10:04 is a work of literature that defies all categorization. It's not even clear if it's fictional: the author of the book may or may not be the narrator, who is the author of a short story about an author of a short story, and they may all actually be the same person. Ben Lerner, the author of 10:04, sometimes seems to be speaking with his own voice to the reader, while at other times it's unclear whether he even has a name. This book is the epitome of metafiction: it is beyond mere fiction in almost every possible sense. It is not merely fiction, since it is partially autobiographical; it is not merely literature, as it includes photographs and other nonfictional elements; it not only bends time but completely shatters it, rearranging it into a nonlinear, confusingly ordered story if the mood strikes. Rather than relying on traditionally stable things like names, time, and reality, this book wields them like instruments, selectively using even these foundational concepts as tools to further the artistic vision.
And what is this artistic vision? It's simultaneously impossibly vast and oddly specific. It's a tribute to ... well, everything, it seems: life, the city, the environment, time, and reality itself. The narrator can't decide what to call certain key figures in his life, as if he's alternating between several realities at once. His sexual partner/maybe-girlfriend is either called Alena or Hannah, and the narrator's true best friend, Alex/Liza, is a nebulous character whom the narrator impregnates as a favor. The narrator is writing a short story, and a novel, and attending a conference, and writing poetry due to a writer's block all at apparently the same time. But time itself seems to be an abstract and possibly illusory concept in this novel - besides the story arc of Alex and her quest for a baby, there is a surreal feel about all the events, like they might not actually have happened, or at least happened in an alternate reality.
The quote Lerner uses as an epigraph might help shed some light on the nature of this novel-esque work of literature:
“The Hassidim tell a story about the world to come that says everything there will be just as it is here. Just as our room is now, so it will be in the world to come; where our baby sleeps now, there too it will sleep in the other world. And the clothes we wear in this world, those too we will wear there. Everything will be as it is now, just a little different.” - Walter Benjamin
The author plays with reality by multiplying this 'other world' into many, and then seamlessly shifting between them at will. Everything is the same across these worlds and times, except just a little different. The novel's closing line is a quote from Walt Whitman: "I know it's hard to understand / I am with you, and I know how it is." The narrator says this to the city, as if, having experienced all these mundane yet wickedly complex events, he sympathizes with the city, understanding everything it sees in a day, as well as empathizing with the dangers caused by environmental disasters and pollution. In all, this is a novel about nothing and everything, and it's simultaneously a celebration of life and its condemnation.
