“Keep” On Rockin’ In The Free World!

[Note: On Thursday, I went searching through my box of pre-ordered books that I had purchased from the college bookstore a few weeks ago, only to discover Jennifer Egan's The Keep missing. I guess I ordered my books online a little early, before The Keep was added to the syllabus, and thus not added to my purchase. Since I only commute to Albany Monday through Wednesday, I hadn't the chance to "hit up" (to use contemporary vernacular) the campus bookstore before Monday evening, so I frantically searched around locally for the text and finally came upon it late Sunday afternoon in a local bookstore. And the point of all of this: my pagination may be different from yours, since I may have a different edition, so please bear with me.]

The theme of Egan’s The Keep that I interpreted to be most relevant to our class, of course, was that of (surprise, surprise) NETWORK, particularly in regards to modern technological mediums. Danny, from the very beginning of the story, is a character deeply (and I mean deeply) in touch with his communicative network, evident from his almost spiritual attachments to his cell phone and (awkward) satellite that he drags halfway across the globe, even if there’s truly only one person (Martha) at the other end of this network. Danny is consumed by this network, as can be first noted by his initial obsessive preoccupations with setting up his satellite, when “the need to be back in touch [gets] uncomfortable, distracting, like a headache or a sore toe or some other low-grade physical thing that after a while starts to blot out everything else.” (38) Howard, on the other hand, becomes Danny’s theoretical nemesis in this respect, whose desires lie in the imaginative world, void of all modern technological conveniences promoting mass communication; his theory promotes time alone with one’s own imagination. When Howard tells Danny about his dream of the castle as a hotel with vast imaginative possibilities for visitors, Danny does nothing else but deem him as “nuts” (50), and here is where Danny’s paranoia and conspiracies regarding his cousin truly begin, not just after he falls head first out of the Keep. Danny views a world without these communications and technologies as an “invisible” lifestyle, and, according to Danny, “the thought of disappearing like that [is] worse than dying.” (47)

Going back to ideas about possession (Hayles strikes again), Howard here is promoting a sense of “possessive individualism,” where, as creatures isolated with our own minds only, we are in complete control of ourselves; we essentially “own” ourselves. (Hayles, 63) Danny here suffers from a strong physical possessiveness of his communication: he needs to have his cell phone in his hands, within his reach, and searches frantically for it in his coat pocket, even when he knows it is not there. What’s more interesting is Howard exhibits the very physical possessiveness that he abhors: the walkie-talkie. With the walkie-talkie, he is in control of the only communicative technological system in the castle; a bit hypocritical, don’t ya think?

However, if one perspective of the story is a battle between these technologies and the imagination, Howard’s dream appears to prosper in the end. True, a partnership of both worlds is discussed, but the mere prospect of that partnership of the mind and the machine is figuratively destroyed when Mick shoots Danny and he “[falls] back into the black pool” and it “fold[s] up around him;” (220) a metaphor of defeat equivalent to the satellite drowning in the exact same pool in an earlier chapter. This, of course, also occurs after Danny, completely paranoid, officially loses contact with Martha, his “keep,” for the last time, an action of his own wrongdoing. (175) I write that Howard’s dream for the castle only appears to solely prosper in the end for this reason: how did Holly find “Ray’s castle” (244) to begin with? THROUGH GOOGLE! Sorry, Howard: the mind and the machine can coexist.

I truly did enjoy this book. A read worth suggesting to persons of all ages! And for the blind: put it on tape! Or braille! You get the picture. One comment I will make, though: after Tom-Tom stabbed Ray, I strongly reconsidered past critiques (or lack thereof) made in previous creative writing workshops. That’s all I’m going to say about that.