The Keep is a book that I love and don’t understand at the same time. It was completely gripping, but I often did not know who was telling the story (the infuriating “I”!!), and which parts were meant to be ‘real’ and which ones were the fictional narrative. As soon as I finished, I needed to find out if this is Egan’s story. Highly improbable, I know, but strange enough that it could be possible.
So, off I went to her website, where I was encouraged to “visit The Keep in a different way” at this Random-House run site. It is a site purporting that The Keep is a telecommunications-free hotel in Germany, complete with a pool and a keep. The site even includes photos and testimonials, though currently the only one they have available is Egans:
“I checked into The Keep anticipating a brief visit, but it was a full three years before I was able to check out again. It’s fair to say that my creative powers were stimulated and challenged on a daily basis during that period. I’ll remember The Keep fondly, though I sincerely doubt I’ll be back.”
The three years thing was suspicious, and once you try to fill out an application to work at The Keep you are taken to a shopping site to purchase the book. Clever indeed.
What this all says to me, is that perhaps I have been somewhat conditioned to desire a transmedia storyreading experience. While reading the novel, I was itching to research the novel in order to flesh out the untold bits that aid in understanding, similar to what many fan fiction writers attempt. However, I would also argue that this bizarreness of this novel was an essential part of its draw, because if everything was made clear it probably would not have been as engaging of a story.
Another thing I wanted to comment on was the use of “I”. The narrator forces him or herself into the reader’s experience of the book, but the narrator also seems to shift to different owners of the “I”. The intrusion often seemed odd and uncomfortable within the narrative, but perhaps it was a necessary set up to the murder of Danny, when, all of a sudden, Mick becomes the “I” narrating. This makes me wonder, was the unnamed narrator before Mick? Is Mick Ray? They both have prison time under their belts, they both count things as a way of maintaining some sense of sanity (p 55). I don’t know; that the thing about this book, I have a lot of confusion, but I’m missing the right words or ideas to wrap them up all together in a gift basket.
And the Baroness. She represents the old order, obviously. But she’s also crazy, and why, why, why, why would Danny think it okay to have sex with her? She only looked like a young blonde from at least 50 feet away. Okay, so we’re blaming it on the alcohol-that-was-something-more-than-it-appeared-to-be. This somethingmorethanitappearedtobe quality seems to pervade every aspect of the novel. The architecture, the character’s locations, the landscape, everything seemed to have additional qualities that inexplicably transcended the ‘natural’ function of any one of these items. Despite this inexplicably, I believed it. I believed that there was some power or something about the pool that was outside of the normal realm of being, and I believed that Holly and Ray created a bond based on a look that was ‘just like dinner and a movie in the outside world’. But I don’t know why. Any suggestions?
