In & Oz

by Steve Tomasula

IN & OZ is a novel of art, love, auto mechanics, and two places: the actualities of the here and now and the desire for somewhere better. Five men and women – an auto designer, photographer, musical composer, poet/sculptor and mechanic – find themselves drawn together when they begin to suspect that the thing lacking in their lives might be discovered in the other place. Against the tension between idiosyncratic art and mass-marketed taste, each works to bridge the gulf between IN & OZ by using the medium of their trades: light and darkness; sound and silence.

IN & OZ is a story as old as the Tower of Babel and as new as global markets: the story of people trying to reach beyond the limits of language and remake the world, or at least their selves.

Genres: Fiction

144 pages, Hardcover

First published October 9, 2003

About the author

Steve Tomasula is the author of the novels The Book of Portraiture (FC2); VAS: An Opera in Flatland (University of Chicago Press), an acclaimed novel of the biotech revolution; TOC: A New-Media Novel (FC2/University of Alabama Press, and also as an multimedia app for iPad); and IN & OZ (University of Chicago Press). He is also the author of a collection of short fiction, Once Human: Stories. He most recently edited Conceptualisms: The Anthology of Prose, Poetry, Visual, Found, E- & Hybrid Writing as Contemporary Art, an anthology that brings together a wide variety of written works that stand in relation to traditional literature as conceptual visual art stands to traditional art. Ascension: A Novel, a novel about the end of Nature, is forthcoming this summer.

Incorporating narrative forms of all kinds—from comic books, travelogues, journalism or code to Hong Kong action movies or science reports—Tomasula’s writing has been called a ‘reinvention of the novel.' He lives in Chicago, and can be found at www.stevetomasula.com

Reviews

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

"IN & OZ is a brief novella that reads like a modern fable, the latter city of course evoking the yellow brick road, the ruby slippers, and all that fantastic jazz."

You can read the full review for free here: https://thecollidescope.com/2022/03/2...

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Third in a row of new=to=me authors -- Tomasula, Jonathan Baumbach, and Evelin Sullivan. I couldn't be more pleased. All providing a sweet short little nugget for a well spent afternoon.

This one is a Kunstlerroman. The characters don't have names ; referred to by their professions. It's a cartoon. You wouldn't Like it. But it does dénouement with a most gracious List you'll not want to miss.

And for those of you like me who read according to Publishers ; this one's brought out by an imprint of Night Shade Books, Ministry of Whimsy. Founded in 1984 by Jeff VanderMeer (he's a very popular gr=author, and we even have blessed Friends in common!) ;; "committed to promoting high quality fantastical, surreal, and experimental literature" ;; authors include such as "Rikki Ducornet, Michael Moorcock, Zoran Zivkovic, Lance Olsen, Carol Emshwiller, and Brian Evenson." I'm pretty sure that's the right Vandermeer. You guys do habitually read copyright pages, no?

[Mason Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I happened on this book at St Mark's Books in Manhattan while visiting there in June, because they had it on the display shelves at the front of the store. The description on the back made it sound like my kind of book, so I took the chance and it certainly paid off. This short book is a sort of parable, and an insightful satire of modern-day issues. The characters are known by their activities (I don't want to say professions): Mechanic, Photographer, Designer, Composer, and Poet/Sculptor. All but Designer live in the neighborhood known as "In"; she lives in "Oz". The two areas, connected by a bridge with a tollbooth, represent essentially the good and the bad sides of the tracks, as it were. "In" is grungy, "Oz" is shiny. As the book progresses, our protagonist Mechanic turns his back on his auto repair work and becomes embroiled in debates and philosophical quandaries about the meaning of functionality vs aesthetics, work vs art. The book enters a realm of Swiftian satire that's difficult to describe properly, with concerts whose only sound is that of a loud machine unrolling the score across a screen, and poetry readings at which the attendees simply watch the poet's lips move as she reads to herself at the lectern. Overlaid with passages about the meaning of automobile design and its relation to whether a car should roll on tires or slide on fenders, it's a fun yet thought-provoking read that for me strikes just the right balance of surrealism and (cynical) realism. I'll be tracking down more of Tomasula's book in short order. (And I'll just take the chance to note that while I'm far from a Luddite and enjoy ebooks, if it weren't for an independent bookstore's curation, I might never have stumbled on this book, so bravo for real-world interaction.)

[Novy · Rating 5 out of 5]

IN & OZ is a romance novel, but not in the usual sense: it's a love letter to artists, writers, designers, thinkers, people with grunge jobs, and others who believe (or maybe are deluded?) that art and poetry matter. An allegory sort of like Orwell's Animal Farm, it tells the story of those stuck in dead-end jobs, or people like poets, artists, and composers who choose to stay in dead-end jobs so they can devote themselves to their art--while the culture around them makes millionaires out of people who create elevator musak, write rhymes for greeting cards, or ads for billboards. That is, IN & OZ is a novel of art and love, but also of class and commerce. In a certain way, its an Occupy Wall Street novel before there was an Occupy Wall Street--a slim novel of big ideas that allows the struggles of one auto mechanic to open up large philosophical and aesthetic issues. Plus it's funny! -- all of this is told with an irony that makes the philosophy painless, fun. (At one point, the line "Live where you work; work where you live" gets translated into 120 languages, including Braille, Hieroglyphics, and Klingon. There almost seems to be a genre of slim novels that open up big ideas (e.g. Camus's The Stranger, Kafka's Metamorphosis ) and this one certainly fits in with them.

[Kyle Muntz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very beautiful book. To be honest, as an allegory I think it's too didactic, but it's Tomasula's execution that really makes this something special--the subdued, occasionally sublime depiction of love, friendship, and the experience/creation of art, in pretty much perfect prose. There are some interesting elements of science fiction as well, and the entirely thing is intensely strange in a way that seems delicate and natural. Both times I read this book, I felt like the meditations on capitalism/art were too heavy handed, but the relationships between the characters and the fluidity of the prose definitely make up for it.

[Melanie Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite romance of all time. I cried at the end, although that might be uncommon.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strangely fascinating story of unnoticed love.

[Steve Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tomasula is the rare writer who can mix theory with emotion. In & Oz creates an interesting resonance between the word and the body.

[Mathieu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and original piece of postmodern literature working as a parable of class divide without being obtuse.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, and thought seriously about giving it 5 stars, but there's only one thing that kept me from doing that. Very mild spoilers ahead.

I loved the absurdity and satire of the novel, as well as the commentary on class and the haves versus have-nots. Some reviewers have called it a love letter to artists, but I think in some ways, it's also poking fun at artists - at least the ones who have never HAD to suffer or starve, they choose to because their wealth and class. Mechanic - the hero of the novel - is in many ways painted as the true artist, the one who came from the poor class and fell into a career he didn't completely love because of his family and the need for income, but finds ways to create art in his work. I suppose the same is true of Designer, but she is able to become wealthy from her art also because of happenstance - the class she was born into. My only complaint was the end. I wasn't crazy about it - not because it didn't wrap things up neatly (it didn't, but it didn't have to) but because for a book so steeped in commentary and satire, the ending just sort of happened and I didn't get where the author was going with it or what he was trying to say (because this is a book that otherwise spoke volumes).

[Pavel · Rating 4 out of 5]

great take on the idea of pure art and on Babylon myth



--my take:
Visionary work is not about looking far away from a high tower.
Visionary work means looking deep into the heart of things, finding beauty that others cannot see, and showing it to the world. But this beauty can't really take a clear form — even what the mechanic makes can only be described with language.
That is why language is the first gift that god gave us, at the moment when the Tower of Babel was destroyed.

Language can become a thing of consumerism, OR a tool that helps us find and understand structures.
And when you start using language to see and understand those structures — you begin real reading and the search for meaning — a pure act of art and visionary work

[Jamshed Avazov · Rating 5 out of 5]

По такой литературе просто не хочется писать разборы и анализировать каждую сюжетную линию, как не хочется разбирать на кусочки предмет обожания - только если не хочешь уничтожить его магию или рационализировать любовь к нему.
Это моя вторая книга Томасулы - первой была VAS, которой я жил годами, теперь же - она, Ин и Оз, миниатюрная, наполненная некой доброй грустью, прочитав которую выключаешь музыку и в безмолвии несешь свое тело, дырявя воздух осеннего города, сопровождая себя мантрой - работай там, где живешь и живи там, где работаешь.
Пусть для каждого она останется своей - это не книга, которую нужно рекламировать, и точно не общего пользования, но тот, кто творил и остался разбитым в своем обоюдном неприятии мира, должен прийти к ней и, возможно, ненадолго почувствовать убаюкивающую тяжесть покоя.
И за это мы благодарим литературу.

[Diogo Marques · Rating 4 out of 5]

"'We are literally star dust', Photographer had said, explaining how the surface of the earth was the accumulation of billions of years of cosmic dust that had fallen from space: cosmic dust, or dirt, that mingled with the dust of all their fathers and mothers, too, nourishing the plants and animals we eat, becoming the stuff of our cells, which once they die, return to dust."
Tomasula, "IN & OZ", University of Chicago Press, 2012 [2003], pp. 113-114

[Aaron Dietz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creative and fun. People don’t have names in this book, they are just called by their occupation. One chapter is a day in the life of a tollbooth operator, featuring six pages of uninterrupted text that goes like this: “$1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00; $1.00;”

I like stuff like that.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5