Review of Ken Goldberg's Peter Squared

Ken Goldberg’s novel Peter Squared is an interesting read. It is about Peter Branstill who is a 43-year old mathematically obsessed accountant. He is (in lay terms what sounds like an) obsessive compulsive, neurtotic guy who we would all say should be in therapy, or given something to help him with his condition. He is a man with no friends, no emotional life, and who thinks that it would be a great idea to try to make friends at the peep shows he frequents, and masturbates frequently while fantasizing about horses. He calculates the days he has been sane, and calculates most everything, actually, including the dirt of which he is deathly afraid. He meets a guy named John and they become friends in an odd sort of way, though it is not clear that Peter ever actually says a word to John.

This book says a lot about clinical research and what it might be like to be someone like Peter. If you plan on going in to clinical psychology, it is worth reading. As a novel it is OK, but I kinda liked it.

I happen to have the press release that came from the book’s publicist. It is the dumbest thing I ever read. It claims that the author’s treatment is a “humanistic, existential viewpoint of the mental health system”. What the hell is an existential viewpoint of a mental health system? Apparently there are also unorthodox views on religion and morality in the book.

There are suggested questions that you might want to ask Ken Goldberg, the author, should you ever be interviewing him and was not really in the mood to spend the two hours actually reading the book. (Keeping in mind that the book came out in 2000) here are some of the questions: “. . . To what degree is your work autobiographical?” (I do not want to know how autobiographical one is being when he talks a lot about sexual fantasies involving horses.) “We have a president who apparently feels torn between his sexual drive and his moral code. What is your take on whether Clinton lied when he denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky?” (As if there is a “take” on whether he lied. The real question is whether or not we should care if he lied during a sexual harassment suit, and if presidents should be dealing with this. Moreover, Clinton was not torn between anything and anything else. He wanted to not embarrass himself and the office of the presidency; that is why he lied.) “How do you feel about pornography as entertainment for adults?” (I hope Goldberg had a clever and creative answer for this one. It is the dullest question there.)

I wonder how many of these “interviews” he attended. No wonder interviewers appear so mindless. They are not quite sure what they are saying. They just read questions made up for them by a publicist.