No, Fiction, by Ara 13, is not a new age text of literary criticism. It is an unassuming and often amusing — though, periodically, philosophy-smacked — novel, fits-and-starts inconsistent and a metafiction alternately blemished and embellished, written by the author of the internationally-honored Drawers & Booths (2007).
Father Daniel — who's on the more blemished than embellished side — is intent on converting the savage Oquanato cannibals to Christianity, but he gets lost deep in the jungle, finding some twists and turns in his mission when he is stumbled upon by some more sophisticated if quirky tribesmen. When Daniel and the natives emerge from that initially awkward animosity phase, the priest is taken in and he learns the ways and means of his hosts’ communication, which often takes on a Marx Brothers-marked malapropistic absurdity - in incidentals and episodes of wit and wordplay that signify the true highlights of Fiction.
Two standout characters, Quan and MillardFillmore, may stumble along on four left feet “in what is known to American anthropology as Lenny and Squiggy fashion,” but they can be first-rate charlatans, masters in the art of verbal thrust and parry:
I hired you two to look for the visitor, and after six hours without result, I found him in five minutes. I must say, you are not very gook searchers.”“On the contrary,” said Quan. “What you could only maintain for five minutes, we were able to keep up for the better part of a day. I put to you that we are much better searchers than you . We have the stamina for it.”
“I never considered it that way,” replied Teedle.
“If you are going to persist in attempting to dabble, part-time in what we do professionally, we must insist on some sort of official licensing, regulating and distinguishing us Certified Practitioners from the general riffraff,” said MillardFillmore.
“Yes. We would like to meet with the king,” agreed Quan. “We need government oversight - the kind that will stop unqualified amateurs from making a mockery of our profession, by doing our job in double the time for half the pay."
But then — in an occurrence that's at the core of Fiction — things take a turn for the Chapter and Verse when Daniel discovers that the tribes’ faith is based upon their sacred book, a copy, found a couple of generations ago, of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Constituting, for the time, the irresistible force against an immovable object, the cold war of words between the Lewis Carroll faithful and Father Daniel prove to be especially enduring and intractable. The Cheshire Cat, with full omnipresent powers, is equated with God, for example. And when Daniel tells the story of Noah, and the animals and the rains, he is mocked. “Don’t you see? said Teetle, “You are telling a version of the tale of Alice leading the animals to shore through the flood of her tears.”
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