Also available as the title "Idolism"
A little about Marcus Herzig:
Marcus Herzig was born in 1970 and studied Law, English,
Educational Science, and Physics, albeit none of them with any tenacity or
ambition. After dropping out of university he worked for bank, a utility
company, and for Big Oil. He prefers sunsets over sunrises, white wine over
red, beer over white wine, and pizza over pasta. His reaction to airplanes
passing overhead resembles that of a seven-year-old seeing an ice cream van.
Which, he insists, is a good thing.
Burb from Goodreads:
A new Pope,
a world in social and political chaos, and a young singer and songwriter who
has his unbelief tested as his big mouth accidentally propels him towards
global superstardom. These are the ingredients of this thought provoking,
tongue-in-cheek debut novel.
Seventeen-year-old Julian Monk never expected to be a famous singer, but when
opportunity strikes, he strikes back and throws himself headfirst into that
new, exciting world of record deals, TV interviews and screaming fan girls.
His band mates are rather less enthusiastic about that new life they never
really asked for. Dealing with their newly acquired fame and fortune is one
thing; dealing with Julian is quite another. His sudden and unexpected
metamorphosis from the shy and timid creature they have known all their lives
into a surprisingly charismatic public speaker and global superstar takes
everyone aback, and when Julian sets off on a very public crusade to replace
faith and bigotry with reason and compassion, he raises more than just a few
eyebrows. He raises hell, and his friends are no longer having any of it.
Meanwhile at the Vatican, a former televangelist is elected Pope. Hell-bent on
transforming the Church into a modern, ‘hip’ institution, Pius XIII is giving
his PR advisor a headache or two. Intrigued by Julian’s radical way of
inspiring some people while antagonizing others – including his own friends –
simply by preaching love and understanding, the new pope can’t help but wonder
where he heard that storyline before. They say God has a plan for every man,
but this man has a plan of his own - and it involves a teenage atheist pop star.
My take on the book:
I hardly
know where to start on this story. At first I thought it was a teen coming of
age story. The flow and pace of the story worked really well with this
assumption: four 17 year olds who are vaguely misfits, playing in a band in their
spare time. I thought the story would follow a few small real-life teen
adventures, or misadventures, and they’d get into a bit of trouble, then get
out of it, learning something along the way. Yadda yadda.
The first
sign I had of this book not following my expected path was when the band,
through a mis-timed (well-timed?) media revelation, actually became famous.
Then rich beyond their wildest dreams. Then had a bigger message to spread.
That’s the
general movement of the story, but doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
The book is way, way more than just a story about a band that finds fame and
how the four members, plucked from obscurity, cope with their stellar rise.
The four
teens each present their very different points of view. Tummy comes from a
deeply religious Catholic family, and has not yet analysed the reason why he
calls himself a Catholic. He’s also been bullied all his life for being
overweight and a bit of an idiot. Michael is a computer geek, brain the size of
a planet, who spends more time with an artificially intelligent programme he
created than eating or sleeping. Ginger is the only female in the group, comes
from a loving and supportive home, and doesn’t feel she fits in with other kids
her age since they are all immature yobs. Julian, the only group member not to
have a voice in the book, has the most to say. He writes the lyrics and is the
group’s mouthpiece. He creates for himself a worldwide stage on which he can
stand and educate the masses.
Mr Herzig is
a philosopher, there is no doubt about it. There were passages that I simply
didn’t want to end; I became so engrossed in seeing how far the author would follow
through with his ideas. I feared that he’d reach a question he couldn’t answer
and just leave me hanging, but he never did. He’d considered everything.
I was tricked
into reading philosophy, and I loved it. Early on in the book Julian spent a
few pages comparing humanity’s evolutionary development with that of a single
person, and I was so fascinated by it that I had to go back and read it twice.
It had me cocking my head to the side and thinking, “huh – fancy that…” So
maybe this theory isn’t new, and maybe I’m late to the party, but I’d certainly
never considered it in this way before and it had me enraptured.
Julian is a
really interesting character. At 17, he’s much more intelligent than anyone
else in the room, of which he is fully aware, making him also insufferably superior.
As charismatic as a cult leader, as well-read as a university professor, his thoughts as deeply considered as Descartes', he’s also Don Tillman… which makes him a little
bit of a jumble, but he really works. I was over three-quarters of the way
through the book before it occurred to me that Julian had been peddling his
wares, preaching from his own personal pulpit, as far back as the others
had ever known him, but since they hadn’t noticed, the reader hadn’t been
allowed to either. This is so clever. All the band’s songs contain religious
significance. Who wrote the lyrics? Julian. The other members all mention the
reasons they are in the band at one time or another, and all downplay its
importance – someplace to hang out, something to do, “I’m just the bass player”,
all they’re doing is playing covers of old tunes - and yet I suddenly realised
that Julian didn’t see the band in the same way, and that he never had.
And the
moment when Michael denied who he was… let’s just say that’s when the scales
fell away.
This is one of the best dystopian fiction novels by a New Zealand author that I have read. It demands a sequel and I expect one is already underway.
