Ambition is a driving force for many of us; there are few of us who don't aspire to make an impression on the world, or at least attempt to affect a single frontier. Rodes Fishburne's debut novel "Going to See the Elephant" focuses on the journey of a particular aspirant, Slater Brown. For Slater, the place to begin is San Francisco.
Slater's intention is to become the kind of writer who is on par with the likes of Hemingway, Joyce, and Baldwin. He crams his omnipresent notebooks full of beginnings, endings, half thoughts, astute observations. His suitcase is filled with literary masterpieces, most of which the aspiring author has never read.
The majority of what Slater sees inspires him and he rushes around the city trying to catch its mysteries with his pen. Unfortunately, Slater does not know what he wants his world-famous novel to be about. For all his prolific scribbling, he has not even the glimmering of a plot and posturing as the protagonist of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (cocked hat, walking stick, and all) is doing little to move him along.
Conveniently, Slater stumbles across the struggling San Francisco newspaper The Morning Trumpet. The decades have watched its slow decline from a daily to a weekly and the Trumpet needs a pick-me-up. Slater is hired, fired, and then hired again when he discovers a source that reveals the city's secrets and scandals. Overnight, Slater becomes the toast of the town and the enemy of the corrupt mayor Tucker Oswell.
The protagonists in this splendidly jovial novel are characters in the most elaborate sense of the word. Slater is practically a parody of himself, but his extremism is endearing. His compatriots at the Trumpet are a gaggle of curmudgeonly humbugs who are irrevocably loyal to their newspaper and to one another. Callio, the stunning chess player and Slater's love interest, appears serendipitously and their romance begins in a boat, suspended atop the unpredictable toss and turn of the San Francisco Bay.
The mayor, who is closest to an antagonist, is absurd in his conceits and wildly entertaining. Slater's sudden journalistic success is largely at the expense of the mayor and as the young writer dredges up more and more shady dealings, the mayor embarks on an extensive gustatory consumption of all the best foodstuffs in the city. Fishburne sets stomachs growling with his descriptions of the finest gourmet food San Francisco has to offer.
Finally, there is the super genius Milo Magnet. The author of "The Theory of Everything," Magnet is extremely private and eons beyond his contemporaries. Having conquered most scientific realms, Magnet's next frontier is the control of the weather. When Magnet's super computer fails to exhibit the proper intuition that will allow the scientist to create storm clouds larger than ping-pong tables, Slater and the genius' ambitions become entwined, producing magenta rain and the destruction of Slater's fine Italian suits.
There is a pronounced element of glee in Fishburne's novel. His affection for the characters he has created and their dramas is evident. They play off of one another in a satisfactory if not entirely unpredictable manner. The story is a delightful adventure and an enjoyable read.
What lies at the heart of the novel, the element that amps up the simple pleasures of the plot, is San Francisco herself. The city ticks with life. Fishburne's knowledge and love of every aspect of San Francisco emanates from his jubilant, descriptive sentences. The book is partly in homage to the possibility of youth, but ultimately it is a serenade to the city that invigorates this author and provides his characters with a fluid and mesmerizing backdrop.