The second part of this saga, Brian and the Animate God, finds Brian three years later, and with just four years left of the seventeen-year conditional reprieve for mankind, still struggling to find a worthwhile readership for Brian and the Rainbow Men. He and Byron, his literary inner self, are caught up in a frustrating waiting game. So, regardless of whether there is to be a terminal solution on the way in four years for themselves and the rest of mankind, they decide to embark on a bitter-sweet excursion down memory lane; both to give Brian, by now known as the Lambeth Pilgrim, an ethnic identity and portray him as the most unlikely person ever to have been endowed with the mantle of a prophet. Of course, their excursion is often interrupted to attend to day-to-day business in their Cyprus office; but this only serves to highlight the problems faced by a latter-day prophet, battling against all odds to infuse some common sense into minds that are hostage to conventional dogma that seems to have become cast in stone. Also, developing the theme of an evolving cosmic intelligence towards conscious perfection and the eventual emergence of an Animate God, Brian adds a speculative fourth ingredient into his symbolic formula, Y equals X squared plus One. But, it would be unfair to disclose details of this in this review. Suffice it to say, though, in conclusion, that having finally astral-planed into the far distant future with Byron to assume the identity of the Animate God, Brian embarks on a Celestial Big Dipper to experience his life after life conscious futures, while Byron is craftily teleported back to Cyprus to finish this book. Believe me, it is no exaggeration to say that the reader is taken on a non-stop helter-skelter ride through a time-tunnel that leaves one breathless. In many respects totally Rabelaisian, this book is really a must for those who enjoy cocking a snook at the Establishment. |
