Review: Decidedly mixed feelings
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 13, 2012
A friend recommended Anothny Weller's The Land of Later On to me and heaped high praise on the book. I still remember he used words like "magical" and "lyrical" to describe the book. Finally I picked up a copy of the book and found there were, indeed, lyrical and magical passages in the book, but to reach them required trodding through a lot of non-magical and non-lyrical prose.The Land of Later On is about a jazz pianist named Kip suffering a debilitating neurological condition that robs him of his ability to play. Life has already taken the love of his life, Lucy, from him and after four years without her, as his condition continues to deteriorate, he downs a handful of sleeping pills and awakes in a sort of afterlife.Sort of a secular Divine Commedy without either God or Satan, the Land of Later On allows souls to travel instantaneously between places and times. Those who grow bored with such an afterlife can opt to go back and be reincarnated, losing all memory of their past in the process. Aided by Walt Whitman as a sort of stand-in for Dante's Virgil, Kip begins a journey to find his Lucy, unable to understand why she has not been waiting for him to join her. Is she angry at him? Has she chosen to go back? Has she traded in the love of her life for a love of her afterlife?No spoilers here, but Kip and Walt travel from New York to Istanbul to India to the South Seas to Oklahoma trying to piece together the clues to Lucy's absence. There's a lot of talking (and talking ... and talking) about love and life and, well, the meaning of it all. I'm sure those are the parts of the book my friend found profound. I suppose I would have, too, had it not come across as a sort of Theories of Romance 101. It could be interesting at times, but for the most part I wanted to reached through the pages, shake the characters and scream "Why are you belaboring this point?"I noted from looking at the wide spread of stars given by reviewers that there is a substantial amount of disagreement over The Land of Later On. I don't think that means this is not a good book. Instead, it's one of those "personal" books that people read into it their own ideas and experiences. Not many writers can have that sort of effect on readers and I salute Mr. Weller for his achievement. While I don't particularly find much in the book I can relate to, I'm pleased that so many people do.