Book Review : Cody Goodfellow - The Flying None (2021)
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I don’t remember where exactly, but David Foster Wallace once said: “Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.” It’s really a problem and we’re all kind of guilty of acknowledging it and perpetuating it at the same time. We’re not kind on people who are truly special, though. Whether we nail them on the cross or remand them to the custody of their fucked up dad, we’ve never dealt well with exception.
Veteran wordsmith Cody Goodfellow wrote a short little book about that called The Flying None and it’s pretty great.
The Flying None tells the story of Gala Murowski, a young woman possessed by the idea of becoming a nun to pursue a closer relationship to God and hopefully, the Truth (with a capital T). The TRUTH quickly hits her in the face, though. She had it within all along. This is not some kind of bullshit new age life-lesson. She literally is the Truth and has inexplicable powers that everyone wants to capitalize on. Being special ain’t what it’s all cracked up to be.
She looked forward to being cured, to wanting to go into real estate and binge Netflix and let the Internet judge her appearance, to strap on that bib and start eating ashes with the oblivious gusto of a self-loathing champion.
The politics of solipsism
Of course, The Flying None is an indictment of religion. If you haven’t noticed while reading it, you should probably stick to self-help books and instructional videos because that shit’s clear as day. But there’s a lot more to it. Religion is an institution that was greatly hurt by science and enlightenment in general, because it’s relying on faith and things you can’t rationally explain. So, when Gala waltzes in with powers that are demonstrable, but inexplicable…
… well, shit goes sideways.
Gala has literal power over people. Physical power and power to change minds. This best (and most hilariously) exposed in her interactions with the pope (and the shadow pope) who undergo a crisis of faith after crossing paths with a power they can’t control. It’s unclear if and how Gala can control her powers, but everyone is an absolute dick to her. They are not fearful, they want to use her for their own gain. Gala IS special in the way Jesus, LeBron James and Beyoncé are, but she doesn’t belong to herself anymore.
What does it all mean in the greater scheme of things? Where does the message of The Flying None extend to the greater world? Well, I believe it’s a condemnation of contemporary solipsism. The idea that nothing exists outside of your own mind. That you can’t truly be special to someone else without having these people repurpose this specialness as their own. It would be dark as shit if Cody Goodfellow wasn’t such an absurdist.
My man is like Wes Anderson who gave up on life.
Remember. All mortal things will fail you. People too.
Positive nihilism
I feel like I should expand on this a little. Decent to good books usually take conclusions about important questions: can we all live together? Does it mean anything that we have a consciousness? Mysteries of that nature. Great books like The Flying None aren’t into straightforward solutions and more about exposing the nature of certain problems. Because it’s not up to fucking authors to solve all our problems. It’s merely their job to understand them.
Truth is, we all believe that we’re special and unique and the more we believe it, the more it hurts us and those who are special because we want to use them to prop ourselves up. The one band that makes is out of the local scene? Everyone begs them to be featured on their album. The one successful boxer at a gym? Everyone wants to be around him, hoping his reputation will rub off on theirs. Same goes with religious people and someone touched by God.
It’s important to laugh about it before you can stop doing it. It’s even more important to fucking let go.
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The Flying None is a very short book, but it’s packed with a lot of questions, challenges and iconography. It’s not something you can read quickly on a summer day while drinking a beer. Not only you’re going to miss stuff, but you’re going to miss what Cody Goodfellow does best: this kind of micromanaging, line-by-line snark that challenges common tropes and symbols he uses to build a false sense of familiarity. It’s great book, but it’s not easy.
