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Motorman

4.29 of 5 stars 4.29 · rating details · 396 ratings · 57 reviews

Fiction. "It is curious that a reprint could be heroic. It is more curious that a book this good could go out of print so quickly. And it is most curious that an introduction would even be required for a novel that, if you examine it carefully in the right kind oflight, might actually be seen to be steaming. MOTORMAN is a central work, pulsing with mythology, created by a...more

Paperback, 137 pages

Published January 30th 2004 by Calamari Press (first published 1972)

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Jan 25, 2013 Fionnuala rated it 3 of 5 stars

When I tried to write a review of this book, I kept wanting to make a drawing instead, and given the dream-like quality, or should I say nightmarish quality of Moldenke’s world, such a drawing would have to have a 'trompe l’oeil' feature built in as in that Escher drawing of a hand drawing itself, so I looked up Escher and found this animated version of his Relativity picture and, for those of you who’ve read Motorman, it comes with its very own jellyhead!
I couldn’t resist posting it in lieu of...more

8 likes · like · see review

Jun 13, 2011 Nate D rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: jellyheads

Recommended to Nate D by: misleading weather reports

Shelves: 70s-delerium, sci-fi

Weird, messy, cryptic, and totally entertaining. In Ben Marcus' intro he refers to a rumor that David Ohle worked for William Burroughs, typing out his dreams each morning. Which is a great angle on this book regardless of veracity. This is sci-fi like Naked Lunch is, mostly by shear weirdness. But Motorman is actually far more coherent, and far more capable of pulling me in and making me care where we're headed. Trapped in his appartment under uncertain terms and uncertain-ter context (somethin...more

6 likes · like · see review

Mar 08, 2011 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: black-comedy, heart-of-darkness, literature-disguised-as-science-fic

Bizarre science fiction mumblings(if Beckett wrote sci fi) that is cartoonish, creepy and despairing in a comic way. It resembles a more abstract George Saunders(or Matthew Derby) or a more accessible Ben Marcus(who provides an enthusiastic intro) and would be probably be considered derivative of those writers if it hadn’t been written in 1972! So Ohle probably inspired by Beckett and Burroughs(and 60’s Avant Garde,) produced this weird child on his own and inspired a group of writers.

4 likes · like · see review

May 19, 2012 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Noone!

Recommended to Chris by: I have no fucking idea, but I'll strangle them.

Look, you're not going to like this. Don't even try. You'll pick it up, start reading, maybe get a few chapters in, at which point that itch running along your brainstem will begin to try to figure out what the hell is going on. Hesitating on the corner, looking around, you'll feel as though you're missing something. It's like that time you were in the art museum and wandered into the contemporary section. After a few minutes you cursed yourself for paying to look at all this crap. You've been b...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Mason Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars

Our local bookstore had this one on its rack of recommended books, and thank goodness for that or I might never have stumbled across it. Barely linear, futuristic but backward, comprising a sort of quest narrative but with the reason and the goal both vague, this book sets you adrift in a dreamlike alternate world. Our protagonist, Moldenke, is beset by the unseen Bunce, though it's unclear why or what Bunce really wants of him. Moldenke sets out to meet his doctor, Burnheart, after being set th...more

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Jan 06, 2011 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars

A nighmarish fantasy. A futureworld without logic, moonless with two suns. Four-hearted main character named Moldenke, aurally assaulted via phone by a madcap villain named Bunce, journeys toward Eagleman and Burnheart, dodging/fighting jellyheads along the way. Confused? You should be. A compendium of odd utterances, of sentences never-before sung. Also? It's FUNNY. An acquired taste, I'm sure, and one I wasn't always up for (took me a while to finish, even though it's only 137 pages). Probably...more A nighmarish fantasy. A futureworld without logic, moonless with two suns. Four-hearted main character named Moldenke, aurally assaulted via phone by a madcap villain named Bunce, journeys toward Eagleman and Burnheart, dodging/fighting jellyheads along the way. Confused? You should be. A compendium of odd utterances, of sentences never-before sung. Also? It's FUNNY. An acquired taste, I'm sure, and one I wasn't always up for (took me a while to finish, even though it's only 137 pages). Probably a five star event but I'm feeling superficial and am holding back thanks in part to the font. Yes. The FONT. Rarely do I notice and/or care, but this one seemed hell-bent on getting me to toss the book aside. A font that called attention to itself, seemed overly insistent in its slinky-ness, like a squashed Garamond mated with Papyrus.

Representative language:

"Shelp pointed at the floor pit: 'This is where I cook my cat weenies, and sometimes I'll put a naked toe in the coals to clean out my head. You know the old expression?'"

And:

"Turn the volume up, folks. The weather is improving in spurts. Remember the old sun? The old moon? The old songs we used to sing about them? The government sent Eagleman and his moon to wane in the country, sent up its own moons. Up they went, a new mock moon every paper month, confusing the issue of tides. At least with Eagleman's moon we could get to see a sky movie every month. Now, what now? The g-boys give us gauze and goggles, encouraging indoor play. They send out a her of jellyheads to do the mock work and the rest of us to hole up in our rooms."

"Ease off, Moldenke. You're getting me excited. My hearts... one of them quit on me yesterday."

Moldenke switched off the microphone. The lights flickered and went on. The gauges came to life, gave false readings.

"Shelp, you have hearts?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"Eleven."
"What kind?"
"Sheep and dog alternating, and one calf." He opened his khaki and Moldenke saw the scar, the chest heaving, rippling, ticking. Moldenke went close and protchered a soft wattle under Shelp's chin. "I like you, Shelp. Let's go south. No more time games. He's sending a man out."
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Jan 04, 2013 Peter Zuppardo rated it 5 of 5 stars

In 2010, I was driving across country alone and for the first time. I stopped to camp in a place called Gunnison National Park, in Gunnison, Colorado. The place was basically deserted. The only other people in the campsite were these three older women. After a little while they saw I was alone and one of the women asked if I wanted to have some wine with them. We all sat around a fire and drank wine from coffee cups. Anyway, one woman mentioned that a long time ago she had been married to a nove...more

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Feb 27, 2010 Sabra Embury rated it 4 of 5 stars

Chugging through the get-go, the more I tried to find sense the less there was, triple-reading lines and letters, insects as meals, trenchpants, loudspeakers broadcasting airbursts, cat cranks, banana flowers, Featherfighter opening a door.

C-minus, son. C-minus; the ski lift, brown cigars, pig hearts, sheep hearts, calf hearts, the weather report as opera, government moons. "Is that you, Bunce? Mr. Bunce?"

Eventually from a third to end autopilot gleaned the rest of the analysis, weight applied...more

1 like · like · see review

Jun 09, 2009 Joe Hunt rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this while I was at UMass. I really liked it!

[I read some of the sequel, though. Not near as good or fun.:]

[And the guy even came to talk to us, and he seemed okay. Maybe somehow different than what I would have imagined, but who knows.:]

But, so, it's pretty spacey and futuristic. But actually not that abstract or ludicrously sci-fi or unintelligible, hard to read. [So the opposite: pretty easy to read, and fun.]

Maybe it's almost a little simplistic. Like, not too much action. Only one o...more

1 like · like · see review

Jun 06, 2007 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like Borges or Brautigan

Ohle creates his own universe with this book. Though the setting is fantastic, the heartbreak is very real.

A dystopian fantasy of the highest caliber! Hazaa!

1 like · like · see review

Jan 07, 2013 Zach rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a strange book, sometimes described as science fiction or dystopian. I would simply say that it is nightmarish, in every sense of the word. The world is menacing and macabre. The narrative, such as there is one, is fractured and non-linear, punctuated by snippets of past events remembered or correspondence between Moldenke (the protagonist) and his acquaintances. There is a journey of sorts, but no clear beginning or ending. Nonetheless, it's an easy read and it wears its mysteries on it...more

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May 13, 2008 Wallace rated it 5 of 5 stars

I want after the jellyheads and continue. This book is like if P.K. Dick could write well and fully.

1 like · like · see review

Dec 10, 2012 Mike Puma rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: men and/or women

Shelves: 2012

What do you say about a novel that you’ve liked, but didn’t particularly like?

Let me try that again: what can one say when you’ve enjoyed reading a novel, but didn’t especially like it?

Again, I need to try that again. Beginning with a question (you know, the way we often begin reading novels, or, perhaps, anything else) wasn’t the best way to get going.

Reading Ohle’s Motorman was fun, period. (channeling Cock Roberta, there; read the novel—you’ll see). It’s not that I liked the story, such as

...more

48 likes · like · see review

Jan 31, 2013 Jesse rated it 4 of 5 stars

Inhabiting what has to be one of the weirdest fictional universes ever created, quad-hearted Moldenke molders in his apartment, where bugs crawl in the fridge and only harassing phone calls break up the tedium. Eventually thrust from this protective shell, he encounters more surreal horrors, in a maybe-post-apocalyptic swamp world featuring cat feasts, goo-filled imitation humans known as jellyheads and moons that routinely fall out of the sky. Like one of Cormac McCarthy’s dirtbag-slumming narr...more

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May 22, 2013 Emrys rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: very different and pensive adults ya

Recommended to Emrys by: my creative writing instructor

Shelves: adult, sci-fi-fantasy, deep-meaningful-symbolic-narrative

Having only just finished Motorman, I really have little idea as to what was actually going on in it. The world of Motorman seems to be a dark future seemingly of our own world. Rather than be ruled by a government, the world seems fairly anarchic with the majority of the power being held by capitalistic monopolies. This earth seems to have been so heavily polluted that people appear to refrain from going out of doors and instead essential menial tasks are performed by an android sort of species...more Having only just finished Motorman, I really have little idea as to what was actually going on in it. The world of Motorman seems to be a dark future seemingly of our own world. Rather than be ruled by a government, the world seems fairly anarchic with the majority of the power being held by capitalistic monopolies. This earth seems to have been so heavily polluted that people appear to refrain from going out of doors and instead essential menial tasks are performed by an android sort of species that are filled with jelly but wear believably human masks. If this is sounding weird, then you are getting a good feel for the book. Nothing is laid out or explained. Nothing, including names, character motivations, and other basic reader assumptions can be trusted. This feeling of confusion we get from trying to understand this Earth and the characters on it mirror what must be the general mood of the world itself.
The weather is a perfect example of this. It is accepted for the volatile mess that it is. It is created by the conflicting and devastating egos of scientists and businessmen with too much power. The weather is almost constantly broadcasted, listened to addictively by most every citizen, but they all openly accept that though the weather is potentially extremely dangerous on the daily, it is all made up. People will openly acknowledge this fact in the same breath that they acknowledge how unceasingly it determines their actions and opinions on the world.
Moldenke himself, is a man who has a emotional incapability to understand himself, though strangers seem to know him rather intimately at a glance only to immediately deny it. At first I thought maybe he had a hidden important job, or maybe his heart surgery was a widely publicized medical innovation! But no, his jobs seem mundane to the point of being degrading, and there seem to be many others who have had surgeries equally as strange or stranger than his. Perhaps Bunce is just one step ahead of him, informing the peons on the path before Moldenke so they can be there waiting to distract and disturb him.
The falseness of all of Moldenke’s interactions with the people he runs into merge beautifully with the general falseness of the whole world. Everything from peanuts to war to his range of emotions are falsely constructed.
Parting my way though the oddness of the book, I sympathized with Moldenke. In a world of oppressive apathy, in a body that can hardly register curiosity, and never love, he is a man searching to find something better for himself, and yearning towards a woman who he is kind and soft with. In his simple complacent way, Moldenke actually does something quite brave, he risks everything to break free from monotony, to find himself a better life. If a man with three faulty sheep’s hearts, a collapsed lung, an eye infection, and a severely stunted emotional spectrum can do that for himself, then I can do it for myself too.

This would be a wonderful book to read in a class or a club. if anyone wants to discuss any aspect of it I would be excited to learn other's thoughts.
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Oct 19, 2009 M. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, fiction

Can I get something out of the way first? Ohle's use of the "n-word," despite being in a fairly alternate universe where we can see words often take on an entirely different meaning, still found me uncomfortable. Is that the point? Am I supposed to consider the word as word, realigning my entire historical interpretation, packed meaning? It happens with other words. It happens better with other words. But here the word is still referred to a marginalize group of people, though they are entirely...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 15, 2007 Derek rated it 5 of 5 stars

In the introduction to Motorman by David Ohle, Ben Marcus says that for a long time he was scared to read it--"It's existence bothered me, and I grew leery of being artistically paralyzed by its reported high oddity and invention, its completely unexampled decimation of fiction-as-we-have-come-to-know-it." After reading the introduction I was scared to read it. Could anything live up to the hype, causing you to float into the air or render you "gummy and mute"?

Some novels you read to nostalgica...more In the introduction to Motorman by David Ohle, Ben Marcus says that for a long time he was scared to read it--"It's existence bothered me, and I grew leery of being artistically paralyzed by its reported high oddity and invention, its completely unexampled decimation of fiction-as-we-have-come-to-know-it." After reading the introduction I was scared to read it. Could anything live up to the hype, causing you to float into the air or render you "gummy and mute"?

Some novels you read to nostalgically revisit places you've traveled or lived. In the case of Motorman, Ohle fabricates a whole new world. I guess you could call it science fiction or speculative or futuristic, but more in a human and believable way reminiscent of Blade Runner or the worlds that George Saunders creates in his novels. Or think of Radiohead's OK Computer, but in a textual, novel form, written 15 years before. These are the emotional landscapes it invokes.

It's always amusing to read sci-fi novels from 30+ years ago--before the internet, before cell phones, before CDs, before life as we know it now--and see which depictions hold true. But like Saunder's, to Ohle it's not so much about describing geeky future gadgetry as it is the emotional disposition of futuristic societies and the predicted human interactions, a lot of which rings true in today's world. The cold detachment and alienation. The superficiality. The organ transplants (though we limit ourselves to one heart at a time, unlike Mondenke who has 4 sheep hearts to back up his failing human heart). Back when Motorman was written, this probably wouldn't been the stuff of science fiction, and in Ohle's world, such reconstructive surgery abounds, not out of necessity, but as fashion statements, or as units of emotive barter (he gets discharged from a "mock war" by volunteering for a minor fracture (subsequently inflicted to his knee by a nurse) and he throws in a "list of feelings" as a guilt-ridden after-thought, as if he is not giving enough, or as if feelings were detachable commodities that could be sacrificed for a price.

The "he" is Mondenke, the lonely and hen-pecked (yet ever-resilient) protagonist trying to eke out an existence in a bureaucratic and oppressive government controlled-world (if you have seen any of William Kentridge's movies, think Felix Teitelbaum). Mondenke receives menacing and intrusive phone calls from a Mr. Bunce, who seems to know and monitor everything of Mondenke's whereabouts or even his thoughts. Mondenke spends most of the book trying to escape Bunce and find Dr. Burnheart, his old confidant and physician, and the apparent object of his affections, Cock Roberta, whom he woos by saying her nipples are like erasers. During his escapist travels, he alludes and in at least one instance dismembers, dunce humanoid "jellyheads" who are made of jelly and speak in scrambled sentences before catching and correcting themselves. This is enough of an adventure narrative to keep you grounded and turning pages. Not that its told in a prosaic or straightforward manner--its pieced together brilliantly in the form of questionnaires, odd ephemera, frequent letters and interspersed weather reports.

After a day on the job he tries to quit, but his employer Mr. Featherfighter (a.k.a. Mr. Etcetera), who addresses Mondenke as Mr. Bufona even after Mondenke repeatedly corrects him, does not allow him to resign: "The road to Etcetera was paved with such intentions. I do not accept them as anything, much less resignation."

It was great read not just for the story it tells and the ride it takes you on, but for the richness of the language and its poetic bursts that disguise themselves within the prose. Reading Motorman may not quite induce levitation, but like Mondenke, you will ride sublimely on the ethereal and viscous jelly of Ohle's language, moved along by the river of his words.
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Sep 24, 2011 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a bizarre book, and an extremely difficult one to find - I only managed to read it because a friend recommended it to me via the works of Burroughs. The two writers have much in common (Ohle even wrote a biography of Burroughs Jr.), and though it is only a short book, it is hard to tell exactly what is happening, nor there is much explanation why. But for all that, once you get into it, there is something about the story that holds your interest. And I still prefer it to "Naked Lunch"...

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Dec 08, 2009 Evan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Don't know why this book made such an impact on me: I wasn't stunned when I read it but images and the antagonist's voice (which, sometimes literally, hovers around the protagonist as he squats in a dark building in the dystopian future hoping someday to escape into the country) keep coming back to me. If someone can explain what sets this apart from the works it's influenced (Ben Marcus, most obviously, but David Means and a buncha others), I will bake that person lemon bars.

1 like · like · see review

May 02, 2013 Jenny (Bay-a) rated it 2 of 5 stars

I genuinely have no idea what the point of this book was, or what it was about, or whether or not anything was resolved, or whether or not anything actually happened. Maybe that was the point, but I am still mystified that this book has received so many high ratings! It makes no sense! It's like walking through a dream, everything is turned around, but it makes sense while your dreaming. Then you wake up and think "What the heck was that about?" I just don't understand...

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Mar 21, 2009 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: y2009-text, indie-press

A really interesting read -- my favorite so far of the three Calamari Press titles I've read this month.

It takes place in a bizarro, Brave-New-World-like world, in the future? Or on another planet? In any case, there is plenty to recognize but the lay of the land is much changed. The prose is understated, but infused with a deep, barely audible heartbeat of intensity. Read Ben Marcus's intro, and then I challenge you NOT to read it.

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Jan 28, 2013 Paul Lawton rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cannon

What did I just read?

I still have a lot of questions about Motorman, in all seriousness. This is one of the best "experimental fiction" books I've read in a long time, mostly because of how much fun and psychadelic it is. I like how this book unravells, but the section that I found the most disorienting was near the end when Moldenke gets on the boat to cross the Jelly River and then... (???) (!!!). Having finished this book a week ago, I've already forgotten how it ends.

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May 01, 2010 Don rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a science fiction? post-apocalyptic? bug eating? Jelly Head filled? mind fuck? The ethnic cleansing and Mock War in the background make it all hellish. Eating crickets beneath the moons, Weather Students again. Oh and this is a half-way epistolary novel. Moldenke. Mr. Bunce. Moldenke.

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May 21, 2013 Robb Todd added it

Shelves: 2013, novella, indie

What to say about a book unlike any book I have ever read? Loved it. Loved the weird world. Loved the humor, the language and the false narrative. Being funny might be why it doesn't get more respect. People don't take it as seriously as they should, right Kurt Vonnegut?

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Aug 22, 2011 Mike Polizzi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ohle creates an oblique world, complete with a self sustaining logic, language and running jokes. Unnerving: the reflection never quite recognizes itself. The world stays lost but never quite draws attention to itself. Soft spoken in its acquiescence to its own oddity.

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Aug 08, 2011 Jacob rated it 3 of 5 stars

Well, okay now...so in a bizarro anti-Erewhon our hero worries about one of his hearts failings as he drifts through the forgotten corners of someone's plans for world domination.

I feel a further reading could make this a five star book...but I'm not reading it again.

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Jun 29, 2010 Marc Jay rated it 5 of 5 stars

So hard to describe, this story stubbornly refuses to reveal itself. It unravels ever so slowly, keeping lines blurred, relying on character dialog to reveal small bits and pieces of the world they inhabit, never revealing an absolute truth. Apocalyptic and surreal.

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Jan 09, 2011 Jennifer Purcell Spruiell rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is my fantasy land, one of the greatest books of all time. No doubt about it. I wish the pages went on and on but it's under 200, so I just read it time and again. It's like an abstract expressionist oil painted all over my cerebral cortex.

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Jul 26, 2009 Matt Briggs rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't think Ben Marcus' intro did this book any favors. However, the book is beautiful and odd and doesn't seem as dated as much of the visual art from the late sixties and early seventies feels dated. This book is from another dimension.

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Apr 03, 2013 Fräulein Flora rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

4,5/5
Di solito i mattoni sono rettangolari, poiché più adatti a costruire i muri verticali delle nostre case. Chiunque abbia avuto modo di impilare pietre non cubiche è però ben consapevole dell’esistenza di altre possibilità. E’ possibile per esempio utilizzare tetraedri, alternandoli con ottaedri. Non sono funzionali per gli esseri umani, in quanto producono muri né verticali, né orizzontali. Tuttavia, una volta riempito un simile edificio d’acqua, i platelminti possono nuotarvi.

M.C. Escher, c...more

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Quotes from Motorman

“You sit in your chair and ignore it, Moldenke. You remain. Evolution continues, Moldenke remains. You remind me of pi, Moldenke -- ever constant. Do something! Sitting there, gassing the paper weeks away, caring not.” — 1 person liked it

“May I suggest a set of booster hearts?” — 1 person liked it

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