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Ian
"Follow me." "The barefoot stranger moved on to the simple asphalt road and began walking. An immense feeling of relief swept over Berdin. The stranger was gone, those haunting eyes were gone. He would go home to his new dull couch and watch "Cannibal Run" and forget all his troubles. He could forget he ever saw the stranger. He... he turned and hurried after the barefoot man." "In a future built on the motto, "fences and bars make men free to rebel," fences and bars-and even chains- are in abundance. humanity, guided by an artificial Intelligence system called the Evoluntionary Quantum Leap (EQL), fences itself in 12 communities, completely shutting out the international Wilderness. Men and women cast off all responsibility and live for themselves." "Utopia? Well, the EQL and its mouthpiece, Our Benevolent Liberator make it sound that way. But one regular citizen, Berdin Dwate, isn't so sure. His suspicions are confirmed by a barefoot stranger who claims to be from the International Wilderness and whose first words to Berdin are, "Follow me." In spite of himself, Berdin follows-and freedom takes on a whole new meaning..."
276 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 29, 2021
Ian is one of those books that tries to do two things at the same time, but doesn't really fully succeed in either of its endeavors. It attempts to both be a dystopian novel and presenting a alternate retelling of Jesus in the titular character of Ian. Neither one of these work the best, but the story isn't too bad either.
The novel takes place in a future where people are separated off into domed communities where the ideas of tolerance and personal freedom are celebrated to the extremes. They are ruled by the creation of an AI called the Evolutionary Quantum Leap or EQL. People are told they have freedom to do as they please, but it's not quite as simple as that.
We follow a Field Engineer/Farmer, Berdin Dwate, who winds up meeting Ian one day while working in "The Field" where all of the crops for the community he lives in grows. This meeting changes his life and pits him against the community and society that he's been in all his life. He follows Ian and it loosely follows the general story line of Jesus in the Gospels, but not really.
It's a somewhat interesting premise, but there are a lot of problems with the book too. First, is that the society that Berdin Dwate lives in seems like it follows a checklist of what Conservative Christians fear and fret over the most. Some of which is legitimate, but most of which is just kind of eye roll inducing.
Second, Baldwin loves acronyms. Everything seems to have an acronym in this book. CWO, EQL, SLOTH, LEA, BAE, SHELL, LiST, TRRIP, AEIOU, are all ones found in the book and as you can tell some are pretty groan inducing. I don't know why he loves acronyms so much, but honestly I found them more distracting at times than useful. I think if he had picked like half of them and made sure they were really good that'd be fine, but he went a bit overboard.
Third, he just doesn't give enough background for his book to really work. You have talk of an older age, called the Close-Minded Age or something like that. However, it's unclear what this age really believed. Is this Ian some second coming of Christ, or is this a re-imagining of Christ in a world that never knew him? If that's the case how did they know about heaven or why was the Close-Minded Age that way? We aren't really told.
This ambiguity hurts the book because it kind of leaves Baldwin's Christ figure untethered. Jesus came into a world where he was intimately connected to the Torah and there was an expectation of a Messiah figure within the Jewish community, even if they may not have fully expected how Jesus came. Ian, on the other hand, comes out of nowhere. He is disconnected from any kind of expectation and lacks the roots to make a compelling retelling of Jesus.
I think that just leads to the last weakness I felt from this book. Without the tethering of Ian to Judaism or some other religious movement within the book's world we get a Jesus figure shaped more by American Christianity than anything else. Therefore Ian is more about the dichotomy between truth vs relativity than about Jesus as making a way to a relationship with God. Even the end of the book connects Ian's sacrifice to going to a place not necessarily about connection to a greater being (it's there, but doesn't feel like the main point).
Overall, Ian wasn't as bad as I thought it might have been. It's a story that was fairly easy to read and the story wasn't terrible. As I said at the beginning it doesn't really succeed as a dystopian story or an allegory of Christ in my eyes, but it wasn't a terrible story either (just not a good one either). It reads as a product of Conservative Western Christianity in its fears, focus, and way of presenting Ian as a Christ figure. It probably isn't a book I would really read again, but it wasn't as bad as I was worried about going into it.
The novel takes place in a future where people are separated off into domed communities where the ideas of tolerance and personal freedom are celebrated to the extremes. They are ruled by the creation of an AI called the Evolutionary Quantum Leap or EQL. People are told they have freedom to do as they please, but it's not quite as simple as that.
We follow a Field Engineer/Farmer, Berdin Dwate, who winds up meeting Ian one day while working in "The Field" where all of the crops for the community he lives in grows. This meeting changes his life and pits him against the community and society that he's been in all his life. He follows Ian and it loosely follows the general story line of Jesus in the Gospels, but not really.
It's a somewhat interesting premise, but there are a lot of problems with the book too. First, is that the society that Berdin Dwate lives in seems like it follows a checklist of what Conservative Christians fear and fret over the most. Some of which is legitimate, but most of which is just kind of eye roll inducing.
Second, Baldwin loves acronyms. Everything seems to have an acronym in this book. CWO, EQL, SLOTH, LEA, BAE, SHELL, LiST, TRRIP, AEIOU, are all ones found in the book and as you can tell some are pretty groan inducing. I don't know why he loves acronyms so much, but honestly I found them more distracting at times than useful. I think if he had picked like half of them and made sure they were really good that'd be fine, but he went a bit overboard.
Third, he just doesn't give enough background for his book to really work. You have talk of an older age, called the Close-Minded Age or something like that. However, it's unclear what this age really believed. Is this Ian some second coming of Christ, or is this a re-imagining of Christ in a world that never knew him? If that's the case how did they know about heaven or why was the Close-Minded Age that way? We aren't really told.
This ambiguity hurts the book because it kind of leaves Baldwin's Christ figure untethered. Jesus came into a world where he was intimately connected to the Torah and there was an expectation of a Messiah figure within the Jewish community, even if they may not have fully expected how Jesus came. Ian, on the other hand, comes out of nowhere. He is disconnected from any kind of expectation and lacks the roots to make a compelling retelling of Jesus.
I think that just leads to the last weakness I felt from this book. Without the tethering of Ian to Judaism or some other religious movement within the book's world we get a Jesus figure shaped more by American Christianity than anything else. Therefore Ian is more about the dichotomy between truth vs relativity than about Jesus as making a way to a relationship with God. Even the end of the book connects Ian's sacrifice to going to a place not necessarily about connection to a greater being (it's there, but doesn't feel like the main point).
Overall, Ian wasn't as bad as I thought it might have been. It's a story that was fairly easy to read and the story wasn't terrible. As I said at the beginning it doesn't really succeed as a dystopian story or an allegory of Christ in my eyes, but it wasn't a terrible story either (just not a good one either). It reads as a product of Conservative Western Christianity in its fears, focus, and way of presenting Ian as a Christ figure. It probably isn't a book I would really read again, but it wasn't as bad as I was worried about going into it.
March 21, 2021
An alternate future with an alternate Jesus named Ian. I read this in 1995 as a teenager and remember being completely immersed in many of the novel's moments and descriptions - and many have stuck with me over the years. How people were captivated by an indescribable depth in Ian's eyes, a depravity so bad that couches were made of human skin, how the author weaved the story of Jesus into an alternate persona in an alternate world that suggested God would have done the same thing for us no matter where we took ourselves.
It took me forever to find this book because I only remembered the title, not the author or publisher, publication date, or even the appearance of the cover. I've found it and ordered a used copy so I will update my review once I read it with fresh, adult eyes.
Book Description:
"Follow me." "The barefoot stranger moved on to the simple asphalt road and began walking. An immense feeling of relief swept over Berdin. The stranger was gone, those haunting eyes were gone. He would go home to his new dull couch and watch "Cannibal Run" and forget all his troubles. He could forget he ever saw the stranger. He... he turned and hurried after the barefoot man." "In a future built on the motto, "fences and bars make men free to rebel," fences and bars-and even chains- are in abundance. humanity, guided by an artificial Intelligence system called the Evoluntionary Quantum Leap (EQL), fences itself in 12 communities, completely shutting out the international Wilderness. Men and women cast off all responsibility and live for themselves." "Utopia? Well, the EQL and its mouthpiece, Our Benevolent Liberator make it sound that way. But one regular citizen, Berdin Dwate, isn't so sure. His suspicions are confirmed by a barefoot stranger who claims to be from the International Wilderness and whose first words to Berdin are, "Follow me." In spite of himself, Berdin follows-and freedom takes on a whole new meaning..."
It took me forever to find this book because I only remembered the title, not the author or publisher, publication date, or even the appearance of the cover. I've found it and ordered a used copy so I will update my review once I read it with fresh, adult eyes.
Book Description:
"Follow me." "The barefoot stranger moved on to the simple asphalt road and began walking. An immense feeling of relief swept over Berdin. The stranger was gone, those haunting eyes were gone. He would go home to his new dull couch and watch "Cannibal Run" and forget all his troubles. He could forget he ever saw the stranger. He... he turned and hurried after the barefoot man." "In a future built on the motto, "fences and bars make men free to rebel," fences and bars-and even chains- are in abundance. humanity, guided by an artificial Intelligence system called the Evoluntionary Quantum Leap (EQL), fences itself in 12 communities, completely shutting out the international Wilderness. Men and women cast off all responsibility and live for themselves." "Utopia? Well, the EQL and its mouthpiece, Our Benevolent Liberator make it sound that way. But one regular citizen, Berdin Dwate, isn't so sure. His suspicions are confirmed by a barefoot stranger who claims to be from the International Wilderness and whose first words to Berdin are, "Follow me." In spite of himself, Berdin follows-and freedom takes on a whole new meaning..."
December 26, 2021
Interesting read. Recommended by a friend. Reminded me a little of the giver. Basically a horrid, futuristic distopian society that Jesus enters into. Ending was a bit rushed, but still had some interesting tidbits. My favorite part was his comparison of bearing fruit to farming and how some years we’ll face drought, but it’s our overall total that makes the difference
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews