Author: Christopher Nosnibor

ISBNl 13: 978-0955693908

Publisher: Clinicality Press (July 31, 2008)

I consider myself a traditionalist when it come to art:  I prefer the Romanticists over the Abstract Expressionists, Shakespeare over Theatre of the Absurd, narrative literature over free form poetry.   However, it’s negligent to deny the validity of those imaginative statements that don’t conform to our preconceived notions of what art is.  In truth, it behooves us to give these innovative art forms the credit they deserve and to provide them with that extra bit of attention required to fully comprehend the objectives of their creators. 

In the case of THE PLAGIARIST, it could be dismissed quite readily as a novel lost in style-over-substance.  Due to its frantic pace and non-narrative, cut-up stream of consciousness it reads like the work of William Burroughs on steroids.  Described by its author, Christopher Nosnibor (that‘s Robinson spelled backwards - hmmm…), as an “anti-novel”, the technique he utilized actually works well in delineating its nihilistic content; it becomes an expression of alienation in a postmodern society inundated by media barrage.   Just as the Dadaists once celebrated the same anti-art philosophy embraced by subsequent political anarchists, THE PLAGIARIST proposes that writing is a revelation in and of itself.  As one paragraph states:  “Writing is, after all, just writing, words are words, laid down and piled up like bricks or building blocks…” 

The cut-and-paste presentation of the imagery is done in such a fashion as befits the mood of urban schizophrenia.  It also exemplifies the personality of the protagonist, Ben, as well as his search for self-identity and progression towards possible liberation.  This method sacrifices form for function in order to tap into the individual reader’s subconscious and to produce its desired subliminal effect through random construction.  As a corollary, the characterization of THE PLAGIARIST could be viewed as a non-corporeal projection of Ben’s psyche, one that condones the act of plagiarism itself.  Except, unlike the hallucinatory universes of Samuel R Delany or Philip K Dick, the reader is never given enough narrative slack to gravitate to; it becomes impossible to indulge in the literary mirage for any length of time. 

Consequently, such a non-linear form of writing demands a different approach to reading it.  This calls to mind my first experience viewing the early experimental cinema of filmmakers like Stan Brakhage or Kenneth Anger; it was impossible to comprehend their montage of images in narrative terms.  However, the controlled assault upon one’s aural and visual senses seemed to stimulate my sensory awareness in general.  As THE PLAGIARIST tells Ben: “You’re thinking in linear terms.  But life is not linear.  Life is a cut-up.”   Nosnibor’s passages are akin to the system overload that most people experience but have become too indifferent to change.  In fact, his stylization becomes the perfect vehicle for the nullification of  such apathy.  This, undoubtedly, is derived from the Surrealist movement whose use of unexpected juxtapositions served to revolutionize human experience by shocking the bourgeoisie out of their ennui, false rationality and restrictive structures. 

Personally, I believe that Nosnibor poses a question:  can humanity sufficiently evolve to overcome its transformation into a total industrial dystopia or is it already too late?  The author even appears to suggest the possibility of a solution or some sort of positive human evolution with lines like:  “Desiring machines freed from the body without organs roaming spiraling dancing through space time motion light speed stars moons slivers away.  Going there.”  Perhaps this book is meant to be taken as a flashback from some futuristic time.  At the very least, one can appreciate the inspired lyricism of it all.