A wild tale of staying put

VOYAGE TO THE END OF THE ROOM

By Tibor Fischer

Counterpoint, $23, 251 pages

Tibor Fischer, an English novelist of Hungarian descent, courted controversy a few months ago when he wrote a damning review of Martin Amis’ novel “Yellow Dog.” In a British newspaper, Mr. Fischer alleged that Mr. Amis’ new book is bad — so bad it’s like catching one’s uncle in an act of public indecency. Such an egregious insult naturally begs the question: But is Mr. Fischer any better?

Clearly it’s a question Mr. Fischer wants us to ask, for as he went on to note in the review, he too has a new novel in bookstores — published in Britain, no less, on the same day as “Yellow Dog.”

“Voyage to the End of the Room” revolves around a young London woman named Oceane. As we learn in the book’s opening pages, Oceane has stumbled into some life-altering good luck. Through a flukey chain of events, she became wealthy in a single afternoon; wealthy enough, at least, to live very comfortably in a modest neighborhood and still have plenty of money in the bank.

Oceane also does freelance graphic-design work, so she continues to earn an income without the inconvenience of leaving home. Ever. Why should she venture outside? “It numbs you, it stuffs you like a turkey with everyday nonsense: hundreds of mundanities clog, fog and then stop your mind.”

For diversion, however, she commissions a travel agent to arrange dinner-party “vacations” in her house, at which she can admire the mock skyline of a foreign capital — Helsinki, for instance — while sampling reindeer tartare and chatting with native Finns.

Oceane may be housebound, but Mr. Fischer’s narrative isn’t. From South London the story jumps to Barcelona, where a decade ago Oceane, aspiring to a career as a professional dancer, instead settled for a well-paid job at a sex club.

The on-stage “performances” of Oceane and her colleagues are described for the most part obliquely, and with the crackling verbal wit that has become a hallmark of Mr. Fischer’s prose. “Climactics” is the term the author uses of the club’s activities; “a real xenotangle” is how he characterizes the performers, who hail from all over Europe. Of the female performers, only one really stands out:

“Then, of course, there was the cupola herself … Heidi (Belgian-Argentinian cultivar, blonde, perfect, inexhaustibly filthy). Loquacious men would be limited to a grunt and nod in her presence, because of the imaginings. Heidi didn’t even have to do anything, just be herself; on a stage full of naked women she was the only one who looked naked … Backstage, you could hear the phut of men in flames and lives being one-eightied. I think her secret was her eyebrows …”

Life at the club soon becomes a cycle of dope-smoking sessions and improbable tragedies, such as a cow falling from the sky and killing one of the performers. Here Mr. Fischer falls prey to the usual excesses of postmodern fiction. Zany minor characters proliferate, only to disappear without leaving an impression (except to confuse the reader). And although the disasters at the club first seem amusingly over-the-top, the contrived absurdism grows tedious.

After plowing through digressions on exploding whales, psychic dogs and the like, readers may feel they have indulged Mr. Fischer long enough. But if they persevere, they’ll find that “Voyage” is less aimless, and more earnest than they may have suspected.

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