So what are your plans for the night of December 31, 1999, which some believe will mark the end of the world? If you are planning to party your brains out in honor of the apocalypse, you may want to reconsider. Because according to author James Finn Garner, the year 2000 may not necessarily mark the end of civilization.
In the well-written and humorous book, "Apocalypse Wow!," University alumnus Garner explores the many different aspects of the apocalypse, as well as the art of prophesizing. Scholars will appreciate the book's intelligent style, and all readers will appreciate the abundant laughter it delivers.
Garner first discusses the theories of the most famous prophets, from the 16th-century seer Nostradamus (who allegedly foresaw the death of the Kennedy brothers and the rise of Hitler), to the American prophet Edgar Cayce (the "Sleeping Prophet") who would make predictions while in a light trance.
Garner is good about providing information on each of the legendary prophets, but even better at mockingly poking holes in their reputations as clairvoyants. For example, Garner questions whether Nostradamus really meant the Kennedy brothers, or perhaps another influential trio such as ... the Three Stooges?
After putting these prophets' credibility to shame, Garner then details his own attempts at prophesizing the end of time. From crystal balls to cephalomancy (the art of "reading of omens that appear when a donkey's head is severed and boiled"), Garner gives readers an unbiased account of how soothsaying techniques work ... or actually, don't work.
The rest of the book is devoted to an exploration of New Age theories, the zodiac, the power of crystals and other wacky apocalypse-related things. Whether or not you believed in the accuracy of the various predictors before, you'll probably take them with a grain of salt after reading this section. But Garner discusses all the aspects of prognostication in an informative manner, along with some successful ridicule.
Garner, who is also the author of the best-selling "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories" and "Politically Incorrect Holiday Stories," has proven that he is king of the irreverent. This funnyman is out to prove that he can take what's grim (or Grimm), and extract light humor from it.
One incredibly hilarious part of "Apocalypse Wow!" discusses a particular discovery: When the distance from the entrance of the Great Pyramid to a stone inside it is measured in "pyramid inches," you get the date of the end of the world - September 17, 2001.
But in an ingeniously smart-ass fashion, Garner also points out his discovery that when you measure the distance in "hot dog inches" from Yankee Stadium's backstop to the terminal wall, you also get the date of the end of the world - the year 2000.
Coincidence? I think not.
Garner is also hysterically funny when he describes his experience channeling into his past lives. He finds out that he was not only a long-dead dolphin king named Kikki Kiikki Kuk XI, but also someone who went by the name of Cleopatra. As Garner says in his Channeling Journal, "I was tall and beautiful, with supple brown skin. I had many enemies. I wielded great power, and men cowered when confronted with my strength and beauty. I wore silks and furs, and was a crack shot with a .38 caliber." No, he wasn't the famous Egyptian queen Cleopatra, but Tamara Dobson's Cleopatra Jones - black, bad, beautiful and hell on the drug pushers in Harlem.
"Apocalypse Wow!" does get a little hokey and loses its point near the end, but it nevertheless remains fun to read from the first to last page.
Rather than worry about the end of the world, we should first read "Apocalypse Wow!" Then, if the world ends, at least we'll have gotten a good laugh out of it.
- Julia Shih
David Leavitt opens "Arkansas," his new collection of novellas, with a quote from Oscar Wilde: "I should like to flee like a wounded hart into Arkansas." Appropriately, the three novellas that compose the book address themes of escape and retreat. Leavitt's protagonists are all in hiding places, but even there, none can prevent complex events from overtaking them.
"The Wooden Anniversary," for example, describes the uneasy reunion of two old friends in an idyllic Tuscan setting. And in "Saturn Street," a man who drifts into volunteering at an AIDS charity unexpectedly falls in love with an AIDS patient.
Though these are both engaging stories, the best novella in the collection - and definitely the most original - is "The Term Paper Artist." It is narrated by a character named David Leavitt, who states a central issue of the story: "Writers often disguise their lives as fiction. The thing they almost never do is disguise fiction as their lives."
Leavitt's story follows his biography up to a point: The character David Leavitt is a writer who lives in near-seclusion after causing a publishing scandal. At this point, however, the fictional events take an unexpected turn: Leavitt's character begins writing term papers for college students in exchange for sex.
"The Term Paper Artist" is witty, sharply written and carefully crafted. Nonetheless, it has already ignited another literary scandal. Esquire bought the rights to the story, then refused to run it, stating that its content was too explicit; Esquire's literary editor resigned in protest.
The resulting furor of publicity will no doubt boost sales of "Arkansas," if only because readers want to see what all the fuss was about. But the literary gossip and large-type headlines are unnecessary; "Arkansas" can stand on its own merits.
In each novella, Leavitt displays creative plotting and smooth, clear writing. His characters are flawed, believable people; even their most inexplicable actions make sense in terms of their personalities, and thus they begin to seem not so improbable.
As a collection of novellas, "Arkansas" may not seem as substantial or important as a full-length novel would. But, until Leavitt writes another such novel, readers can be satisfied with the finely wrought realism in "Arkansas."
- Elizabeth Lucas
04-18-97
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