Robot stories: Cool-hand Berger's brisk election-year satire
Ed Park
Tuesday, April 20th 2004
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photo: Jerry Bauer
Berger: A keyboard's worth of hot buttons
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Misogynist? Feminist? Berger keeps a cool hand on a keyboard's worth of hot buttons. Phyllis's very construction mirrors the current vogue in makeover-based reality TV; her path from prostitute to screen icon to talk-show host and politician (do androids dream of election returns?) is a playful savaging of American desire on every scale. If the Pygmalion conceit seems to give the man the upper hand, the codependent duo's very names invert the traditional gender roles—the feminized "Ellery," the cyborg commonly addressed as "Phyl" (and once, "phallus").
Against expectations, Phyllis—who conjures everyone from empire-building Martha to Angelina in tomb-raiding mode—becomes genuinely endearing. Studying a Currier & Ives calendar, she registers "persons of a bygone age about to enter a vehicle to which a team of four-footed, long-legged animals was hitched. No doubt there was an explanation for this picture." And the author's hallmark attention to language is subtly scrupulous. When Ellery complains of "stress," unwaterproofed Phyllis suggests a Riviera getaway; Berger subtly crafts a line thick with anapests, and not free of a certain sadness: "I could sit on a chair and read while you swim."
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