2024-08-01 13:59:22
EFor a while now, the internet has had no greater pleasure than shining on pictures of Keanu Reeves looking sad. “Sad Keanu,” these memes are titled. You can see a man with dark hair, with a beard in a suit, a sweater, passing on the street and at bus stops – he does not smile or laugh, but rather the expression in a way that you can easily pass for melancholy already.
Keanu Reeves, Star of “The Matrix” and “John Wick,” announced in all kinds of interviews that there is nothing there, that’s just how you look when you don’t think about anything. Perhaps because that did not help, he has now written a book that can be read as a kind of thoughtful revenge: “The book is elsewhere” (Gutkind, 528 pages, €24), a collaboration with the British science writer China Mieville.
Funny irony: At first glance, Miéville would be seen more as an action hero than a fragile colleague. In other words, London is like a born movie villain. Tall and muscular, generous and chiseled, with a shaved head and pale skin, one would think that he could do a lot in casting for skins or Berghain bouncers. In fact, he received his degree in “International Relations” from the London School of Economics and is an avowed and Marxist voice, which you don’t have to like, but at least you can appreciate it as a result of the work skill. Between two science fiction and fantasy novels he put together a 400-page history of the Russian Revolution. Critics hailed this as a breakthrough like his epochal novels, which seamlessly combine genre elements and contemporary practical experiments.
Marxist-Fiction: China Miéville
Quelle: Photo by Rob Monk / SFX Magazine / Future via Getty Images
In “Town and City” (2009), Miéville explores the fascinating idea of what it would be like if two cities shared the same land – but the inhabitants were forbidden under penalty to observe each other’s lives. A nice metaphor for the ideas of personal exclusion and hostile regimes. Consequently, the echoes of Eastern Europe are clear. Within this very complex experimental setting, which is difficult to solve in literary terms, two detectives investigate a murder case that, supposedly, happened right on the border. The well-deserved search feature “The Pass” and its Swedish model “The Bridge” are based on a parallel scene – but it is Miéville’s witty play with forbidden superimposition that elevates the idea to the big picture.
Likewise, “Perdido Street Station” (2000) – a masterpiece set in the sprawling metropolis of New Crobuzon in the world of Bas-Lag, where natural law follows different laws and men go along with it, even if it is not welcome. to hook up with the insectoid lady. A magical spider weaves its web in the background, and giant moths fly through the sky. It is even crazier than it sounds, and has a high ambition that puts it next to the great Sci-fi and fantasy works of Asimov, Herbert and Fritz Leiber.
As it happens, Keanu Reeves is a big fan and it happened that he met Miéville in Berlin three years ago to ask if he would like more in the idea that had reached him, Keanu, some time ago preparing “The Matrix remake”, in 2017. It is about an immortal warrior, 80,000 years old, son of lightning, maybe a devil, at least many think so. There is already a comic that tells the story, “BRZRKR” (pronounced “Berserker”). Netflix is also working on a series adaptation with him, Keanu, in the lead role.
But apparently, Miéville may have thought that while he drew disturbing squiggles in the notebook he took with him, this Berserker, B for short, approached Keanu and did not let go of the gravity that there already is that of course. need another novel. They could write together, Reeves suggested, with him more as a subject and plot tamer and Miéville as a fictional creator, confabulating congenial, something like that he wants to set traps, organize tricks, and dissolve all his magic stars drop.
You don’t need to be told twice, maybe also consider the fact that “BRZRKR” comics have sold more than two million copies, and a Netflix series like that is not bad, even for a Marxist. But it can be completely different, we don’t want to think anything about the owner, maybe he is just attracted by the story. And it goes like this, even without spoilers:
A long time ago, we gave birth to a child named Unute. It is the hidden deity’s answer to urgent prayers to bring an enemy tribe to justice. When this strange child, now this strange man, is angry, a blue light shines from his eyes and he loses himself in a bloodbath sometimes called “Riastrid,” although in Irish, it probably refers to, ecstasy this battle is called Riastrad.
A metaphorical war
But that is not the biggest mystery in the novel which is a five hundred page hunt for insight, who-dunnit in which for the longest time it is unclear who is actually suspected – and who! Yes, Unute is simply an amalgam of Sad Keanu, your hero Neo from The Matrix and John Wick, all extremely strong melancholics who stubbornly refuse to die. Existentialism was pushed until Unute finally revealed that he himself had said important things to Beckett and played a leading role in “Krapp’s Last Tape” in 1975.
It has long been understood that this is about a war of examples that come to life. The last missing pieces to solve the puzzle come out to be found as pieces of the puzzle. Unite comments laconically: “Sometimes I wish I could somehow avoid becoming a legend.”
Literally, the greatest rock in the history of literature is that Prometheus was created on the mountain. As is well known, as punishment for bringing fire to people, he had to suffer forever as an eagle ate his burning liver. Miéville/Reeves also includes a horror scene like this. Unute, who represents the process of death, has a powerful opponent in Vayn. Once you have taken it, you let it die and wake up a million times – in order to research it, i.e. to understand it.
It will not be completely successful. Because, as one character once said: “I’m not sure if you want old magic books to work better than continuous abneutron nanoscattering field or not.”
#Keanu #Reeves #Eternal #Treasure