“All of my dreams and most of my thoughts happen inside my
shipping container – to such an extent I’ve started calling it an ocean container.
[…] I am not referring to something on the surface of the sea, but something
deep within it, and a sense of limitlessness” (p.88).
The Ocean Container starts
right from the fall of the curtain, with his protagonist’s physical and mental
decline mimicking and epitomizing a moribund fauna in the grip of global
pollution. Then, it begins again – from Act I this time. Following the
electoral victory of an all-controlling political system quite aptly named
Economy, the narrator, a former environmental activist (and an artist,
occasionally), is forced into hiding in a green intermodal container in a
*safety* (sic!) compound, to wit, a sort of asylum center for homeless people.
There he meets all sorts of outcasts, potential spies (among which, most
notably, a man with two right eyes!), and vicious thugs. The compound is also
visited by a dubious Japanese theatrical society which organizes bizarre
exhibitions, butoh workshops, and Noh operas slightly verging towards
pornography. A tapir and a white peafowl, both magically out of place and
apparently standing for the renewed hope of saving the planet, are soon
dispensed with. Distant from his family and furiously daydreaming of AS7’s high
life, perhaps his wealthier, luckier alter-ego, the protagonist grows more and
more lonely and withdraws into himself up to a point where he finally decides
that the outside world simply isn’t worth it and that his dreams and
hallucinations are far more significant.
Patrik Sampler is a self-referential writer – to be intended in
the best possible sense. Italian avant-garde writer Carlo Dossi, for one, was
extremely self-referential. Some of the best writers are. Patrik Sampler’s
first novel is the perfect summation of all his passions and obsessions – his
concern for the environment, his love of Japan and Japanese theatre in all its
forms (Kabuki, Noh, Butoh), the yearning for a free, unconstrained, instinctive
language similar to the one spoken by the Emperor in the Noh Opera (remember,
he’s one of the guys behind the satirical noise duo Dupobs). Other
forms of such self-referentiality are the several references to painters,
writers, musicians, and bands (Henri Rousseau, Mishima Yukio, Momus, DAF, The
Escalators), brief extracts from other books, and, more generally speaking, a
lavish catalogue of plant and animal species. Having read (and translated)
Sampler’s short story ‘Kansai Airport’, The Ocean Container also
seems to provide the reader with the ultimate version of certain character
types and leitmotifs.
While the man with the two right eyes in the novel seems to be a more effective
replica of the kid 'standing out', the inconsistent ads playing on the bus seat
back screen in the story anticipate the ones preceding the Prime Minister’s
Address. Likewise, the proud pomposity of a male voice-over promoting Canada as
a “land of opportunity” evokes a similar episode in the short story.
Sampler’s erotic-satiric treatment of a country totally devoted to
capitalism and consumerism alternates political discourse taken to extremes with
typically Japanese fetishes, managing to create a very distinctive mood. The
book also seems to tell us something crucial about the human condition and the
undeniable necessity to find one’s own deep self. The Ocean
Container is a unique specimen. Growing into it may take a bit, but
once the charm has had its effect, you’ll feel like reading it over and over
again.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
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