
Disease of Kings by Anders Carlson-Wee Review by Dustin Pickering
Disease of Kings by Anders Carlson-Wee
Review by Dustin Pickering
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
ISBN: 1324064706
Pages:112
Deceptively Simple: How to Con an Empire
Anders Carlson-Wee’s newest poetry collection, Disease of Kings, offers a contemporary riddle to its readership. The narrative is deceptively simple. As these narrative poems lead us through the dramas of one particular friendship—between the central speaker and his only friend, North—we learn that the disease referenced in the title is gout, seen as a disease of kings because it is “caused by/overindulgence, excessive amounts / of red meat” as stated in the poem “Gout.” The speaker specifies that he learned of this nickname for the disease on Wikipedia. This counter-reference provides a hierarchy of indulgence in the modern world: one of our most pressing problems is access to many sources of information but no frame of reference to judge it.
Throughout Carlson-Wee’s extended parable of friendship, human folly and selfishness is uncovered in all its rawness. The collection begins by exploring the cons pulled off by the speaker and North. What is strangest about the story is how these cons parallel customary culture with individual unethical behaviors. For instance, in “Lou” the nature of gambling is explored. In “The Juggler” the speaker learns the story of the poem’s subject, a juggler. The juggler’s troubled history involves car theft and drug use, but the root of his problem is his father’s inability to accept his choice to be an actor. The speaker comments within the poem, “As if we could sing what we can’t say. / Catch what we can never hold.” This street juggler’s testimonial represents the human urge for freedom. It also reveals the frustration of confounded desires. In “Oscar” the speaker, Oscar, loses his wife to secure a loan for an invention of his. The invention does not bring profit, but Oscar rationalizes that his wife left him because he does not have an ass. He says that his invention, strapless suspenders, emerged because of his wife’s dissatisfaction. In this monologue, selfishness and individual irresponsibility reveal themselves in Oscar’s character. In “I Feel Sorry for Aliens” the speaker pontificates on what aliens might perceive of earthlings: “How fickle the human will seem.” Carlson-Wee’s understanding of the human condition is rooted in the personal as well as the social nature of living beings. Each poem is a fragment of the entire revelation.
We begin to learn that the narrator and his buddy North con locals by selling refurbished junk in “moving sales,”even though they are not moving. The motive for choosing a moving sale is apparent in “Moving Sale”; the friends are “just using/ the drama to draw shoppers.” Some locals are suspicious, but that does not prevent the friends from devising ways to con them. The conning does not stop with the locals, as the friends also con the government for money.The speaker even says, “We ate a diet / we never could have enjoyed / if we’d been paying for it.” Ironically, a food inspector named Barb, who stays at the speaker’s bed & breakfast (which serves dumpster food to its unwitting guests) while North is away fishing in Alaska for the summer, provides a rationale for the friends to continue conning. In a dramatic monologue written in her voice, Barb reveals her dishonest approach to inspection, reminding the reader of how much, in our capitalist society, we all con each other; besides, if even the establishment treats its work without merit, why should the narrator concern himself with his cons? “It’s a wink-wink occupation,” Barb states. She even intimates that she accepts bribes and also inspects with favoritism. The layering of con-artistry is not just among drifters; human beings generally act in sloth and dishonesty in this crumbling, decadent empire.
Early poems such as “Cora” show North to be laissez-faire in his attitude, telling the narrator that when Cora (their cat) kills a rat, it is “natural. All this is natural.” This statement reverberates outward and reveals North’s attitude toward their cons and hustles. They are all part of the natural order: “By small turns of her / neck, she clocks the awful progress of what is still alive, innards / painting a wet streak across hardwood. But before the moving half / can reach the darkness it desires, Cora pads over and launches it / back to the center of the bare floor.” This graphic depiction of the violence against the rat among descriptions of the bareness of their living quarters reflects a moral conundrum. The violence would be horrific if done to another human being. However, it is accepted by North as part of the natural order when the cat murders the rat and tortures it. North accepts the predator-prey relationship. The bare floor makes this violence worthy of shuddering. The physical environment is a reflection of the moral stances of the two cons.
In the book’s third section, after returning from his seasonal work in Alaska, North reveals his real name is Andrew, to the utter surprise of the narrator. In “Andrew” the narrator describes how the friends collect government benefits from various states using false identities. North finally confesses, “Andrew’s probably safe, but here’s the thing: I’m Andrew.” The narrator is initially confused because he already knows of the pseudonym, but the supposed pseudonym turns out to be the true identity of his friend. Andrew does not question his lie to the government but the narrator questions him regarding this news about his real name, saying, “You’re kidding”; yet in response, Andrew simply shakes his head.
These poems are not just exemplary of the declining empire in its transitional failures. In fact, the primary theme is friendship. In “Listening to North in the Morning,” the speaker describes a friend as a “secret indulgence” which allows youto be “near what you / can never be.” However, in a climactic twist, at the end of the fourth section, North moves to Alaska for a regular job. The narrator is left alone, and becomes deeply emotional and introverted. Poems such as “Good Money” reveal the depths of nostalgia during the friends’ transitional loss. The narrator intimates, “[…] and now / we are drunk and talking / about the past.” Throughout the collection, Carlson-Wee shares his acumen in the complexity of emotions. By this promise of a fresh future for North, the narrator is left in the cold. His devastation at the loss is carefully depicted by the poet in the last two sections. The presence of deep nostalgia perhaps reflects the current social dilemma in the United States. Does America still have a chance to redeem herself from the failing morality of her citizens? The nostalgia of American Exceptionalism still exists within us, but at a pivotal point of history perhaps there is an opportunity to rebuild? The depth of character analysis in these poems shreds the surface layers of human emotions and presents a complex order that is a matter of human choice.
Disease of Kings presents moral conundrums about human nature, friendship, and the contemporary dilemma of declining hegemony. Readers are presented with readable poetry that resonates with the heart of humanity. Disease of Kings reveals our deepest secrets and failings with complex sympathy.
Anders Carlson-Wee is the author of Disease of Kings (W.W. Norton, 2023), The Low Passions (W.W. Norton, 2019), a New York Public Library Book Group Selection, and Dynamite (Bull City Press, 2015), winner of the Frost Place Chapbook Prize. He lives in Los Angeles.
Dustin Pickering is founder of Transcendent Zero Press. He has contributed writing to Huffington Post, Café Dissensus Everyday, The Statesman (India), Journal of Liberty and International Affairs, The Colorado Review, World Literature Today, and several other publications. He placed in the top 100 out of 12,500 entries for the erbacce prize in 2021, and was a finalist in Adelaide Literary Journal’s first short fiction contest. He was longlisted for the Rahim Karim World Prize in 2022 and given the honor of Knight of World Peace by the World Institute for Peace that same year. He hosts the popular interview series World Inkers Network on YouTube.
22 November 2023
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