Part way through Ed King, author David Guterson has to enter the novel to admonish his readers not to dwell too much on the sex hes about to describe between his modern-day Oedipus Rex and Oeds mother.
Guterson has no real Freudian interest in what would compel a man to murder his father and marry his mother. Instead, he wanted to write a story about blindness and hubris and realized Sophocles had already done it. Guterson borrowed parts of the classic Greek tale and, in the re-telling of Oedipus/Ed Rex/King, he somehow manages to take a highly improbable plot and make it seem entirely plausible.
Unlike Oedipus, Ed is given no real warning about his fate. He doesnt know that hes the product of a summer affair between his father, an actuary, and a teenaged au pair. Hes never told that his mother leaves him on the steps of someones house and that the Jewish couple who adopts him decides never to let him know they arent his biological parents.
Nor is there anything that would lead Ed to realize that the middle-aged man whom he forces off the road in an enraged fit of teenaged bravado is actually his biological father. And when he develops a thing for older women, how is he to know that the woman he has sex with thousands of times as a math whiz, he enjoys counting is his biological mother?
So, as Guterson says, when it comes to the sex scenes, get over it. (Actually, hes a bit worried that some readers will flip forward to this chapter.) This is just sex between a younger man and older woman.
Take out the sex, then, and what have you got? A book thats a fascinating read about power and what it can do to us.
Think of it in an age where no monarch enjoys any real power, and murderous dictators cant outgun the rioting crowds anymore, who else would be able to enjoy Oedipus Rexs total command of his domain? Who else could not only amass such power but also be willingly awarded it by his citizenry?
Ed King, founder of the all-powerful Pythia search engine, thats who. His empire becomes so large, so all-encompassing, that his reign seems absolute. He gives people instant access to information and, in exchange, they give him the billions of dollars that make him accustomed to getting whatever he wants just as quickly. Concerned about all the personal information that people give so willingly to Facebook to exploit? Pythias customers give Ed their DNA code.
Pretty soon, Ed believes that all this power is simply his due. Few people challenge him; when Cybil, his creation of artificial intelligence, tries to warn him that hes going too far, he reminds her that she is just a computer program hes invented. He believes that she, like so much else, is nothing without him.
When someone has a narcissistic disorder, they willfully surround themselves with people who enable it, the Seattle-based author says in a telephone interview with WE. As a result, hubris and blindness reinforce each other.
In Sophocless tale, Oedipus Rex gouges out his own eyes when he realizes what hes done. Ed King doesnt so much choose blindness to his faults as be egotistical enough to believe those faults dont exist. Oepidus Rex mistakenly believes he can avoid his fate. Ed King believes he controls everything, including a fate that gives him god-like powers.
Guterson uses this titan of the internet world to examine the set of social mores that allow people like Ed King to exist. He also extrapolates Eds destructive traits to a much broader realm how is it that America lets itself unquestionably believe it is the supreme leader of the free world?
Hubris and blindness are native traits that get [the United States] in trouble around the world, he says. America is like Ed in that it begins to think there are no limits to its power. It stumbles along blindly with really large feet and doesnt understand why the people it tramples say Ouch, stop doing that.
We dont pay attention to others, much to our misfortune, Guterson says.
Oedipus Rex did not become a classic tale because every man harbours a secret wish to kill his father to get rid of competition for his mothers affection. Guterson says theres something more universal about him than that. We are all potentially the victims of our own blindness.
David Guterson is in Vancouver on Nov. 29 as part of the Jewish Book Festival, from Nov. 26 to Dec. 1. Hell be reading from his book from 8 to 10 p.m. at the Rosedale on Robson Suite Hotel. The host of the evening is CBCs Sheryl McKay. Tickets are $14 and include nibblies. Tickets are available by calling 604-257-511 or online at JesishBookFestival.ca.
