Reviewed: Joshua Ferris' The Unnamed
A man with a mysterious ailment becomes a martyr to the unknown
Book Reviews
Joshua Ferris’ debut novel, Then We Came to the End, was fiction, but it was set in an advertising agency where the usual laws of physics apply. His new novel, The Unnamed, is set in a law firm in New York, but it’s also a world where a disease with one strange symptom—walk attacks—is wreaking havoc on one man’s life. Through that condition and its disastrous consequences, Ferris deftly explores the nature of sickness and marital commitment and the power of the unknown. His protagonist, Tim Farnsworth, leads a fairly quotidian existence: He has a home in the suburbs, a devoted wife, and an angst-ridden daughter. But twice in the past, he has been seized by an unexplained, nameless disease that ignites in him the overwhelming desire to walk. Early in the novel, Tim manages his ailment—he sets out on walks but calls his wife, Jane, to pick him up when he tires—while retaining some semblance of a normal life. Despite Jane’s devotion, she considers abandoning Tim, thinking about her remaining “half a lifetime” that she’s squandering by keeping track of Tim. Jane suffers from recurring bouts of cancer, an illness that Tim uses as a cover for his increasingly diminished output at the law firm. The two diseases run parallel to each other, and Ferris pits the known dangers of cancer against the many unknowns of Tim’s illness—he suggests that the known, even if the more lethal of the two, is always the better bet. The early pages feature a tight narrative, but as Tim’s illness progresses and his mental state disintegrates, Ferris adopts a disjointed, erratic style. When Tim stops fighting against his illness, he quits his job and embarks on a permanent walk that t... Continued
Fri. Feb. 5, 2010 - Thu. Feb. 11, 2010
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