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rinimou 's review for:
The Incendiaries
by R.O. Kwon
R. O. Kwon's The Incendiaries is both delicate and ruthless, dreamily written and destructive. It is about the obliterating intensity of first love, and the intoxicating lure of religious fanaticism; it is about grief and self-destruction and the desperate fight to reclaim what has been lost. At its core, however, this novel is about lies: those we tell others and those we tell ourselves.
The Incendiaries follows its three main characters, Will, Phoebe, and the impenetrable John Leal. Will is a sensitive, disciplined college student who seeks to fill the "God-shaped hole" left in his life from the loss of his Christian faith. At a party, Will meets Phoebe, who shines at the center of the college social scene, but conceals beneath her bright affectation a deep turmoil over the recent death of her mother, for which she blames herself. John Leal is a predator in the form of a religious cult leader, who sees Phoebe's vulnerability and targets her as a prized member of his group, Jejah. While Phoebe falls under the spell of John Leal, intoxicated by the promise of an escape from her pain, Will falls inexorably for Phoebe. Both young people desperately seek to fill the holes in their lives wrecked by loss, and in doing so are consumed by the enchanting and destructive powers of love and faith.
At the center of this book is a love story, but it is not for the deeply sentimental or romantic. From the onset, Phoebe and Will's relationship is disrupted by lies and evasions. Always Will's perspective, looking back from an indeterminate future point, hints at an inevitable doom. Rather than give us resounding lessons, Kwon leaves her readers with the same sense of confusion and desperation that haunts her characters. But what is valuable about this book is not its definitive answers, but its amazing perspective. In the shifting, reaching voice of Will, we see what it means to lose the central driving force of one's life. We see lost and floundering people ruining each other out of pure desperation to make their pain go away, to lose themselves in something expansive: obsessive love or religious fanaticism.
Ultimately, there is no "truth" in this book--only faith, and then the staggering loss of it.
The Incendiaries follows its three main characters, Will, Phoebe, and the impenetrable John Leal. Will is a sensitive, disciplined college student who seeks to fill the "God-shaped hole" left in his life from the loss of his Christian faith. At a party, Will meets Phoebe, who shines at the center of the college social scene, but conceals beneath her bright affectation a deep turmoil over the recent death of her mother, for which she blames herself. John Leal is a predator in the form of a religious cult leader, who sees Phoebe's vulnerability and targets her as a prized member of his group, Jejah. While Phoebe falls under the spell of John Leal, intoxicated by the promise of an escape from her pain, Will falls inexorably for Phoebe. Both young people desperately seek to fill the holes in their lives wrecked by loss, and in doing so are consumed by the enchanting and destructive powers of love and faith.
At the center of this book is a love story, but it is not for the deeply sentimental or romantic. From the onset, Phoebe and Will's relationship is disrupted by lies and evasions. Always Will's perspective, looking back from an indeterminate future point, hints at an inevitable doom. Rather than give us resounding lessons, Kwon leaves her readers with the same sense of confusion and desperation that haunts her characters. But what is valuable about this book is not its definitive answers, but its amazing perspective. In the shifting, reaching voice of Will, we see what it means to lose the central driving force of one's life. We see lost and floundering people ruining each other out of pure desperation to make their pain go away, to lose themselves in something expansive: obsessive love or religious fanaticism.
Ultimately, there is no "truth" in this book--only faith, and then the staggering loss of it.