Going Bovine

It is hard to fully express the subtle beauty of this text. I thought the characterization was brilliant, the plot dynamic and the end message of seize life by the gnome hairs was pure. In fact, this book was the first of the lot to bring tears to my eyes, I liked Cameron so much that it hurt knowing behind the scenes that he was going to die.

The book reminded me of Douglas Adams in its predisposition toward the absurd, Haruki Murakami in its ability to make that absurdity beautiful and Jack Kerouac in its homage to the Great American road trip. Unlike Adams and Murakami, I initially read it (and this might be off-base here) not as a fantasy novel, but as a work of fiction bent on plumbing the distressed adolescent mind. I appreciated the complicated plot structure for its ability to allow for gnomes, fire giants, and punk-rock faeries as a manifestation of an imagination forced to retreat into itself for survival, for it isn’t until Cameron’s diagnosis of death that he becomes bent on living. However, this forced me to consider the fates of Balder, Gonzo and the other vividly detailed characters. If they were only figments of a fevered dream, they would be diminished somehow. Perhaps this asks the most important question of fantasy, what is real anyway? Or, isn’t the suppression of belief the reason we read fantasy anyway?

Ultimately, I feel like I need to reread this book several more times to fully appreciate the breadth of details. I kept on getting the feeling that the book was somehow structured like The Usual Suspects where the seemingly inane minutiae of a sergeant’s bulletin board are weaved into the narrative. Like that film, this book had layers upon layers of meaning and the twists and turns of the plot melted, separated and collected again. This is definitely a tale worth getting to know on a deeper level.

From a critical perspective, Going Bovine was a great retelling of the classic epic saga (Bray conveniently spells it out with the references to Quixote and Star Wars). Like Odysseus or Gilgamesh (or Harry Potter), Cameron (granted a far less likely hero) is charged with an impossible quest where he must face certain death to return triumphant. Breaking down the story into familiar archetypes allows for a deeper understanding of the text as a representation of Joseph Campbell’s notion of the Monomyth.

Campbell claims that the Monomyth teaches us to, “how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances”. Cameron’s “departure” on his quest certainly imbues him the skills necessary to truly live, regardless of whether or not he actually left his hospital bed. He stopped caring about nothing and began to live for others, his love for Balder, Gonzo and Dulcie and willingness to sacrifice himself for them is indicative of a profound shift in character. Campbell writes, “when we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness”. This heroic transformation allows Cameron to see for the first time what is truly important. According to Campbell, the hero’s greatest task is understanding his own mortality. This does not necessarily suggest that the hero must understand death, but he or she must “acquiesce to death”.

Contrasting the hero to the archetype of the villan (the wonderfully named Wizard of Reckoning, the darkness in us all) shows that the hero’s knowledge of his own mortality provided by the villan is the ultimate power. Cameron plays a b flat on Junior Webster’s trumpet while staring death in the face, it is this moment that he faces and defeats his greatest foe, the fear of dying. The hero’s journey is one of finding a deeper understanding of self in the world. Cameron’s coming of age narrative tragically ends with his own end, but his epic journey reinforced in us the lessons that have been told and retold by humans forever.