Checkmate

I had some time to kill yesterday afternoon and found myself at Chapters browsing books. Lo and behold, sitting in the “New Books” stack what is no doubt the most talked-about novel right now: Nicholson Baker’s CHECKPOINT. About an hour later I finished reading the work (which, at 113 pages, barely qualifies as a novel page-wise) and the first thought that came to mind is echoed in the famous song Peggy Lee sang in the late 60s: is that all there is?

The basic premise is now infamous: two friends, Jay and Ben, meet up in a Washington hotel room where they catch up, have room service, and talk about their lives. But this is no mere “My Dinner with Andre” setup, because Jay drops his bombshell early on: he wants to assassinate the sitting president, and explains that he has to do it because killing the President would make up for the “abortion” that is the War on Iraq and the many thousands who have died as a result. Ben, naturally, tries to talk Jay out of it. They go round in circles; eventually there is a climax of sorts, but at the end, things are basically where they began.

Baker appears to be maximizing the shock value effect; certainly, making the planned assassination of a real-life figure as CHECKPOINT’s focus is an attention-getting device. But the presentation of what is essentially a straw man is superficial at best. Jay wants to kill George Bush and even explains his rationale, but I could never get that excited about it; something left me curiously flat. Granted, CHECKPOINT will never convince one side to switch over to another. It’s too brief, too surface, and too narrow in scope. But the arguments as put forth by Jay could have had some depth; more importantly, illuminated Jay as a real person, or as a three dimensional character. For all of his so-called revelations about his political views or even his family life, I never felt that he developed as a character, that his conversation with Ben actually impacted him in any way.

Ben is even less successful as a character. Perhaps it’s my own fault in that I was expecting more conflict in CHECKPOINT than what actually transpired. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop: perhaps it would turn out that Ben had an underlying agenda for hearing Jay out; perhaps Ben, in a twist, reveals that he is actually going to kill the president and that his plans were far further along than Jay’s. But no, he was just there as a mere foil, simply to react in a passive manner. He didn’t change much by the end of the book, either.

Baker’s premise—if not what he actually set out to do, but what I took to be such—is an interesting one, that the desire to assassinate a president can be borne out of intellectual objections and moral outrage. But I don’t think it was explored nearly as well as it could, nay, should have been. Perhaps someone who has less incentive to shock (or better, more time to craft a work and create believable characters, a solid plot, and add much-needed nuances) would fare more successfully in the matter. As others have pointed out, CHECKPOINT is so unabashedly current that it’s going to seem out of date in December, let alone next year (when, presumably, a paperback edition appears on the market) or many years from now.

When I first heard about CHECKPOINT and the book’s structure, I wondered if it might have been better suited as a play, with appropriate stage directions and a limited run. Perhaps it may be the case in the future. But if so, the book would have to be substantially altered for all the reasons I’ve pointed out already—the inherent lack of conflict. The stakes have to be raised, and the characters must be developed so that they truly play off each other. As it stands, CHECKPOINT would be a rather lackluster day at the theater. And so, even though it’s not a play, viewing it as such brings home the book’s failings even more.

And yet, perhaps Baker has succeeded anyway, because CHECKPOINT is such a hot topic of conversation at the moment, whether it’s for the right reasons or not. Even though I predict that six months from now people will be scratching their heads over why this book created such a fuss, so be it. But it seems kind of a shame to produce something so thin when even a tiny dose of nuance or development would have made the book something of potential importance.