Review: A Modern Picaresque
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 16, 2013
Immortality Blues falls firmly in the picaresque tradition of prose novels.  Here our protagonist is not a rogue as much as a slightly apathetic outsider who comes off as a cross between Candide and Camus' stranger.  Picaresque is not, however, for everyone, and although mired in mostly realistic situations, like many of the form the entire novel becomes allegorical, which is the problem with this kind of writing -if the reader isn't transported through the protagonist and the bigger ideas don't come through, the episodic and somewhat random happenings  become jarring and alienating.Here, R.A. Faith creates a protagonist who is immortal, but he doesn't tell us why, and the character himself doesn't seem very interested in the fact that the century is changing, but he isn't. This is in keeping with the form -- the character keeps wandering on through different places and circumstances without much reflection - but it is fairly unsatisfying for the reader when immortality, itself, is such an intriguing premise. As he grows up in an indeterminate (but seemingly European) village on an island, then in different story arcs moves away to the mainland, is educated, and goes through various twists and turns including homeless wandering, lost love, marrying (and saving) a prostitute, raising a child, then battling in a thirty year war, we see him experience myriad facets of the human condition. I'm not sure, however, that the novelist is skillful enough yet to take us beyond the immediate episodes of suffering to any larger, philosophical framework. The novel also suffers at times from inconsistent prose, and there is some pretentious experimentation with language and style, veering into surrealism at times. I wish he had confidence in his allegory and stayed with the more realistic tone in order to let the reader in. A strong editor could have done wonders to help pull the novel together and iron out the language kinks. Still it's good to see a contemporary author attempting picaresque, and I enjoyed reading it.