Motorman

Somewhere between Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and Cormac McCarthy's darker roads is situated the powerfully bizarre and intriguing Motorman, written by David Ohle. It's not a new work, but it has generated a consistent buzz in terms of the ever popular dystopia-themed literature. It's a short offering that provides only glimpses into an utterly improbable world that's actually quite fathomable when framed from a sense of despairing fabulism. It's concerns the flight of a character named Moldenke away from a series of meaningless activities in Texaco City to a safe-haven away from the omniscience of one ever-present Mr. Bunce. More than his flight though, Motorman is about a vision of a future, or perhaps a dream, in which our conception of time, survival and humanity is greatly accelerated and/or extended. With the appearance of multiple suns and moons (invented or otherwise) along rapidly moving calendars, it is either a cosmic time-shift or mild concussion upon which the reader must decipher and refocus. That, along with the buzzing and fluttering of one's numerous implanted hearts, especially upon an ubiquitous onrush of mindless jellyheads. Ohle doesn't provide many answers, but he does depict fragments of a life under continual decay amid continual surveillance. Ohle writes his chapters briefly, often corresponding between characters as if in the middle of a war, though eerily the setting is oddly quiet throughout. As such, Motorman is a hazy, prescient and disturbing work that bridges our dreams to a fantastic reality.

I read this when it was originally published back in the 70's . . . and although I have moved several times since, this is a book I have always held onto. There are many "whys" about why I have held onto it, but let's focus on the book itself. The writing style was something new at the time, with some chapters being only a few words long . . . staccato images torn from a scrapbook of future memories. The story is a paranoid future where the hapless hero, Moldenke (with his four implanted sheeps' hearts beating in his chest), tries to make some sense in a world where he is pretty powerless. A world where "jellyheads" seem to be taking over and where the planet has become so polluted that one avoids a trip near "the Bottoms." I write all of this from memory . . . the images are that compelling . . . and fleeting/frgamentary. A little lost gem of a book that is again available. Buy it.

I first read this title as a freshman in college; I was first intrigued by the title, then the surreal pen and ink drawing on the original hardcover. In short, precise chapters Mr. Ohle transported me to the netherworld of Moldenke. This lonely, survivor observes and records the details of his existence and searches for his mentor, Dr. Burnheart. An outstanding, gripping read.