The Ironsmith: A Tale of Obsession, Compulsion and Delusion

by REYoung

Born out of myth and fairytale, in particular the tradition of the wise old wizard mentoring a bumbling apprentice, and told in language echoing Homer, Beowulf, biblical scripture and John Coltrane, among others, The Ironsmith evolves into a surreal Bildungsroman of a self-perceived “monster,” a painfully introverted young man whose obsession with the ancient sport of weightlifting causes him to withdraw into an increasingly delusional world that anachronistically intersects classical Greece, the Middle Ages, the Industrial Age, WWI and II, the tumultuous sixties, and the age of the Internet.

Genres: Literature

225 pages, Paperback

Published March 23, 2020

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t believe this masterpiece has only three reviews and is apparently a self-published novel. Far from the typical self-indulgent self-published morass, this is a work of high art by a master craftsman working at the top of his form.

The Ironsmith is an interior novel, a deep exploration of a person obsessed and unable to extract himself from his obsession—to the detriment of his family, his relationships, his health, and his life. Essentially a character portrait, but more experimental and propulsive than that description implies, the novel presses into the claustrophobic mental workroom of a fractured and compulsive mind. It’s harrowing, oppressive, dense with insight, and punctuated with rare wit.

But what makes the work so extraordinary is its gorgeous sentences that wind and turn, layered upon each other like stacks of stainless ballast, drawing in worlds and expelling them as scattered debris. These are sentences to savor and devour, to absorb and osmose, to ponder and then, once grasped, to resist the urge to flee from in terror. A dark and riveting opus for logophiles.

[Rob Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ironsmith is heart-wrenching, bleak, and ultimately beautiful. In its depiction of dread and awful recurrence, the novel reminds me of the Stephen King movie “1408” sans the horror genre’s fright-inducing gimmicks. REYoung’s direct, steely writing better conveys the soul-killing frustration of growing up mired in routine and repetition, the nature of which one doesn’t understood and has few resources to overcome. There’s a sense the he’s telling readers something he’s grappled with for years, and only recently come to access and express through art. Something they need to know, challenging them to look at hard truths locked away in their own lives.

[D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In one of Georges Bataille's many pre-WWII lectures to The College of Sociology he details aspects of 'Secret Societies' and 'Brotherhoods', a preoccupation of the college in general and of Bataille particularly in his failed attempts during this period to reconcile the concept of 'the sacred' with the modern world. "A brotherhood," Bataille writes, "is not 'secret' in the proper sense of the word: its gatherings are public and it is known who its members are. But its living force is drawn from and undisclosed mysterious element belonging exclusively to it. This element is either knowledge of magic and technical knowledge (the brotherhood develops then in the direction of a guild, e.g., a brotherhood of smiths: the technique is judged dangerous, conferring power and prestige, in this instance, the use and working of iron, a metal that is magical and powerful), or the knowledge of particular myths (sometimes connected with the techniques that are the monopoly of the brotherhood)." As a basic contextualization of REYoung's "The Ironsmith" this might get you started. Though a full appreciation may require going in blind, and allowing REYoung's language to recruit you into this strange brotherhood of outsiders and obsessives.
Written as a series of ten weightlifting reps (finish the book you finish the set) representing obliquely, colloquially, comi-tragically, the heavy moments of this characters life as filtered through myth, legend, and labyrinths. Structurally strong and, as can always be expected from this author, a linguistically original jewel. Imagine Stanley Elkin's "Boswell" as retold by a writing duo made up of Alain Robbe-Grillet and Thomas Bernhard under the influence of some of the lesser-known psychedelic substances and early heavy metal and you might get an idea for whats happening here. Ripe for underground influence but deserving of mainstream acceptance and a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the possibilities that still abound for contemporary literature.

[Van McNeil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy can’t stop lifting weights

[Adria Frizzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"OUT OF IRON, INK”

An offbeat, darkly Dickensian Bildungsroman revolving around weightlifting, this “tale of obsession, compulsion and delusion” rehashes and rephrases each archetype, theme, image, metaphor in every one of its permutations with an approach reminiscent of John Coltrane’s unique improvisational style. It’s an alchemical parable turning “iron” into “ink, ” sublimating despair, nescience and doggedness into art by way of myth and fairytale, simultaneously telling the story of a wizard and his apprentice and of the story’s own genesis, the incubation and realization of the creative process itself. The narrative, told in REYoung’s trademark mix of rage, dark humor, silliness and lyrical bursts, finally comes full circle–perhaps only to begin the cycle again and again, in an authorial sleight of hand evocative of the ancient image of the ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail symbolizing infinity and wholeness.

[REYoung REYoung]

The Ironsmith is a brilliantly transgressive novel that exists in the interstices of time and space, simultaneously there and not there, the single extant copy passed “hand to hand” along a daisy chain of accidental readers gifted with internal quantum spectacles. Pure wizardry. (Disclaimer: the author of this review should not be confused with the author of this book.)