Fan Man

I like this book, which I've read more than once, because it gets us into the (pot) head of the faux first person narrator, Horse Badorties, and plucks us accurately down into the loosey-goosey East Village I recall well, back in the day. I've recommended it a few times, and will recommend it again. It would deserve five stars if not for the regrettable rape scene, which I like to believe the young Kotzwinkle would have redone as an older, wiser head. Not everything is funny.I Think, Therefore Who Am I?

There has been a lot of counterculture literature since the rise of the Beat Generation in the 50s. Much of it fails to measure up to the standard of Kerouac, Ginsberg or Burroughs. There are some writers who have managed to rise up to the occasion with classic or near classic works. Terry Southern would be one that comes to mind. Another writer who has produced some fine works is William Kotzwinkle. Before, "E.T. The Extra-terrestial", Kotzwinkle was noted for producing counterculture literature. One of his most famous works is the 1974 novel "The Fan Man".This novel chronicles the sleazy misadventures of the self absorbed hippie Horse Badorties. He is typical low life East Village for that time period, man. He knows the score and will always find the door for a quick out. He avoids things like rent and pays for commodities with rubber checks. Surely this is a time piece cause many of his ideals wouldn't fly in today's climate. The title is derived from his continued attempts to be a salesman of small battery powered fans. He consistently uses them and tries to sell them in any store or business he enters into. It is all part of his grand scheme. He even envisions utilizing the fans in his Love Concert that will be presented at St Nancy's Church. (I am wondering if this is meant to be the famous St. Mark's Church in the East Village which conducted poetry readings for decades.) Kotzwinkle endeavors to capture the thought process and speech pattern of an East Village post hippie lowbrow. In this, he is very successful. The narrative moves along in a hazy stream of consciousness. Horse Badorties is a slob who is no stranger to the herbal pleasures of Mother Nature. The novel begins with Horse waking up in his filthy pad. Kotzwinkle is very descriptive in detailing the encrusted, greasy condition of this pad. It would probably not be too appealing to squeamish stomachs. I found myself thinking, "Man, and I thought I was a slob." Horse Badorties is not only from another era, he seems to be from another universe. Badorties is full of big ideas and cons. He doesn't pay the rent and destroys the pad with his junk and filth. He is trying to conduct a love concert which will feature a chorus of 15 year old girls, most of whom, he tries to bed down. He has music sheets which he claims is church music from hundreds of years ago. Suspension of disbelief is required to take seriously anything Horse Badorties says. The narrative is written in the first person, and we get a lot of "mans" sprinkled throughout the text, man. Like, man, after awhile, it can get pretty unnerving, man. In this respect, it is similar to a novel like Huck Finn where Twain attempts to capture the slang and accents of 19th Century Missouri. Kotzwinkle is very successful in this endeavor. He manages to tap into that vein of consciousness from Badorties viewpoint. This can be frustrating to the reader. If you consider how annoying it can be to listen to a person who overuses the word man

I can't very well say that I could relate to Horse Badorties and his many, many quirks. Although, I think we've all got a little bit of the Fan Man inside. William Kotzwinkle's perpetually-stoned main character invites his readers into his cluttered Horse Badorties pads, sharing with us his musical genius and many forms of health food (drugs), among other things.The Fan Man is filled to the brim with pure random humor, making little sense to anyone but the Man himself. His obscene language, erratic shopping sprees, and quests for fifteen-year old runaway chicks make Horse a bonkers, yet irresistible kind of guy.This book is made up entirely of his experiences, which he always seems to just barely make it through. For example, he sets his mind on getting the Today show to broadcast a live performance of his ongoing musical endeavor, the Love Chorus. In the process of getting this big goal accomplished, he falls asleep in a sinking boat in Central Park, pretends to have fallen down an elevator shaft, and somehow comes out beaming.There is an immense feeling of contentment that Badorties absolutely exudes, even with all of his obvious problems bearing down on him. His landlord is desperate to evict him from his cockroach-infested apartment. He hasn't been laid in FAR too long, as he put it. But in Horse's eyes, the filth of his pad is artful, and any day now, he is bound to charm a fifteen-year old chick up to his place to smoke some banana flakes. The most interesting element of this book is it's twisted philosophical value. Horse lives life without holding back. He does everything just as it pops into his head, if he's not distracted before he can. In some odd way, it seems that Horse sets an example of how we all wish we could live: carefree, on a constant high (whether it be by substances ingested or simply a mindset), and most of all, happy. No matter how many girls turn Horse down, he continues to hand out his sheet music to attractive young ladies on the street. No matter how much deadly Puerto Rican music may reach his ears, he always just pulls out the protective Commander Schmuck earflap hat and walks on. Over the course of a few hundred pages, we get to know the Fan Man intimately, and I know I felt a very complacent satisfaction with how things are left, despite several loose ends. Kotzwinkle created an entirely lovable character that will most certainly drag you willingly through mountains of trash and laughter.

I first read this book when I was about nine or ten. My mom and older sisters had already dog-eared our copy and finally saw fit to pass it down to me. I read it, laughed uproarously, and wasn't aware of 90% of the culture, drug, or sexual references in the book. I still found it funny enough to read repeatedly throughout middle adn high school, and throughout college and graduate. Of course, as I got older, I understood more and more and found The Fan Man to be as sad as it was funny.Horse Badorties is a loser who knows he's a loser and this makes his life that much more poignant, hilarious, and pathetic. He's on the fast track going nowhere and intends to enjoy every moment of it. He's the burnout hippie who hasn't escaped his languishing identity; he's capable of great things, but never follows through. He's a skilled musician, a magnetic group leader, and a charismatic con artist, yet never takes himself seriously enough to achieve the bliss he's looking for -- until he gives up his main ambition to watch the sunset over the Hudson River.Like the sunset, his contentment is also short lived and leads inevitably to his perpetual dark dissatisfaction with everything he does (with the exception of his girl's choir). Yet I still find myself laughing at him and with him. Every time I read this book.

Literature is like music: we don't all tap our feet to the same beat. So it is with William Kotzwinkle's "The Fan Man." If you like your literature fast and loose, upfront and far out, brilliantly written and well told -- but most of all, laugh-out-loud, falling over funny, buy this book sooner than later. Whatever you do, do notborrow it from me. I have loaned (read: given away) more copies than i can remember, since a friend opened my eyes to this piece in the mid-`70s. Today, "The Fan Man" sits on my desk -- not upon a shelf -- as inspiration for the imagination. It is evidence of what can be done with an idea. And, man, everytime i read a passage, i still howl.