Departing from the script: getting stuck between fantasy and reality can produce painfully funny fiction.

Departing from the script: getting stuck between fantasy and reality can produce painfully funny fiction. The Fearsome Particles Trevor Cole McClelland and Stewart 344pages, hardcover isbn-10: 0771022603 isbn-13: 9780771-22609 Trevor Cole is emerging as a master ofobsessive-delusional-neurotic-tragicomic fiction. His two novels, NormanBray in the Performance of His Life (which was shortlisted for a 2004Governor General's Award Since their creation in 1937, the Governor General's Literary Awards have become one of Canada's most prestigious prizes, awarded in both French and English in seven categories: Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, Drama, Children's Literature (Text), Children's Literature (Illustration), for Fiction) and his latest, The FearsomeParticles, both told from the points of view of obsessive and delusionalpeople, are distressing and sometimes cringe-making funny, their humourakin to that of David Brent trying to assert his power in the BBC BBCin full British Broadcasting Corp.Publicly financed broadcasting system in Britain. A private company at its founding in 1922, it was replaced by a public corporation under royal charter in 1927. TVseries The Office. Cole's skill at evoking this humour suggeststhat he himself is quiveringly attuned at��tune?tr.v. at��tuned, at��tun��ing, at��tunes1. To bring into a harmonious or responsive relationship: an industry that is not attuned to market demands.2. to the tiny shudders--say, aninexplicable bid in a game of cards--that suggest the life-threateningfault lines in people's lives. And Cole's prose is soconfident, compassionate and clear that it draws out that neuroticadmission: I wish I'd written that. The Fearsome Particles is very much of our era and the struggle forhomeland security. Its pivotal character is Kyle Woodlore, a chemicalengineering student of 20, whose decision to join the war on terrorism Terrorist acts and the threat of Terrorism have occupied the various law enforcement agencies in the U.S. government for many years. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, as amended by the usa patriot act(he signs on to work with Canadian troops in Afghanistan by providingwater purification) has a terrible effect on his bourgeois Torontoparents. Of course, there is no homeland security to be found abroad orat home, and that is the source of the book's humour, and itstragedy. As the novel opens, the Canadian Forces are shipping Kyle back fromAfghanistan before the completion of his contract. Whatever has happenedto Kyle, some mysterious "off-camp event," its effect is thesingle biggest anxiety for his father, Gerald. But there are plenty of others. Gerald Woodlore is a creature fromthe upper-middle-class tax bracket Tax BracketThe rate at which an individual is taxed due to a particular income level.Notes:Each income class is taxed at a different level. Generally, the more you make the more you are taxed. , although his life is too contingentto secure him in any class. His executive job at a window screen andfurnace filter company may evaporate any day, because the company'sown fortunes are waning. His colleagues are incompetent and don'teven care, except for young Sandy Beale, his hope and his nemesis. Atwork Sandy stalks Gerald in order to sell him on her brainstorm schemefor the ultimate in window screening, "something to secure the homeagainst all the world's fearsome particles of dirt, viruses anddisease-carrying bugs." The trouble is, Gerald cannot tell whetherher scheme will turn the company around or make it the industrylaughingstock laugh��ing��stock?n.An object of jokes or ridicule; a butt.Noun 1. laughingstock - a victim of ridicule or pranksgoat, stooge, buttApril fool - the butt of a prank played on April 1st . At home Gerald is also being stalked. When he walks out of theshower in the morning, Gerald senses that the semi-feral cat, which theneighbours have asked the Woodlore family to mind for some unspecifiedperiod of time, is waiting to pounce on his nakedness. His wife, Vicki,has scolded him for such silly fears. But Gerald so needs confirmationthat his judgements are correct that he feels "sweetvindication" when the cat actually reaches up with its five-clawedpaw to have a swipe at Gerald's exposed testicles TesticlesAlso called testes or gonads, they are part of the male reproductive system, and are located beneath the penis in the scrotum.Mentioned in: Testicular Cancer, Testicular Surgery, Vasectomy . Even in bed, the claws are out for Gerald, in the form ofVicki's blade-like toenails. Gerald senses that these overgrown overgrownsaid of a part that has not been kept trimmed.overgrown hoofovergrown hooves put unusual stresses on bones and tendons and allow for distortion of the wall and sole. toenails are just one sign that Vicki Woodlore is going quietly nuts.Once a perfectly groomed perfectionist per��fec��tion��ism?n.1. A propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards.2. , she now seems out of control andnot even aware of it, Martha Stewart with a hunk of food hanging fromher teeth. Vicki, like Gerald, has built her life on contingent foundations.Toronto's top real estate "stager," she decorates emptyluxury homes to entice prospective buyers. "For Vicki, staging ahouse was a process of graduating insights. It wasn't, as too manypeople believed, simply a matter of pushing around hunks hunks?pl.n. (used with a sing. verb)A disagreeable and often miserly person.[Origin unknown.] of furnitureaccording to some mythical decorator's code, distributing a fewtasteful knick-knacks and calling it a day. Her work was more seriousthan that. She was dealing in the representation of ideal lives,creating precedents for contentment." What has made Vicki a great stager is that she believes in thehappy, perfect lives her sets suggest. However, as Vicki notices thatsomething is very wrong with her real-life son, Kyle, it affects herwork. "In all the years of doing stagings ... she'd alwaysmanaged to skirt the disquieting dis��qui��et?tr.v. dis��qui��et��ed, dis��qui��et��ing, dis��qui��etsTo deprive of peace or rest; trouble.n.Absence of peace or rest; anxiety.adj. ArchaicUneasy; restless. aspects of exuberant young boys andfind expressions for their happier enthusiasms ... what she did wasthink of Kyle ... and equip these rooms for the childhood she wished forhim: pennants and paraphernalia artfully mounted (a Cooper's hockeystick and a Louisville baseball bat, crossed like swords, to suggest hisnascent love of sports; a brass refracting re��fract?tr.v. re��fract��ed, re��fract��ing, re��fracts1. To deflect (light, for example) from a straight path by refraction.2. telescope at a window,pointed to the sky, to connote con��note?tr.v. con��not��ed, con��not��ing, con��notes1. To suggest or imply in addition to literal meaning: "The term 'liberal arts' connotes a certain elevation above utilitarian concerns"his searching mind)." Kyle's recent life has been nothing like this. In passagestold in the first person, and in a blunter, sparer prose than he usesfor his other characters, Cole creates for Kyle a world of alienation,crude talk and explosive violence (the author, a former Globe and Mailreporter and editor, worked in a war zone, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and itshows). If Kyle's matter-of-fact account of his desire to impressCorporal Marc Sebastien Leggado, the grunt rifleman he hero-worships,does not mesh in tone or style with the rest of the novel, that'sthe point. After Kyle arrives back in Canada from Afghanistan, he takes to hisroom and refuses to communicate with his parents. This chokesVicki's ability to envision, and therefore decorate for, theimaginary son of the house she has been hired to stage. Hours beforeprospective buyers are to view the house, the boy's room is stillempty, as Vicki struggles with the disjunction disjunction/dis��junc��tion/ (-junk��shun)1. the act or state of being disjoined.2. in genetics, the moving apart of bivalent chromosomes at the first anaphase of meiosis. between the idealized i��de��al��ize?v. i��de��al��ized, i��de��al��iz��ing, i��de��al��iz��esv.tr.1. To regard as ideal.2. To make or envision as ideal.v.intr.1. andthe real. Cole's first novel was told in the voice of a deluded,self-obsessed actor, Norman Bray, and followed his unravelling careerthrough rehearsals for Man of La Mancha, as he dreamed impossible dreamsabout himself. In Particles, Cole, son of a professional actor, is stillwriting about the theatre world, in that the Woodlores are in effect aset designer and a control-freak producer, neither of whom can managethe drama of their grown son's life. Cole writes with fully realized stage direction to go with hisdialogue--people clap their hands, pivot on stockinged feet, stand forseveral beats in puddles of pooling water. At times his handling of hismaterial is as broad and farcical far��ci��cal?adj.1. Of or relating to farce.2. a. Resembling a farce; ludicrous.b. Ridiculously clumsy; absurd.far as revue comedy. Gerald's failingcompany, Spent Materials, is so aptly named, it practically winks at thereader. The items the author gives Vicki to work with are such obviousmetaphors--smashed papier mache fruit, damaged children'stoys--they are like oversized o��ver��size?n.1. A size that is larger than usual.2. An oversize article or object.adj. o��ver��size also o��ver��sizedLarger in size than usual or necessary. props visible all the way to the back ofthe house. But it all works, because ultimately, Cole understands whathe is writing about: How, try as we might to script our lives, it canall come apart on the weight of a mere particle. Val Ross is a writer for The Globe and Mail.