I thought of Terry Gilliam's comment about the movie Inception while reading this book. He said, "With ’Inception,’ I wondered why all of the dreams were action movies. Don’t people have other dreams?" Jedidiah Berry's The Manual of Detection is every bit an oneiric adventure as Christopher Nolan's film but is much more subtle, more deliberate and thusly much more interesting and fun.
Truth be told, I thought of Gilliam's Brazil as I was reading the book as well because Berry's protagonist, Charles Unwin, works in a retro-bureaucracy just like Sam Lowry. Here it is an organization known only as the “Agency” and which solves mysteries. Unwin is a lowly clerk who transcribes the notes of Detective Travis T. Sivart. But he is not content that his work is good, it must be perfect. He has an obsession with order and routine. Indeed, every morning he heads down to the train station to watch a young woman in a plaid coat. One day this routine is thrown off when Unwin is approached by a Detective named Pith who informs the clerk that he has been promoted and hands him a copy of the titular book.
Confused, Unwin heads into work determined to correct what surely must be a mistake. He's happy and contented being a clerk and has no desire to do any sleuthing. He reports to his new boss, Edward Lamech, to sort out the mess and get back to his old job. Lamech is a watcher which is the title of the men who oversee the detectives in the Agency. Lamech is also dead, slumped in his chair. Every good noir needs a femme fatale and in this case it is Vera Truesdale who knocks on Lamech's door as Unwin is deciding what to do. He gets the corpse out of sight and poses as the watcher. At this point, Unwin realizes that, if he's to be a clerk again, he must find Sivart who can clear all of this up.
Unwin's search for the detective uncovers much more than a simple clerical error. To begin with, he finds out that Sivart's most celebrated cases were solved incorrectly. That mummy in the Municipal Museum isn't really an ancient artifact and Colonel Baker doesn't appear to be dead. Unwin also discovers that two of the most powerful men in the city had reached detente but that their uneasy truce has fallen apart with him in the thick of things. Miss Truesdale is not who she said she was and Unwin finds himself pursued by two heavies – separated Siamese twins, no less – who never seem to sleep and drive around town in a massive steam truck. And of course there is the matter of dreams.
Berry slowly introduces us to the concept. A janitor dry mopping the floor as he snores is our first hint but then Sivart appears in one of Unwin's dreams. Soon enough it is revealed that most of the people in the city are somnambulists as they rise in the middle of the night and wander to a very large mansion for a party. Still in the arms of Morpheus, some play music while others dance, drink, and be merry. Later the truth about Sivart's case known as “The Man Who Stole November Twelfth” comes out when Unwin again witnesses the sleepwalking masses all disposing of their alarm clocks. Since I don't want to give too much away, I shall only say that there is plenty more oneiric action.
The Manual of Detection is surreal and Kafka-esque but it's also a great noir detective story. Berry has got the genre's conventions down cold. The exception being Unwin. He's no Sam Spade. In fact, he's the anti-Sam Spade. He is not a detective and he is not interested in solving mysteries. He wants to leave that to the professionals but he finds himself with no choice. But the rest is there – the femme fatale, double crosses, etc.
Berry keeps the plot moving along at a good pace mixing his influences in equal proportions. I often wondered if the city itself was real and if I'd find out more about it but this never distracted from Unwin's investigation. There are also several little things which brought a smile to my face. For example, Unwin's umbrella. It rains constantly and, since he bicycles to work, he has devised an improbable mechanism for attaching his umbrella to the bike and keeping it open. No matter where he goes, he has it with him whether it be following a bunch of somnambulists or even in a dream.
Regardless of genre mixing and literary influences, Jedidiah Berry has written a book that was a helluva lot of fun to read.
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