The Story Within the Story

Book Review: My Favorite Band Does Not Exist by Robert T. Jeschonek

Deity's Syndrome: "Multisystemic symptoms resulting from a psychosomatic manifestation of the unshakable fear that the patient is a character in a novel".

That mouthful of psychological jargon is the diagnosis for the character of Ideal Deity in Robert T. Jeschonek's My Favorite Band Does Not Exist. It also sets the stage for a wild allegorical ride through philosophical thought from the Greeks to modern Western philosophy.

The characters we meet are always more than they seem. Symbolism is rife in every name, occupation, and physical description. Janus, two-faced god of beginnings and transitions makes an early appearance, albeit in female form, and is there to guide Ideal along the path from existential solipism, through Cartesian dualism, and finally to nondualist enlightenment. Along the way we meet Descartes' "evil genius" and a host of mythological and religious figures as friends, foes, or fellow travelers. All of this is set in the current world of online music, Twitter, and the Internet - well, except where it moves into a different reality.

Jeschonek does a great job of matching the actual format of the book to the story. You know when you are reading the book within the book because, well it's a book within the book! The language and concepts are accessible; this is not a philosophy text full of 6 syllable words. As the novel moves towards its closing, the story does gather speed, flipping through reality like a deck of cards in Alice in Wonderland, and it can be a little hard for the reader to keep up.

The question in the back of my mind throughout this fast-moving book was, "Would a teenager like this?" The book is targeted to ages 12 and up (grades 7+), and some of the vocabulary and plot twists are more appropriate for the higher end of that range. I can see this being used in an English classroom to teach metaphors and symbolism; motivated students would have a field day deciphering names and finding hidden symbology. But would they read it for fun? I'm just not sure. I definitely know some kids who would love this - and some who would glaze over a few pages into it.

That being said, if you know a young adult that likes a story with a little more story to it, and enjoys sci-fi/fantasy, I heartily recommend My Favorite Band.

Post-Apocalyptic Archetypes

Book Review: Blood Red Road by Moira Young

The new hot genre of the moment for young adult readers seems to be the Apocalypse, or rather the Post-Apocalypse. It's beginning to beg the question: how many ways can writers end the world before it actually happens?

Written in the form of a first-person narrative, Blood Red Road by Moira Young is the story of a young girl's journey to rescue her twin brother, set against a post-Apocalyptic background. Told in the backwoods dialect of the heroine, Saba, the story ranges from the deserts to the mountains of Saba's homeland. Along the way she picks up help from likely and unlikely fellow travelers. Saba comes of age in the course of her journey, in more ways than one, her horizons irrevocably expanded from her childhood home at Silverlake.

Admittedly, at times it feels that the book is simply a derivation of previous end times works like David Brin's The Postman. Even the cage fighting of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is invoked during Saba's effort to find and save her brother. Initially I found myself being critical of the story not being "original", and cynically ranking it as a re-working of other authors. I had to dig a little deeper into my own conceptions to rate this story correctly.

As with any genre of literature, post-Apocalyptic tales have common themes and characters. From the Book of Revelation through Stephen King's The Stand there is a continuity of concept in the balance between salvation and damnation. The inevitable struggles of the hero and the duplicity of the villain are grounded in symbols as old as human existence, and naturally find their way into accounts of the end of humanity as well. The commonality of human experience may be archetypal, but that is the very reason we celebrate it in literature.

Moira Young may be cultivating previously tilled soil, but she does it with style and enthusiasm. What saves Blood Red Road is what sets apart any work from its fellows: the Story. The book is eminently readable, the plot cohesive and understandable for its teen target audience, and adults as well. The action is fast but doesn't leave the reader behind in a cloud of verbal dust wondering what happened, or why. This is the debut novel for author Moira Young, and I look forward to further work from her.

[Reviewers note: There are now 3 books in the Dustlands series]