I'm nearly finished with Desistance, and already, it's almost necessitated that I draft questions to ask Peter about the book, which I have, but will likely never reach him. So far, I've noticed that no one has commented on the likelihood that Desistance is more or less the swan song to his major body of work, if not the entire writing career itself - not one person has mentioned that since "Mine," most of the anecdotes have been written in the extreme past-tense, in addition to the fact that he describes himself as "a dying old man." Let's hope that's not quite the case, but mentions of chemotherapy alongside weight loss and thinning hair could mean a variety of things either typical to any older man or perhaps more specific to those who share some of his health risks.
"For older and middle-aged men, the refractory period between potential for ejaculation or orgasm increases with age and often corresponds to existing health problems." - Discovery Series Introduction to Human Sexuality
As well as his assessment of artists like Antoine D'Agata, the book also seems to be a run-through of major influences in his lifestyle, manner of thinking, self-perception, and attitudes; some of them being formative sexual experiences from his teens (I suppose every compulsive masturbator of either sex will write about this given the loneliness and time allotted), methamphetamine (which is a huge preoccupation for this book - one might safely characterize the style of language in his books as when meth and a hyperactive, hyper-perceptive intellect combine with spiraling sexual obsessions and a semantics fetish), gay porn, and the Bijou theater; all of which seem to be less present in his current day-to-day life, which if I'm reading this book correctly, is all the more desperate and devoid of proper methods to sate his urges without the latter especially. If I was an older man with dwindling access points to the staples I'd clung to as a young man, left with the task of reflecting on my life spent in such a manner, I'd most likely write this book as well - there's a distinct sense of accountability, honesty, depression and bereavement, whereas earlier works were saturated with heavy characterization and anger/hate/revulsion (alongside an observable humanity more present in these later works, that I think most readers skip over in favor of titillation and "ooh ahh" shock value). But don't worry, the pornographically-minded with eyes firmly affixed to the gutter have plenty to appreciate here.
As such, this book also seems to provide some insight into the literary formula Sotos uses, and might provide some really specific information to those who have access to his entire body published work - with enough familiarity, you begin to see the patterns of influence that converged in his mind to result in his peculiar style of writing: there's song lyrics (he likes the Rolling Stones and Lou Reed as much as I do, seemingly), "found" text from media sources, pornography, and some deeply-buried references to various philosophy, linguistics, and political texts most people would never read unless prompted in an academic context. He also seems to poke fun at a handful of well-known novels (which he's done since the beginning), and if I'm not mistaken, there's a passage wherein he mocks a certain famous Nabokov novel, placing himself as a Humbert of sorts.
In addition, the autobiographical elements continue to creep in at both inappropriate and opportune junctures within the text, providing some very nice contrast between the various incarnations of Sotos and his mindset; as a younger boy, as a growing young adult, a confused middle-aged man, and now, a "dying old man." I really enjoy that we're provided some background here, and see shards of normal development in the life of a man who many consider to be a walking example of abnormality and potentially less kind adjectives. In doing this, Sotos seems to establish that there is an everyday, "normal" Peter that is not particularly present in these books, and lives/exists in a different headspace (there are even some not-so-vague references to estranged children, and not in the context we'd typically associate with Sotos - have you ever had a friend who you didn't know was a parent until you saw them mail the child support check?). Logically, there would have to be, if you're to maintain a job and keep up with the bills. More than what's claimed in his work and what he's accused of by the ignorant, Sotos is a writer, and a really talented one. It's never been a joke when I've suggested that other subject matter would be just as compelling in his hands.
Which begs the question, and again brings up Sotos' formula: when anecdotes use the first-person voice and describe a "character" who is ostensibly Sotos himself, how are we to discern which of these is a fictionalization, which is an outright fabrication, and which is pure, unbleached honesty? Are all of them a combination of the three variants? There's enough contradiction to give weight to the theory that there is an actual Sotos autobiographical voice in contrast to a heavily-embellished Sotos "character." Beyond that, it feels as if there is also an external, social Sotos voice in addition to the internal, stream-of-consciousness exploration of his psychology, without a filter, and organized on it's own terms/logic. Oh, and it might help if you're familiar with Chomsky's Syntactic Structures, alongside which methamphetamine, Lou Reed albums, and selective memory recall may be the "key" to Sotos' work from an analytical standpoint.
If you're looking for some kind of cracking point in Sotos' work, where a kind of guide or legend exposes itself, you won't find that here, but if you've been trying to keep up and doing the work all along, there is really no need for Sotos to explain everything to you in plain terms (as if you were owed that in the first place). It's my conclusion that he's not attempting to define or lay out terms for anything, but more just explaining his own perspective through multiple voices and methodologies; all aspects of the writing fall under that umbrella, and the arrangement of purpose and intent is probably best left for the reader to discern. A friend of mine observed that to fully understand what you can glean from Sotos' work, is that having read the entirety of it is totally necessary. She's probably right.
