We live in a magic world. Do you ever think about it? Do you ever think that every day on the streets we brush by hundreds of people, and consequently, hundreds of stories, each of which break into their own kudzu threads thousands of times over? Statistically, you have met a serial killer, a costumed vigilante, a practicing witch, and perhaps even, if you are lucky, a writer. Perhaps that writer was Yaubus Redford.
I don't know anything about Yaubus Redford, and it's doubtful I ever will. He passed away in a plane crash in 2011, and I ended up editing his last notes and photographs (getting access to them in a trip to Britain over the summer) into a self-published book called Devil Skull Takes London. Earlier this year, Amos Berkley published a book that is probably the only complete omnibus of Redford's surviving work, again through self-publishing means, called Much Ado About Kuru. I recommend checking out both if you want a serious examination of a mysterious, improbable man--he was involved with the occult, and seemed dedicated to the art of writing to a point that is a little alarming at times. That is his life; however, if you want to see what his heart looked like, look no further than Kuru; or, the Zombies. By merit of its own experiment, Kuru should destroy some of the magic of the world. But because it was attempted, I like to think it added to it.
Here's where I'd ordinarily jump into a plot synopsis, but the issue is that Kuru is written in a...particular style. That is to say that Kuru is written almost like some of the famous bad fanfictions of modern myth, but with some intriguing subversions. It's worth noting that by the end of this no character has the same name as they did at the beginning, because names slowly drift into other names throughout the story as Redford seemingly forgets what he called everyone. Similarly, the spelling mistakes are a sincere issue, to the point where it's easy for the reader to have no fucking clue about what is going on. For example, if we did not have the contextual assumption that the words "how ounlicky" are supposed to read as "how unlucky," that we would not be able to assume that the rest of the sentence, "vrey kunkukiing inded," is supposed to read as "very unlucky indeed." And yet, there was something else at work here--a cerebral sublayer. If you read Berkley's book, you'll find that Redford almost certainly knew what he was doing. And that's why this book is an important find.
Chuck Landauze is a reporter for the Daily Magnet, in a city just referred to as "The City." He is in love with his boss's secretary Amanda and good friends with Potato the Janitor. The editor of the Magnet, Edward T. Shturngart, receives a scoop that a scientist named Dr. Ghibourkei (!) is conducting newsworthy experiments on Death Island. The team's journey to Death Island is cut short by several tangents, including Shturngart's heart attack and the revelation that Potato has leprosy. Slowly it is revealed that the love our hero chuck has for Amanda is obsessive and violent, though he never harms her in the course of the book. Dr. Ghibourkei is an amicable man at first, revealing that his invention is a healing ray that can cure all injuries and diseases (!!). But the reporters (and secretary, and janitor) quickly learn that the ray actually turns people into zombies, and that Ghibourkei has a zombie horde all ready to go. The story from here is a struggle to survive in the face of zombies, infighting, and the ghosts of all the U.S. Presidents.
...(!!!)
And now that I have dealt with the plot, I have to return again to the style. I have done my best to apply rationality to the synopsis, but there are several threads I have to leave out in order to make this book look even somewhat respectable. Plus, I don't want to spoil too much of the events of it. The same style that causes Redford to cover page after page with nothing but the letter R, or with increasingly disturbed descriptions of potato sacks, is invariably tied to the plot and how it is structured. That is to say that the book is designed to be offensively opposite to what a reader expects from a book, in terms of regard for literary tropes in the plot and stylistic norms in the text itself. It is, I think, an attempt to make a tropeless work, by smudging and broad-stroking the tropes we know until they are absolutely meaningless. But maybe I'm reaching.
Like I said, I do think Redford was trying for something here. Consider the following:
He was sad. She was sad. It was sad.
He was crying. She was crying. It was crying.
Kind of an analysis of English grammar if you think about it. We can use a general, neutral pronoun to refer to implicit circumstances ("it" meaning the sad situation in this case) which can't be used in parallel structures (the situation cannot cry). This sort of broken parallel structure is right at home in a book that also contains bits like "HELP HIM HE IS CHOCKING!!!!!!!!" Refuge in Audacity may be relevant here--Redford attacks tropes and grammar by completely wrecking all of them.
Or maybe I'm just a pedantic asshole.
Pretentiousness aside, it is hard not to enjoy a book where a zombie has had his arms--arms, not hands--replaced with Desert Eagles.
That's magic, I think--or, I guess. I wish I could have bumped into Redford on the street. If someone's been a featured writer on this site, it's likely I'd want to meet them face-to-face.
But to have met them through their work: that's just as good, if not better.
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