Review: RE>LA>VIR

RE>LA>VIR is a title designed to disturb. In the obscure simplicity of its seemingly technical abbreviation we expect reference to something definite that should refer to what RE>LA>VIR is. Jan Ramjerdi exploits this expectation—and many others—in this refreshingly experimental treatment of narrative conventions, technology, our culture’s preoccupation with sexuality, and the unspeakability of rape. Few experimental texts actually succeed, but Ramjerdi’s intelligently passionate use of feminist theory to push at the borders of printed text certainly warrants attention if not, in my opinion, deserved admiration; and this without even considering RE>LA>VIR is Ramjerdi’s first novel.

RE>LA>VIR explores the intricacies and similarities of rape and narration (rape and narrate). A visceral and poetic text, the core narrative concerns a woman (who is/has been) the victim of rape; but Ramjerdi moves beyond a simple psychological exploration of her/our subject (woman/rape) by formulating the narrative as an electronic hypertext, literally a virtual hypertext. By breaking apart pages of meaning into progressively more disjunctive fragments, Ramjerdi illustrates how transitory textual meaning (and the body of a raped woman) are when it relies upon readers for actualization. Readers are not allowed to simply penetrate and lose themselves in this text because it actively resists objectification; it talks to us, addresses us, turns our “you” into “I” making us the objects addressed, while a chorus of various subject positions scroll down the computer screen like an epistolary we’re helping to compose. We are not simply allowed into the narrative; we are pulled in and forced out, needed and resisted.

The writing is disruptive and disturbing. Awkward, disjoined acts of language and Ramjerdi’s use of unusual typographies and a techno-savy language force the reader into an awareness of the act of reading. In this dis-easing communication, in the musicality of the fragments, and in the continual repetition of phrases that mark obsession lay hints of a tie to the late Kathy Acker. But Ramjerdi pushes the communication of dis-ease beyond Acker’s experiments, especially in her disjunctive use of language and symbols that defy the aesthetically logical categorizations of “Mr. A B C man” as he demands a straight-forward narrative .

Of course, we can force our way past these resisting barriers and find meaning for the text/for ourselves, and this is exactly Ramjerdi’s point. These dis-easing fragments of texts or symbols often border on noise, but from this noise bursts of meaning bubble up. Like mnemonic triggers, fragments of Ramjerdi’s text operate inside of nexus of associations that recall various elements inside and outside the novel; most notable for me are the patches of song lyrics that sprung up unexpectedly and added to the general rhythm of the text.

In the end the subject, whoever or whatever it is, has exploded across the pages in a poly-vocality that liberates this raped woman from her traditional position as object of narration. We are not allowed to simply read about rape here. Ramjerdi shows us that reading about rape is really what we’ve been doing in reading narratives of the rape experience: we move around, avoid, distance ourselves, and worst of all erase the body of the woman raped. Thankfully, Ramjerdi does not pull away from her subject matter, does not anesthetize, pad or theorize about a brutality that erases the body, and we are implicitly warned against the same. This is an unmasterable text, one that will not be subsumed into the position of under-stood—of the dead.

In a medical examination at the beginning of the novel, we see the raped body scrutinized, objectified, cataloged, photographed, pulled apart—every one an action dehumanizing the woman into a porous text, a text so easily fallen into or penetrated that it is in effect avoided. Another form of rape, certainly, but also of narrative, and the two combine into NARR.RAPE instead of nar.rate. Obviously, RE>LA>VIR is based on the conceit of text as female and reader as male; we’ve seen this conceit in numerous experimentalist fictions, the most obvious example being William Gass’ Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife in which the woman literally emerges from the physical pages demanding attention. But Ramjerdi takes this conceit and its connotations—“(rape, she said), (narrative, he said)”—past their usual theoretical constraints, and through passionate exploration reveals a disturbing quality of narrative: “what i’m trying to tell you is yes he raped me but then he saved me.”

Visions, dreams, fantasies and nightmares are nearly, if not completely, indiscernible from the world of the fiction and the “real” world re-presented by the fiction. This seeming absence of a traditional “ deep” realism adds an ironic and disturbing realization that acts of narration/reading/writing/rape are necessary for the conveyance of this lived experience: “I do not know the woman I am until I am raped.” It is a twisted irony, further emphasized by a picture of a naked woman sitting with her back to us with the caption “Reader, I am not an optical appliance.” But she is, she must be, she’s a picture or a text, no matter how resisting—for the text must be looked at—and it is really a matter of choosing from which position she will speak because she’s going to be violated regardless (passively or actively buggered, according to the narrator: it’s your choice). The text constantly reasserts itself as the narrator asserts herself as non-object, as non-dead but alive despite being NARR.RAPED, and the text, through its continuous pushing forward, fights against the death of becoming a noun object. RE>LA>VIR may be the title of this text, but it is not a noun; the text relies upon active reading to continually change, to remain a verb, to, in effect, remain alive and no longer simply the woman raped.

It would be difficult to give an accurate sense of how this novel reads without literally quoting pages of text, preferably with an optical scanner. But even then, I would still have to say that you must read this novel to experience its visceral beauty. Ramjerdi makes quite possibly the best use of language to convey lived experience through the medium of the printed text than any of her predecessors. More can easily be said about this novel, and needs to be. Because reading RE>LA>VIR is an individually meaning-full exercise, I’ve merely scratched the surface of what can be discussed in/about Ramjerdi’s text, and what is more I’ve primarily discussed the theoretical aspects and implications of her writing, thereby appealing to the “A B C man” in all of us. The richly brutal honesty, poetic textures and themes of RE>LA>VIR will not disappoint. Ramjerdi has pushed experimental fiction into a new and very exciting realm.