motorcycles, lawnmowers, etc. until the wee hours of the morning. Besides, not everybody even has one. Bathroom? Sounds pretty tempting. Mop the floor and you’ll end up having splendidly unassuming, leg-breaking, concussion-inducing trap (yellow Slippery When Wet signs are good for public places and names for Bon Jovi LP’s). Blow dry your hair while having a bath and chances are you’ll turn into a piece of toast. But still, my best bet is kitchen. You hang out in there a lot, not only during dinner time, but also casually, without any particular reason, popping in for a sandwich, for a sip of milk, for a few grapes from a fruit tray, and so on. It is a store for various potentially harmful utensils (knives, cleavers, graters, potato peelers, can openers, meat forks and tenderizers, ice picks [Sharon, calm down and keep your legs crossed!], pizza cutters, rolling pins, seafood shears, etc.), appliances (pressure cookers, meat and coffee grinders, blenders, microwaves, deep fryers) as well as hazardous elements of the interior “landscape” (scalding hot oil, boiling water, preheated ovens, baking pans with apple pies inside them, cooling down on windowsills). A dangerous place, indeed. Just like desire could be…

The Dreamers takes place in Paris in a turbulent spring of 1968. Ahhh, the late 60’s – the last epoch of human naivety, its last caprice of innocence. The innocence of a belief that the status quo of existential habits and the rules of the game called Civilization are correctable, ready to alter on a whim. That the new ensuing set of meta-practices and post-values implemented in place of the old ones – trashed and heaped up mercilessly at the junkyard of obsolete customs and overwrought thoughts – would suffice. That the Jungian collective unconsciousness will not fall victim to the brute, boorish, myopic impotence of the revolution. That the unus mundus – one world – hypothesis and other “uncharted territories” of reality are going to stand still or lie dormant while that highfalutin hullabaloo hurls around and wreaks havoc in the name of not that well thought out progress, without any consequences. That the revolutionaries themselves are courageous and prodigious enough not to become cowardly prodigal sons of unforeseen twists of fate, and persistent enough not to get pranked by the good old chaos. For it takes infinite strength of will to bear in mind (let alone handling it in reality!) the raving intricacies of contingency, the embodiment of haphazard turn of events lying ahead as a consequence of each and every conceivable, radical deed. One false move – hell, one right move, too! – and all goes down the drain, to which the instigators, perpetrators, agent provocateurs would react with boohoohoo faces of a brainwashed clockwork Alex. But all of the above is rather an irrelevant, second-rate dimension, like a texture of the tiles on the kitchen floor. The real desire of The Dreamers lies somewhere else – among the trio of protagonists. What happens between them is the ontological constituent of the Mansion’s Kitchen.

Isabelle, Théo and Matthew. The first two are 17-year-old nonidentical twins, a progeny of an exceptionally rare breed of artist – a materialistically successful poet. The third one – a student from San Diego, one year older than the siblings, rather namby-pamby, definitely bashful and psychologically timorous – is of a bourgeoisie or, in terms of the wild wild West, middle class origin. All three of them are movie buffs of the kind which not only flabbergast people with their extensive knowledge of cinema, but also ignite fierce pangs of jealousy among other movie maniacs (all right, all right, I admit I inferred that conclusion from my own envy – I consider myself “movie buff light”…). The amateur gang of celluloid fetishists frequent the most famous of all film archives in the world – Cinémathèque Française – where other cinephiles roam as wild horses did back in the day. After the spontaneous reenactment of one of the most memorable scenes from Jean-Luc Godard’s movie Band of Outsiders – speed-visiting Louvre – our fidgety trio, under unexpectedly favorable conditions (the poet dad and subservient mom need to take refuge in their summer house outside Paris, for he has to put finishing touches to his latest work, undisturbed by the clinking clanking collection of caliginous distractions the capital of France provides bountifully), obfuscate itself to form a half-incestuous ménage à trois.

The Dark Decor of Desire

Deleuze writes:

Now we can return to perception. All monads express the whole world darkly, even if not in the same order. Each one encloses in itself the infinity of minute perceptions. They cannot be distinguished by weakness or strength. What distinguishes them is their zone of clear, remarkable, or privileged expression. Ultimately, “totally naked monads” (lacking this zone of light) might be conceived. They would live in darkness or near-darkness, in the vertigo and giddiness of minute and dark perceptions. No differential mechanism of reciprocal determination would come to select a few of these tiny perceptions in order to extract a clear perception. They would have nothing remarkable about them.

How kind and thoughtful of Gilles – helping me out like that! For our very naughty trio descends into or, rather, strips itself down exactly to the dimension of “minute and dark perceptions”. The teenagers “(de)monadize” themselves by virtue of fancy game Isabelle names Home Movies. The rules are pretty simple: each of the profligate participants reenacts – without fixed turns, while going about their daily routine – a movie scene spurred by tiny associations, petite recollections, negligible gestures they once observed on the silver screen and, out of the blue, recalled. If a challenged player, handpicked by the “actor” to guess the movie the reenacted scene comes from, fails to do so, he or she forfeits. It is precisely the nature of said forfeits that illustrates another trait of the Kitchen, ever more randy, lewd and debauched with every game of Home Movies going on – the metamorphosis into a Home Cinema with a bar in the back.

For nobody has claimed The Mansion of Litera(p)ture is insusceptible to shape shifting. Just as our Vestibule (via Vian’s Froth on the Daydream) revolved around enchantment and the silver screen smoldering glances (what a premonition, by the way!), as an underlying metaphysical rule on how should we try to imagine the geometry of the Mansion, here, in the Kitchen/Home Cinema, the rules are different. The sensations, “minute and dark perceptions”, now taken not as a monadic seeming-in-the-world, “trembling” of “concentration, accumulation, coincidence of a certain number of converging preindividual singularities”, but as metaphysical, nonhuman “bricks” with which our Mansion has been constructed, begin to oscillate, attract each other, dance and breed yet another wants and cravings for new rules to push the (r?)evolution of the Mansion further.

The Baroque solution is the following: we shall multiply principles – we can always slip a new one out from under our cuffs – and in this way we will change their use. We will not have to ask what available object corresponds to a given luminous principle, but what hidden principle responds to whatever object is given, that is to say, to this or that “perplexing case.” Principles as such will be put to a reflective use. A case being given, we shall invent its principle. It is a transformation from Law to universal Jurisprudence.

The letters which seduce with their nauseating nocuous nocturnes of wet dreams. The sentences like femmes fatales, irresistibly tempting, yet tempestuous and pesky – the unhinged sources of unending temptation and trepidation. Paragraphs resembling whores in skimpy thongs giving throbbing throngs of incessant excitement, leaving you senseless or “senseful”, depending on whether you gave or received. Chapters, a double-crossing, conniving chaperones, Marquises de Merteuils of intrigues, cold-hearted malevolent succubi of emotional scumbaggery, donned in an elaborate and eloquent elegance of linguistic exuberance. Look! The lights have just dimmed down! The séance is about to begin. What is it going to be? A movie Travis Bickle took Betsy to watch on their date? Whose hand is going to land on your knee and slowly creep upwards in a spidery, sliding manner, in a vein the Engineer chased Kristy in The Hellraiser?…

Cooling off a bit, no wonder Isabelle, Théo and Matthew – our ever less innocent, or shall we simply say “nocent”, cherubs of bawdy, lascivious activities – were bound to fall for the metamorphosis of the Mansion’s Kitchen. They now serve a double purpose as multipliers of new rules – the bawdy brood of “minute and dark perceptions” – as well as – on the other hand, eliding their monadic qualities, quantities and convergent singularities – metaphysical “architects”, who erect the rapturous, luscious edifice of Home Cinema. Unfortunately, this spectacular feat occurs WITHIN the enclosed reality of Isabelle and Théo’s parents roomy apartment. The minute our exmonadic rule makers and raunchy terraformers step outside their finite alternative world, they clash with more spacious, more capricious and more unforgiving revolutionary reality. They are willing to comply, they try to conform (Oh, Sweetest Irony! Why are you not my one and only love!?). Alas, in the end, with their jaws (r/de?)evolved into mere mechanical valves of pleasure, they bite more than they could chew. With their (In)nocence lost, the dream is over…

Yet, our séance continues. The Mansion hollers ontological piquancy and purrs literary terms of endearment, with a sultry murmur. They nestle into our earlobes. There are corridors to stride, other rooms to explore. We get up from the chaise lounge of the in-house Silver Screen. We come over to the bar in the back and pour ourselves a shot of whiskey, to gather up. Where would the exit of Home Cinema lead us to? Just you wait and see…

Amonne Purity

Two is the beginning of the /beginning/.

James Matthew Barrie /slightly purified/

Yes, the publication date in parentheses is correct. I have dared to leave the safe zone of our beloved 80’s for the conceptual sake of presenting you two texts about two books which are radiant manifestations of yet another double concept – the immobilization inside and outside of time. At first glance, it may look as if our good old Amonne is about to spill yet another bucket of pretentious balderdash onto our shoes or, more likely, eyes, thus divesting us of our already rare everyday “commodity” – time. I am going to contradict this assertion by showing that due to magnificently random occurrences, one is bound to experience new combinations, fuses and concoctions of sensations (the term “sensations” has been used here for lack of a better word; perhaps a portmanteau of the following: “swarming”, “exhilarating”, “contrivance” and “internal” would serve a better purpose, however I do not have time – how ironic! – to come up with portmanteaus left and right). Sensations of time reversals which would make Benjamin Button green with envy, eternities frozen in timelessness so immovable and stationary, that thermal fluctuations at temperatures nearing absolute zero would look like some mosh pit madness at a death metal concert. But enough with these exaggerated disposable comparisons.

Kensington Gardens is this particular type of book which not only falls under the “exclamation marks” category without much effort (the abundance of quotable profundity found in it is absolutely staggering and would easily serve as a so-called “brilliance content” for at least three or four other novels – we draw exclamation marks next to the dazzling passages almost on every page!), but also courts us with its multilayeredness in a flawlessly natural fashion. Rodrigo Fresán’s work takes us on a truly wondrous trip to the late Victorian/Edwardian London as well as to its LSD-driven Swinging Sixties incarnation whose freshly regained poshness of a global city, which has just got up off its knees from the post-World War II era of food rationing and blandness, helped to set standards for how the modern world would look for the remainder of the 20^th century. Poking the issue with a stick would quickly reveal that it involves a consolidation of questions regarding “mechanics” of a certain kind of day-to-day aesthetics: in what ways things would be perceptible, how would they expose themselves in front of us, what would their meaning sound like for us, etc. But all of these are just some generalized yet very marginal notions, almost unworthy to mention, which might pop up inside our heads as we glide along the pages. Besides, we do not want to put the cart before the horse, do we?

One of the main threads of the book is the life of a Scottish writer James Matthew Barrie – the creator of Peter Pan character which was first introduced in a 1902 novel entitled The Little White Bird and immortalized in a play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up two years later. Barrie’s life is recounted in a highly detailed and simultaneously unusual way biographies-wise, for it mysteriously intertwines with recollections of a man who narrates it. The reminiscences of this man, whose name or occupation I shall not reveal (taking into account the new “feelings” Kensington Gardens generates, that would be quite a spoiler), evoke his childhood memories as the Swinging Sixties kid who, almost as if under influence of some sort of magical powder (no innuendos!), had the occasion to experience firsthand the crème de la crème of the delirious 60’s ambience. His parents played in a rock band and therefore all sorts of big names orbited around in his immediate vicinity (David Hemmings, Dennis Hopper, Stanley Kubrick, Catherine Deneuve, Jimi Hendrix, Jean Shrimpton, Dean Martin, Peter O’ Toole, Audrey Hepburn, Andy Warhol, Vidal Sassoon, Jimmy Page [solo, no Led Zeppelin then], Peter Sellers, Phil Spector [way before his gun and hairstyle frenzy], Philip Larkin, Brian Jones [without The Rolling Stones], The Rolling Stones [without Brian Jones], Michael Caine, Kray twins, Timothy Leary, to name but a few). These remembrances, which far too many times have been peppered with a sour and tragic seasoning of unfortunate events, constitute the second thread of the novel and – married in an effervescent mixture of awe and stellar warmheartedness with Barrie’s unorthodox biography – play first fiddle in Rodrigo Fresán’s “thread trio”. What plays the second one?

Second fiddle and, by the way, the third thread of Kensington Gardens – a bit undercurrent-ish and, frankly, quite pivotal one – turns out to be purely psychological. Now, as you may or may not know, I loathe psychological novels with every fiber of my being. They are one of the most, if not the ultimately dreadful, hopeless, dragging-down boredom generators ever contrived by humanity. Do you want to experience the utter disappointment of internal ruminations which lead from never to nowhere? Just take a good look at yourself in the mirror after you have rinsed your mouth during the morning session of teeth brushing. Why read about somebody else’s monsters when you can look at yours any time you like? To empathize? To feel catharsis? I have never understood that, just as I have never been able to comprehend, how on earth talking to an allegedly smart bearded stranger with grizzly hair, who wears a black jacket over dark burgundy turtleneck and a pair of brown corduroy trousers (I am being awfully stereotypical, but I guess I could be excused – my licentia poetica is my Savior and only She can judge me…) would help cast the demons out. But I am getting self-sidetracked… There are, of course, exceptions, e.g. Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos or The Diary of a Seducer by Kierkegaard (the latter could be found in the first volume of his Either/Or) whose psychological facet is always cut unintentionally, plays the part of a byproduct which is never assessed as the main reason for a novel to appear, or is smuggled subtly from an area where the fuzziness found between the lines meets the murkiness of silence (like brackets within parentheses). The same goes with Fresán’s wonder – the psychological wanderings of his protagonist are somewhat of a result of the idea which exists behind the novel, perfectly ingenuous, deprived of this unmistakable, toxic, regular psychological ingredient which pulverizes your soul mercilessly and turns you into a drowsy creature which yaws wider than hippo’s obtuse snout could possibly open. If you want to throw in some stuff form the brown leather couch, you had better make it innocuously inconspicuous – like Fresán has done. And this, My Fellow Readers, is the highest possible form of compliment from someone who fights like cat and dog with…ahem…psycho novels.

Putting threads of Kensington Gardens back into the haberdashery of belletristic knickknacks, let’s talk about magic. For Fresán’s novel surely deserves this noun to be placed in its description. What is so mesmerizing in this delightful book? Apart from Barrie’s life – his daydreamlike and tragic childhood, first steps into the not so adult, yet dull and adulterous world of adolescence, youth and journalism, meeting and turning the Llewellyn Davies brothers into his own, later on – private, pantheon of Muses, unimaginable and splendorous success of the Peter Pan play, divorce with his wife Mary, the revenge of Demons that lived within him, within the only author who remained ageless enough to write about and personify the immobilization and rejection of the growing up, and who suffered fully from the dire consequences of the above deed – apart from the sweet-and-sour critique of Swinging Sixties and the psychological scarring of the protagonist, Kensington Gardens introduces us to something really luscious. The tasty raisins of ruminations (e.g., a marvelous comparison of literature’s development to certain stages of human life – from its innocent birth in 18^th century, via Wonderlandly-Twisted 19^th century childhood and turbulent Caulfieldishly Hazy excesses of its 20^th century pubescence, to… oh, you almost got me! Naughty, naughty!…), mouth-watering custard pie of predictions about humanity, literature, perception of history, and the like, along with some other delectable morsels – for instance the genesis of a name Wendy – all of it creates this highly flammable orgy of unforgettable literary flavors and elicits imaginary opiate and/or LSD trips to somewhere where there is no ticktock of a clock playing an infinite game of Tic-tac-toe with us. Where noughts and crosses do not spawn endless combinations of nevermores. Where everybody does not have to be a lucky loser or just a plain one – beside, outside or – the worst of them all – inside oneself. Where there are no bad monsters living under our beds or hiding behind closed doors of our closets…

Now, what’s with this “immobilization inside time” Kensington Gardens is responsible for bringing along? Does it have anything to do with keeping everything “frozen” in the eternal stupor of metaphysical obligation of something to be? Or maybe of something to pass? When does it start? Why does it have to be so surreptitious? Here we go, hitting a brick wall again… Nonetheless, if I gathered up my courage to set my doubts aside for a while, I would say that Fresán’s novel does not eject us outside of time. Our presence is well within its boundaries, its plane of influence, its realm of conditionality. However, we are not moving anywhere along it. The most accurate and, at the same time, describable phenomenon which could illustrate the above is this extremely rare and comparatively short-lived subjective time dilatation. It happens when you enjoy something so utterly that you are not only totally disconnected from the rest of the world (no, its not the regular immersion à la GTA: nothing-else-matters-when-I-play-it-San Andreas) but, given the circumstances, you do not even conjecture in a mode of: “Holly crap, I feel as if someone’s just activated bullet time!”. It resembles sitting on a moving bus or a train with all of its windows shut tight. You remain perfectly motionless and the interior of the bus/train is something which redefines the term “astonishing”. Personally, I think it can only occur before you are ten years old. After that – sorry buddy, maybe next time (you’d better pray for the reincarnation in human form to be true!). I myself have experienced it only once: when I watched a movie called The Brave Little Toaster. I must have been no more than 8. And I swear to God/Contingency/Flying Spaghetti Monster/Whatever Demiurge at hand, the movie lasted six hours! Now go check out on IMDb how long the movie really (really?!) is if you care to do so. Kensington Gardens gives you the similar “feeling”. The “feeling” of elfin supremacy Stanley Ipkiss possessed while wearing the titular mask. The “feeling” that taking part in somebody else’s dream inside a dream inside a dream, etc. seems like a child’s play. The “feeling” that you have just been metaphysically rewired and you immediately forget about it, like Peter Pan. It is like a crescendo of a big band consisting solely of children’s first laughs seconds before breaking into thousand pieces to form fairies: unbearable in the beginning, nevertheless, after a while, purely (dis)obligatory, indestructibly innocent, irrevocably courageous. The laugh that blurs the line between the promise, sacrifice and fulfillment. The laugh that solidify our innate internal armor which cannot be pierced through. Not even by pointy, razor-sharp teeth of the ticking crocodile which ate our hand once, and has wanted more ever since. Perhaps, he prowls because he is still missing some hands for the clock inside his stomach? Who knows…

This is how extraordinarily unique Kensington Gardens are. But there exists its perfectly pitched counterbalance, orchestrated by the second part of the concept I have focused on in the previous paragraph – the immobilization outside of time. The only thing I am going to disclose now is the fact that in order to present the said opposite I am going to leave the 80’s one more time and head towards some other decade. What decade? What kind of novel is my next trip going to be about? As for now, my lips are sealed, however you had better keep your eyes open, because I do not intend to put a lid on my inkwell just yet.

Amonne Purity

Whilst we’re all waiting for CD Projekt Red to release more info about its Blade-Runner-ish new title Cyberpunk 2077, it’s worth remembering the greatest highlights of the last few games that sport the wonderful Retro-Synth aesthetic. Because of their unique artstyle, colour, direction and soundtracks these games have lasted the test of time, and have great replay value today.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (2013, Ubisoft)

(images from Steam)

Released as a spin-off DLC sized spin on Ubisoft’s earlier released title “Far Cry 3”, Blood Dragon sports everything we love. Neon lights, sexy action, references to our favourite 80’s flicks, and best of all, a retrowave soundtrack composed by Australian duo “Power Glove”.
Although short in length, Blood Dragon makes up for everything in personality. A terrific ambient soundtrack accompanies you through your conquest of a Dystopian island occupied by warlord Sloan, set during 2007 after “Vietnam War II”. The game is laden with low brow comedy, and tasteful graphics and animation that just hits every mark.

(images from Steam)

Getting passed the reliance on Far Cry 3’s release, everything in Blood Dragon is a throw to something we’ve come to love – the badass weapons, the side-quests, VHS tapes as collector’s items and a sexy heroes journey involving a crazy amount of neon lights.

This all goes without saying the terrific soundtrack Power Glove composed for this game – it sets scenes perfectly and keeps tension to an outrun-pace, almost as if you’re watching a Neo-Topian movie, but where all the explosions and death are your doing.

It’s an amazing experience, and should definitely be picked up by any lover of the aesthetic.

Hotline Miami
(2012, Devolver Digital)

(images from Steam)

Hotline Miami is a legend of indie-games. Widely acclaimed all over the world, the 2012 indie title transcends the typical mold for a game of its type.

Again, it’s everything we love. Hectic, immersive action, an art-style that reels the player in, and a soundtrack that just makes hair stand on its own, featuring artists such as M O O N, El Huervo and Perturbator. Hotline Miami is a surreal, psychedelic top-down action game, involving crazy amounts of gore and violence – if by some chance you haven’t graced this masterpiece, you need to.

Hotline Miami takes queues from drug and gore ridden movies and TV shows of the 70’s through to the 90’s. But that’s just in the creation of the aesthetic, beyond this Hotline Miami crafts its own mold of high-voltage gameplay that causes blood curdling, teeth grinding and brain frying.

The soundtrack tops it all off. If id Software’s 2016 DOOM (4) was to be praised for its action-audio synchronization, then Hotline Miami beat it to the punch. The beat-heavy, synth-ridden, guitar strumming soundtrack that plays in the background whilst you blow away at criminals and bodyguards makes you want to align every gunshot and melee strike up with the music.

This game is nothing short of a masterpiece. It’s worth your time.

VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action (2016, Sukeban Games)

(images from Steam)

Less-heard of, but definitely worth the mention, is VA-11 HALL-A, a 2016 title with a lighter tone than previous titles mentioned.

Rather than immersing the player in layers of violence, gore and chaos, VA-11 HALL-A takes a different turn, being more of a choice-based visual novel involving well drawn art, conversations, mixing drinks and a Shibe lead character. VA-11 HALL-A has a terrific immersive soundtrack, not leaning more into the Outrun scene, but functioning as a nice backdrop to the roleplay as a Cyber-Bartender. The game itself relies more on its character design and comedy, and it does both greatly.                                          

Make no mistake, VA-11 HALL-A is no outrun-heavy action thriller where you kill everything, enjoy the sounds, love the lights and move on – it has more of a chill vibe to it. Imagine yourself behind the bar of a Neo-Tokyo cocktail bar in a dystopian, comic-y world that takes queues from sci-fi, whilst keeping up a decent comedic tone, with a lineup of memorable characters. That’s essentially what you’ve got here.

The music doesn’t speed up your cocktail shaking or anything, it’s more of an ambient thing to remind you of the setting, and it’s a great listen, and really adds to the experience.

It’s a great game, and well worth its value.

 Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011, Eidos Montreal)

(Images from Steam, game was remastered in 2013)

No list of retrowave games can go without Deus Ex: HR. Adam Jensen’s iconic line “I Never Asked For This” is enough to reel an unsuspecting gamer into the immersive universe of Deus Ex, but under the surface level of this epic game is everything we love about our aesthetic – a brilliant storyline, awesome action, and an immersive soundtrack that traps the player in the universe of this Blade Runner-inspired epic, complimented by visuals and art style.

Deus Ex takes a more serious, narrative driven approach than the other games on this list. It bends the aesthetic in its own, unique direction, picking up an orange and murky-grey hue over bright purples and pinks. It takes massive influence from the sci-fi’s of old, creating a unique dystopian storyline,

enhanced by every element of the game – needless to say the music, but also through player choices; you don’t need to kill anybody except bosses throughout the whole game, and you are often put into tense negotiation scenes.

But back to what we love – the soundtrack. It’s insane, and creates immersive, epic tension, and reaffirms the player’s choices no matter if they’re more pacifistic, ham fisted, or an action hero type.

You definitely need to pick up this masterpiece.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

(Images from Steam)

(2003, Rockstar Games)

Vice City was Rockstar Games’ love letter to the gritty, gory, drug ridden Miami-set action flicks of the 70’s and 80’s, taking major queues from Scarface and Miami Vice. It’s much more dated than the others on this this, but worthy of at least an honorable mention.

You’re in the control of Tommy Vercetti, a memorable player character within the Grand Theft Auto franchise, and a ruthless gangster in the drug-fuelled Vice City, based on Miami. You’ve got Lamborghini’s, Ferrari’s, Uzi’s and Helicopters at your disposal.

It’s an old game, in every respect of the title, but two elements of the game transcend age. Artstyle and soundtrack.

GTA Vice City used pinkish hues and eye-catching dominant fluoro-ish colours to enhance its graphics. Cutting edge in 2003, however less-so now, it can’t be denied that there is an aesthetic quality and personality to this game.

Soundtrack wise the same is true. Vice City doesn’t contain outrun and modern Retrowave and Synthwave artists – it’s a time-period piece. Video Killed The Radio Star, Billie Jean, classic songs that are intrinsically linked to our aesthetic make up the soundtrack to the game.
You might not appreciate it as much as somebody with sever nostalgia, but Vice City is a classic.

The games here are shining beacons of sound and artstyle. Insanely fun, beautiful in design, and well molded into their own directions, with unique soundtracks that fit perfectly.

Written by Zachariah Kelly