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Horrorscopes >>Is God just a bad astrologer? by JULIET WATERS
When it comes to horseshit, however, Marilyn Manson has nothing on God. Or at least nothing on God as He's characterized in Fowler's charming novel, a particularly shining example of bullshit. In this daily account of God's insane narcissism, greed, lasciviousness, manipulativeness and completely wacked-out belief system, Fowler manages the miraculous feat of making God both irksome and delightful. Of course it helps that He has a few different identities and that Fowler leaves a lot of room to doubt that God, aka Zizo Yasuzawa, an 88-year-old retired Japanese kamikaze pilot, is actually God. In the U.S., God is aka Japs Eye Fontanelle and to his followers he is aka He-Whose-Figure-of-Beauty-Is-Tinged-With-Cerulean-Blue-Clouds-and-Whose-Unique-Loveliness-Charms-Millions-of-Little-Cupids. At the time he begins the diary, which also serves as an autobiography, Japs has rheumatoid arthritis, a disastrous weight problem, a hole in his head and no balls. How he reached this decrepit state is "a long story," and a very funny, weirdly engaging one. As is why God is living in a mobile home inside a vault inside Fort Knox, where he is awaiting trial. He has been accused by the UNCC (The United Nations Cosmology Commission) of killing Time. Fowler's first novel, Scepticism Inc, put him on the map as a young British writer to watch. He's been compared to Kurt Vonnegut, a comparison that works well for The Astrological Diary of God. (Although I'm sure Vonnegut would never be caught dead with the insane, open-hearted grin Fowler displays in his author's photo.) There's some serious satire amidst the playful existentialism, and it's like a pleasant nostalgia trip these days to return to innocent questions about free will, absurdity and meaning. But with Fowler's free flow of conceptual jokes and quirky myth making, the writer he reminds me the most of is actually Rob Brezsny. I'm sure someone at some point will make a case for Brezsny being one of the great storytellers of our time. Apparently, he's currently at work on a novel of his own and I imagine it to be somewhat like Fowler's in tone. However, I'm sure it won't have anywhere near the awful astrological profiles that God/Japs has concocted for the world. Here's a random sampling: Sagittarians prefer tea to coffee, dogs to cats, can't swim and are the least likely sign to be turned on by bondage. Their best days are Thursdays. Cancers, on the other hand, like tea and coffee equally, collect china figurines, are bad at rollerskating, like apples and are pedestrian in bed. Leo women like having their breasts caressed, going on picnics and watching movies in the daytime. They have sex on trains and eat a lot of pizza. Aquarius men do not enjoy pissing on their partners or being pissed on, their best time of day is 4:32 p.m. and their lucky numbers are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. There are moments while reading this book when you can't help wondering where this is all leading. And there are moments when this story seems to glow with an impenetrable significance. And there are moments when you too may feel that you're just killing time. But it's still worth it. :
The Astrological Diary of God by Bo Fowler. Jonathan Cape, pb. 296pp, $22.95 |
I don't usually look to Rob Brezsny for guidance in writing book reviews. But something he said in my horoscope last week seemed very appropriate to Bo Fowler's second novel, The Astrological Diary of God. Brezsny suggested it might be a good idea for me to understand the difference between bullshit and horseshit. The former being "creative, inspired mythmaking intended to provoke growth," and the latter "pernicious carny scams" or "bottom-feeder derivative manipulation." Brezsny gave his own horoscopes as a good example of bullshit, "while the lyrics and shtick of Marilyn Manson embody the essence of horseshit."