Given a novel in which nearly everyone is a performer,

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IN Glen David Gold's cheap tiffany necklaces second novel, those Army tanks that rouse a parade to patriotic fervor are made of plywood. That young man performing heroic feats imagines himself as the star of a film. Even in 1916, life was a movie. Set against the background of World War I, "Sunnyside" takes as its subject Charlie Chaplin and an America already infantilized by its cheap tiffany rings thirst for entertainment. Yet Gold himself entertains. He has it both ways: the new world constructed by movies is both real and make-believe. In one scene, faced with a Chaplin impersonator, the actual Chaplin launches into an impersonation not of himself but of a Chaplin impersonator, and does a credible job of falling just short of being Charlie Chaplin.

Given a novel in which nearly everyone is a performer, including its author, it's tempting to ask who the "real" Chaplin is. Or is there such a thing? Gold's Chaplin will fascinate readers for any number of reasons: his charm, his intelligence, his insecurity, his fitful lurching back and forth between generosity and selfishness. Most of all, though, his appeal to our celebrity-obsessed culture stems from his presence at its inception. If there's any center to this sprawling novel, it's the drama of Chaplin negotiating a sense of self that is engineered by public expectations and dismantled by its own carping doubts."Sunnyside" teems with brilliant and inconclusive raw footage seemingly gleaned from the cutting-room floor. You can almost picture the light bulb clicking on in Gold's mind when he realizes he can organize his material as - yes! - a movie. Thus the novel's contents page, titled "This Evening's Entertainment," offers a newsreel, a travelogue, a two-reel comedy, a serial and "Our Feature Presentation," followed by a sing-along and credits. Gold's story runs continuously through these chapters, whose tongue-in-cheek headings would be merely cloying if the novel weren't so good. But readers are cautioned to be patient: this weighty narrative, with its multiple beginnings, needs a long runway to take off.