Fleming utilizes a mixture of collage, wit, and illustration to create work that feels like dispatches from an off-kilter dimension. And while the images and poems range in feel, medium, and tone, their mystery is united by inherent contradictions and warped reflections. The keystone piece is perhaps ‘before mirrors,’ one of the many entries to integrate poetry layered onto photo collage. Reflected from opposing sides of a cracked pocket mirror reads an entry that could practically serve as Fleming’s thesis statement:
“Before mirrors all humans were beautiful
The object of desire
Is ugly when
A mirror reflects”
It is this theme of reflection and refraction that feels like the book’s richest vein. Even the collection’s title, White Noir, brings this idea of reflextion and binary to the forefront. Fleming uses this motif to portray a sense of otherness, be it the perspective of an immigrant, language barrier, or even audience and film, that sets the reader and the subject a world apart. In the layout of the pages themselves, such as the mirrored page placement for ‘wand birth’ and ‘first rise,’ the internal contrast of ‘epitheliazations,’ or the flipped and thematically hilarious ‘New York city exhibitionist and Hoboken New Jersey voyeur on the thirty-second story across the Hudson River,’ Fleming finds fluency when turning his creations on themselves.
These reflections and dual selves give the reader an insight into something that feels tightly wound. Another recurring technique is the use of mirror text, like in the aforementioned exhibitionist/voyeur, or ‘return to the garden,’ which deploys one half of the poem on the left-hand margin while mirroring the text for the right-hand margin. This layer on the right side reveals the deeper meaning obscured on the left. Minos’ Intern deploys a similar variation by going into a more detailed description on the left, but punctuates every other line with the crusty thoughts of a begruding and insecure apprentice (job sucks).
It is this sense of marginalia that pervades much of Fleming’s style. Presented as a journal entry, Fleming retells the story of Psycho as a list of sensory experiences encountered by Norman Bates. The half finished doodle of a figure in women’s underwear tells us as much and as little as an entry stating: “Saw/Noticed- Marion’s straight teeth.” By drawing between the lines, Fleming invites us to read even closer.
These minimalist touches make every minor detail important, and the dollhouse quality of the book supplies ample amounts of kitsch in the form of classic movies like Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, the Wizard of Oz, or the many collages involving cemeteries, tombstones, and skulls, imbuing the book with a sense of humor and melancholy. Wonder as a colossal Dorothy and Toto stride across the pier of Ellis Island! Puzzle over the pregnant melodrama of the Bride of Frankenstein by way of an org chart. These entries feel personal, and despite their simplicity and goofy humor, hint at some subterranean truth buried underneath.
Only when the shtick is broadened does the joke fall flat. Case in point, ‘Satan’s Ten Commandments,’ a display of the Ten Commandments with words erased to imply their inverse, stretches past the breaking point of irony and thuds into obviousness. Fleming engages with religion more convincingly when invoking Adam and Eve across various pages, and the earnestness present in ‘return to the garden’ feels more genuine than ‘satan.’ And on occasion, the image composition verges from intriguing to baffling, such as the previously mentioned ‘wand birth’ which serves a theme but is otherwise inaccessible. And while not everything needs to mean something, it would be nice to have something you can sink your teeth into.
Fleming does find ways to succeed on this front. Of all the pieces present, most moving are ‘Tree Ring Research Proposal,’ ‘Tree Ring Share,’ and ‘what makes a town?’ A research proposal is a basic outline of the concept of tree rings and their possible relationship to global warming. Opposite them is an arrangement of tree cross-sections. I cannot quite put into words why I was drawn to this page, but there is something ineffible about the image of time so clearly captured in such a plain gesture. This also applies to ‘what makes a town,’ which is little more than an arrangement of small moments onto a clockface but manages to feel grander than the sum of its parts.
Not every reader is looking for something like White Noir. There is a valedicatory quality present, a sort of celebration of one’s hard work for many years. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Robert Fleming has crafted a body of work that is confounding, insightful, and unique. More importantly, it’s a reflection of him and his world, which he is holding up for us to try and catch a glimpse of ourselves. This is, and should be, the goal of all art. Readers attempting to peer into White Noir will find images that are monochromatic, flat, funny, startlingly simple, and deceptively complex. Sometimes familiar, always strange. To our benefit, it is an imperfect mirror, covered in scratches and slightly shattered. To quote anti-folk troubadour and comic-book socialist Jeffrey Lewis, “It’s the Ones Who’ve Cracked That the Light Shines Through.”
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