Cintra Wilson’s presidential candidate
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Cintra Wilson’s new book, ‘Caligula for President,’ is a slap, a romp; it’s extreme, extraordinary, obnoxious, ridiculous, hysterical, hyperbolic, repetitive, revolutionary, refreshing, reprehensible. It is all of these things, or perhaps only some of them, depending on where you stand. The writing demands that you stand someplace.
The premise is that the book is written from Caligula’s point of view, and that he is telling us, his subjects-to-be, why we should welcome him as America’s next leader. When she sticks closely to this, Wilson performs with the ego fitting of a Roman emperor, slinging words like an unstoppable literary pugilist.
As a nation, you’re burning through your natural resources and your borrowed money as if there were no tomorrow, because in some lemming-like way, you collectively fear there might not be one. And there are people who have organized this thinking of yours, and people who have benefited greatly from your suffering. (I confess: I’m one of them. Guilty!) To medicate yourself away from any real awareness of your own powerlessness and/or the discomfort and anxiety it makes you feel, you engorge yourself on wild excesses of prescription drugs, fatty foods, simulated violence, and wet-brain-feverish entertainment.... My point is, America is thisssclose -- right on the forty yard-line -- of having a real, live, old-fashioned, dynastic totalitarian monarchy-cum-military dictatorship. And I intend to drop-kick America orgasmically through this goal post.
Her Caligula is not just a social observer but also a master brander, one who isn’t afraid to use bold or ALL CAPS or Trademark symbols to make his point (he rebrands the Roman gods and the months, turning January to CHENEYUARY). The book is crammed with smart allusions and savvy insights. But in places, it comes across less like a Roman emperor than a caffeinated leftie -- why, exactly, would Caligula complain about media consolidation?
When the rant seems to be coming from Wilson, smart and annoyed New Yorker, it’s less fun than when it is fully immersed in the Caligula persona. This Caligula is nakedly self-aware, unapologetic and mercenary:
You might be asking yourself: What can Geius Caligula, a blood-drunk, epileptic, sister-molesting, transvestite Sun God and sharklike Machiavellian super-brand, do for me and my fellow Americans? More to the point: Will Caligula detain me in prison indefinitely until I am finally given pellets of angel-dust and led blindfolded into RFK Stadium to fight hyenas wearing nothing but a loincloth made of ham? You don’t need to worry about that right now. ....Imperial tyranny, as history will support and any taste-making, trend-spotter will tell you, is the wave of our future. And I am just the Sociopath of Divine Birth to drive it all home.
In some ways, anyone who wants to be president has to be a little bit crazy. Caligula -- or our modern idea of his depravity -- is obviously an extreme version of the madness of power. Casting Caligula as a presidential wanna-be wears thin, for this reader, but Wilson’s linguistic backflips are enough to carry the joke for a while.
-- Carolyn Kellogg
The video book trailer is after the jump.
