Tuesdays are the days I showcase my own work on
this blog. Today, I’d like to share Victor J. Banis’s review of my latest
novel, The Plain of Bitter Honey. Enjoy
The Plain
of Bitter Honey by
Alan Chin
Reviewed by Victor J. Banis
Rating – 4 ½ stars out of 5
Before anybody jumps up and starts hollering,
let me say that the author based this novel somewhat loosely upon my own
futuristic novel, Angel Land. Yes, he asked permission before doing so, and
yes, I gave him my blessing. How could I be anything but flattered that an
artist of such prodigious gifts thought anything of mine worth emulating?
Truth to tell, however, the two books aren’t
very much alike. Alan borrowed the basic plot idea – a future America ruled by
a corrupt church, and a ghetto in one-time-San-Francisco-now-Angel Land (in my
version) in which gays are held as
virtual prisoners. But my story focused on those living in the ghetto; only in
a brief epilogue did I show a small band of them having escaped from the city.
Alan’s version is almost the opposite, following
as it does a band of refugees heading north from San Francisco, trying to reach
The Plain of Bitter Honey, where the leaders of the Resistance movement dwell,
and only briefly glancing back into the ghetto.
Oddly, I did find this distracting at times.
Whenever our story arcs crossed, my writer‘s curiosity compelled me to look at
how he and I had handled the same material. But that is of little consequence
to other readers.
I am a longtime fan of this author’s work, but I
am also fully aware that for the last few years he has been trying on a number
of different “writer’s hats.” In general, I think this is a good thing for a
writer to do – the more varieties of material he masters, the better overall an
author can manage his craft.
Of course, not all those hats will be equally
becoming. This writer’s forays into melodrama are evidence enough that this is
not his strong suit. And, when I first approached this work, obviously an
action-adventure, I half feared that it would be another example of a hat that
didn’t fit.
What lifts this far above that – or any - genre,
however, is his lead character, Aaron Swann, a protagonist worthy of the best
in literature. Aaron is a tragic figure, and as with all great tragic figures –
Macbeth comes to mind, certainly – the ills that befall him throughout the
story all spring directly from his own flaws and weaknesses. The very best
writers – the very best students of human nature, if you will, since they are
the same thing – know that there is not much of value that you can teach
another – one’s weaknesses reveal themselves in due time, and one’s strengths
no one – not even he who possesses them – can know before he is called upon to
use them, and beyond these, not much matters in a person’s character.
Shakespeare’s genius, however, was not in the
creation of Macbeth – after all, any number of writers through the years have
penned tragic figures. His genius was in creating, in Lady Macbeth, a
co-protagonist, if you will, worthy of the title character and, indeed, very
nearly eclipsing him. So clearly do these two mirror one another in their greed
and ambition that they might almost be one character – and surely no one else
is necessary to the play. Indeed, the others who flit briefly across the stage are
no more than reflections of the inner turmoils of the two leads. What is Banquo’s
ghost, after all, than the personification of Lady Macbeth’s guilt and fear?
I wish I could say that Alan Chin has surrounded
Aaron with a character or two worthy of him, but alas, with one exception, he
has not. Well, it is hardly criticism to say that someone falls short of
Shakespeare but it seems to me here that the author has fallen a bit short of
his own considerable talent.
I paraphrase Oscar Wilde somewhat when I say
that a writer may let his heroes develop in their own skins, but he must choose
his villains very carefully. A villain who does not engage us, in whom we
cannot recognize ourselves to some degree, however infinitesimal, becomes a
cardboard cutout – as happens here with Elder Whitehall, the author’s “baddie.”
He isn’t scary because we simply can’t
see ourselves in him – after all, nothing is more frightening than the beast
within us.
Aaron’s brother, Hayden, offers some
possibilities. Cyrus Hodger, another of the religious leaders, never did come
into focus for me – I had no more idea at the end what was motivating him than
I did at the beginning. Only the minor character, Logan, chief of the renegade tribe,
the Caliban, seems to me real and vital, a man both tragic and noble, and on a
par with the lead character. His role is small, though he imbues his few scenes
in which he figures with a regal melancholy.
When the author is focused on Aaron, then, the
story flows naturally and easily from his character, and especially from his
frailties. When it shifts to the others, everything slows down, and the plot
takes charge.
Fortunately, this happens only a few times, and
well before the surprise ending – which I confess I did not see coming at all,
though the author has been fair in planting the necessary signposts along the
road – we are back to Aaron, and the story’s ending belongs to him, as it must.
So, this is a flawed work, but at the same time,
it represents such a leap forward for the author that I can only applaud
vigorously. Its flaws are noble ones, the flaws of a major talent coming to
grips with itself, and for that I can fault no writer. It tells me that,
without a doubt, this is an author on the verge of the greatness that he once
or twice touches upon here.
This is
certainly not Alan Chin’s best work, which I am convinced is still ahead of
him, but it does encourage me to think not so very far ahead.
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