The Pleasure Of My Company (2004) - Plot & Excerpts
Normal, well-adjusted people who function just fine in life may be tempted to believe that some of the neurotic things that Daniel does are just too absurd to be true or that some of the events are a bit far-fetched. But honestly, speaking as someone who walks that fine line between Weird and WEIRD, Daniel Pecan Cambridge is the real deal.I would love to know how Steve Martin conducted his research for this book. What was his inspiration for Daniel’s persona and his quirks? Why does the story take place in Santa Monica, California — why not someplace else? When a story is this good — such a quirky, wonderful, endearing, and laugh-out-loud story — I want the scoop on the author’s creative and writing process and wish this book was a “P.S. Edition” that sometimes includes extras like that!The prose is phenomenal — I had to restrain myself with quotes otherwise I would have ended up transcribing the whole book into this post. And speaking of prose, TPOMC is not heavy on dialogue nor action — the story is mainly driven by Daniel’s thoughts and observations, his actions and reactions, as well as details about his quirks, routines, and habits.Socializing“Sure, I’ve gotten some disbelieving stares when I’ve tried to explain this little habit of mine to, say, a bus seatmate. I’ve watched a guy adjust his posture, or get up and move back several rows, even if it meant he now sat next to someone else who was clearly on the verge of some other kind of insanity.” [page 26]“I might not seem like the type who could sit at an outdoor cafe drinking a latte, but I am. Why? No motion required. It’s just sitting. Sitting and sipping. I can’t imagine a neurosis that would prevent one from raising one’s arm to one’s mouth while holding a cup, though given time, I’m sure I could come up with one.” [page 62]Shopping“The Rite Aid is splendidly antiseptic. I’ll be the floors are hosed down every night with isopropyl alcohol. The Rite Aid is the axle around which my squeaky world turns, and I find myself there two or three days a week seeking out the rare household items such as cheesecloth…” [page 24]“The bedroom light was a little too bright for Philipa. She wanted to lower the lights, so I turned out three sixty-watt bulbs but had to go to the kitchen to turn on a one-hundred watt bulb and a fifty-watt bulb and two fifteens, in order to maintain equity. It is very hard to get thirty-watt bulbs, so when I find them I hoard them.” [page 40]Counting“My ceiling is not conducive to counting. Its texture is created by pulling the trowel flatly away from the wet plaster, leaving a rippled surface, as though a baker had come in and spread around vanilla icing with a spatula. Counting prefers symmetry of some kind, though at my level of sophistication I can get around most obstacles. The least interesting ceiling for me now is on that is practically counted out already: squared-ff acoustical tiles with regular punctures that simply require a little multiplication on my part. Each tile has sixty-four sound-absorbing hole times the easily calculated number of tiles in the ceiling. Ugh.” [page 25-26]Appearances“I’m sure that Philipa was lured on by my best asset, which is my Sure-cuts hairdo. I’m lanky like a baseball pitcher, and the Sure-cut people know how to give me the floppy forehead at a nominal price. So without bragging, I’m letting you know that I can be physically appealing. Plus I’m clean. Clean like I’ve just been car-washed and then scrubbed with a scouring pad and then wrapped in palm fronds infused with ginger.” [page 39]Adventure“The next morning I decided to touch every corner of every copying machine at Kinko’s.” [page 41]As a Ladies Man“What would happen to me and to those around me if my power became uncontained? If I were suddenly just too sensational to be managed? Maybe my obsessions are there to keep me from being too powerfully alluring, to keep my would-be lovers and adventures in check. After all I can’t be too seductive if I have to spend a half hour on the big night calculating and adjusting the aggregate bulb wattage in a woman’s apt while she sits on the edge of the bed checking her watch.” [page 17]“It was no so much the jogging part that I thought would turn Elizabeth’s head but the leap over the curb that I knew would hold the magic. I’m smart enough to know that Elizabeth has no doubt seen dozens of men leap over curbs without her falling in love with the leaper, but I do believe this: When an endeavor is special in a person’s life, other discern it intuitively and appreciate it more… And as ordinary as such an event might be, it can be instilled with uncommon power. So I reasoned that my leap, my soaring, arcing flight, would have a hero’s impact upon her and would neutralize my earlier flubs.” [page 58]reviewed 10-4-2014edited 10-5-2014
Daniel Pecan Cambridge lives in a prison of disorder. His life in Santa Monica is a highly structured life in which he must find a way to the Rite Aid that doesn't involve stepping off a curb. He is mentally unable to hold a job like the one he once had at Hewlett Packard. He is unable to use public transportation unless he can draw lines between passengers based upon the plaids and stripes they are wearing. He prioritizes his mail into three piles, savoring letters from his grandmother in Texas like they are the middle part of an Oreo.When Steve Martin's novella "The Pleasure of My Company" opens, he has been cleared of murder charges and has developed a friendship with his neighbor Philipa, an actress who doesn't know he is slipping her Qualudes. He is visited regularly by an interning psychology student named Clarissa, whom he lies to about his life. He has it bad for Elizabeth, the Real Estate agent who is trying to fill some apartments down the street.A reader might go through these stages in the early parts of Martin's second whack at fiction: 1) Ha! That Steve Martin. This is hilarious! 2) Oh my. Should I be laughing at a character who has such a debilitating case of OCD and a touch of Asperger Syndrome? 3) Oh my aching heart!This list of funny compulsions is all fun and games until Daniel gets a letter from his grandmother who lives in Texas, his benefactor -- whom he prefers when she isn't sending him checks, as much as he needs the checks. Then everything kind of shifts when you realize he isn't pure, neurotic comedy. He's a being with feelings who is trapped by things like curbs, the wattage of light bulbs and expressing emptions."The irony is that the one person who gives me money is the one person I wish I could hand the check back to and say no, only joy can pass between you and me. I found it difficult to write back. But I did, stingy with loving words because they didn't come out of me easily. I hoped she could read between the lines."Daniel's life changes when he is invited by Philipa's boyfriend Brian to go for a run and he realizes that by following Brian he can soar over curbs, and when he enters an essay contest in search of the most average American. And when he starts to learn more about Clarissa and the complexity of her life with child and hostile ex.This is a pleasant little story. Nice, funny, easy. And it wraps up tightly like a burrito.It has taken reading three books by Steve Martin to understand that he is never ever going to do anything super terrible to his characters. This is both frustrating and also alleviates a ton of the stress of reading and worrying about characters. Children won't die left in the hands of a man who has debilitating street-crossing habits. A character who has fallen in love with his therapist will not do anything super embarrassing to proclaim his feelings. Even the obsessive compulsive gets a slight break when he takes up with a girlfriend who categorizes his ticks into three headings: Acceptable, unacceptable and hilarious. As though requited love can cure him of OCD and Asperger Syndrome.Steve Martin's novels aren't going to break your heart or make your pulse race. They are simple stories with likable characters whose stories end nicely without shrapnel or gritty nails or paint splatters or messy hair or the need for hand sanitizer.
What do You think about The Pleasure Of My Company (2004)?
The book jacket describes the main character as a "modern-day neurotic yearning to break free." At first, I wasn't that jazzed up reading about his various neuroses, but Daniel Pecan Cambridge grew on me. I loved Shopgirl almost instantly but I grew to love Martin's second novel as I read more of it, with my attachment to it coming to a crescendo just as I read the last page. (damn!)[return][return]While I don't join Daniel in his insistence on a constant total of wattage from indoor lighting, the book got me thinking about the more subtle barriers I put in place to avoid doing the things I want to do but don't -- I know I'll be happy after doing those things, but still I avoid them. All those nights I waste watching television shows that mean nothing rather than have to make a decision about what I want to do with my time. All those mornings I hit the snooze button 10 times rather than wake up and have time to write. All those times I make excuses that I can't exercise rather than just do it and feel good about my body and my health. This book made me wonder: What am I afraid of?
—Kelly
I didn’t know quite what to expect in a novel by Steve Martin, star of countless generic comedy films. I must confess I was suspicious that Martin only found a publisher because he was already famous, however, after reading this small and quirky book, I have changed my mind. In fact, I found Steve Martin, the author, much more talented and interesting than Steve Martin, the actor; his humour far more witty, subtle and eccentric in his writing than in his films.Martin has created an unlikely hero in Daniel Pecan Cambridge. With no job, no friends and no apparent purpose in life, Daniel has created a complicated web of rules and regulations to give his life structure and meaning. Whilst he knows his obsessions and compulsions (such as his need for his apartment’s light globes to total exactly 1125 watts when lit) are absurd, any attempt to overcome them throws him into a state of panic. Daniel’s behaviour is only challenged when his relationship with his psychiatrist, Clarissa, brings him face-to-face with a genuine crisis. Clarissa’s real need forces Daniel to push through his neuroses and he finds that without them, life suddenly becomes full of possibilities, including the possibility of finding love.The Pleasure of My Company is a fascinating, humorous, surprising and touching novel which ultimately disproves Daniel’s theory that “there are not many takers for the quiet heart”.
—Annabel Smith
I read Shopgirl, Martin's other bestselling novella, last weekend, and while I wouldn't call it "fantastic," the characters stuck with me all week. It was a mediocre story with exceptional heart (and yes, that is a bit of a nod to Martin's occasional turn toward the prosaic). The Pleasure of My Company is the apple to Shopgirl's orange. There really is no comparison. While Martin's earlier work is occasionally funny, it is primarily somber and deals with heavy subjects (clinical depression, cheating) in a heavy way. TPomC, on the other hand, sees the humor in mental illness reflected through its endearing protagonist's search for love. It is much more what one would expect were they familiar with Martin's manic stand up persona from the 1970's. The story of Daniel Pecan Cambridge, a peculiar but brilliant man who is not merely eccentric, but suffering from myriad nondescript emotional and mental disorders (one can piece together a diagnosis including, but not limited to, OCD, Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety Disorder, Asperger Syndrome, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, replete with delusions of grandeur). But, Daniel's story is not a sad one. Neither is he simply a clown for the reader's amusement (though one will be amused. I seemed a bit nuts, myself, laughing out loud in an otherwise silent Starbucks). Martin draws a realistic, endearing, and utterly insane character with whom I could absolutely identify. And, most importantly, over the course of a mere 150 pages, Daniel *grows.* There is a perceivable arc of emotional development that is missing even in some more erudite fiction. What Martin has produced is a charmingly maniacal romp with real emotional depth and a bizarre "hook," reminiscent of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. But, funnier. Way funnier.
—Brentney
