The Infinite Grey Wiki
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ABOUT The Infinite Grey is a novel written by Kane X. Faucher and published in 2013 by the US independent publisher, Civil Coping Mechanisms. It falls under the rubric of speculative fiction, and is inspired in part by John Barth’s Giles Goat Boy. |
Synopsis:
Paul Fabulan, subject to an experiment to encode his psyche with the text of Jonkil Calembour, returns to his former part-time teaching post only to fight against a new reformer named Martin Schulmann who seeks to transform universities into degree mills in line with neoliberal policies. Gimaldi finds himself teaching a course on codes and ciphers while Castellemare (now just a humble librarian at the university library) and Anton Setzer have misappropriated a grant in Gimaldi's name to create a quantum virus that will carry the encoded imprint of the Library's remaining holdings so that future generations would be entrusted to perform scribal labour in the reproduction of the Library. In the post-Albrecht world, North America is mostly a desert save for university campuses that have become the last remaining aggregates of population, under the domination of a new theocracy: the orthodox-conservative and powerful Schulmannites, and the weakening opposition of Calembourists. One lone pilgrim in this neo-feudalist world is misappropriating the Grant to investigate a mysterious place known only by dark rumour: The Grey.
Characters:
Paul Fabulan / Jonkil Calembour
Alberto Gimaldi
Thomas von Castellemare
Anton Setzer
Hans Schulmann
Paulus, Degree-Holder
Tariq
Other members: King Ubu, Dr Fuse Less, Dixon, Viktor Allen, Clyde Arkwright, Lawrence Smithwick, Hans Schulmann II, et al.
Alberto Gimaldi
Thomas von Castellemare
Anton Setzer
Hans Schulmann
Paulus, Degree-Holder
Tariq
Other members: King Ubu, Dr Fuse Less, Dixon, Viktor Allen, Clyde Arkwright, Lawrence Smithwick, Hans Schulmann II, et al.
Rationale/Themes
The theory that, in a future world without oil, society returns to a feudalist model. The present-time aspect of the text is threaded with the current crisis facing universities as being a subset of rampant spectacular capitalism which may usher in a period of extreme polarization and austerity.
Sources
One small section appeared in the Chicago-based literary magazine Spirit.
The Making Of...
Influences
A variety of influences inform this text and its method of constructing a detailed historical account. John Barth’s Giles Goat Boy, Donald Barthelme’s The Dead Father, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Will Self’s The Book of Dave, and - oddly enough - the Penguin Atlas of World History in two paperback volumes.