The
setting for Aleš Šteger's fascinating novel is Maribor, Slovenia, a city with a population of 100,000. It's 2012 during the time
of Carnival and Maribor is christened European Capital of Culture. But
all is not well in Maribor.
On the opening pages, we follow Adam
Bely and Rosa Portero, recently arrived in Maribor, as they trudge
through the snow to a restaurant where the pair meet Samo Gram, owner of
the restaurant who begins digging into his dinner of grilled octopus.
Adam whips out a fountain pen, waves the pen back and forth, and thus
hypnotizes Gram. Adam then takes out an E-meter, has Gram hold a metal
cylinder in each hand, and proceeds to question Gram about his past,
including past lives. When Gram mentions the Great Orc and the thirteen
guardians of secrets, Adam presses the restaurant owner for names. Gram
lists six names, city leaders in various capacities. The meeting
concludes when Adam shoves an oyster cracker down Gram's throat.
What's
going on? As a way of answering this question, here are a number of
scintillating highlights from Aleš Šteger's strangely beguiling tale.
Adam
Bely – Back before he left Maribor, Adam's life revolved around the
theater. However, following a mystical experience, he relocated to
Austria where he rose to prominence within the Church of Scientology.
Despite a painful break from the church, Adam still holds onto the
fundamental beliefs of Scientology, including the use of the church's
E-meter to ascertain truthfulness and the concept that each human
possesses, or is possessed by, multiple souls. He states, “Our souls,
the way we perceive them, aren't real souls. They're only the remains of
the manipulated souls of our ancestors.” And it surely is no
coincidence that Adam shares a surname with the Russian author of the
multidimensional Petersburg - Andrei Bely.
Rosa Portero -
This enigmatic and beautiful woman works as a journalist for Austrian
radio, providing a cover for the Adam/Rosa team in Maribor. She and Adam
tell everyone that they are reporting on the city's role as the European
Capital of Culture, when in reality, their mission is to dismantle the
Great Orc's network of thirteen city leaders. The mystery surrounding
this Cuban/Austrian woman intensifies as we delve deeper into Rosa's
past and her unique qualities.
The Great Orc - A diabolical power
tracing its origins back to L. Ron Hubbard and the tale of Xenu in
Scientology, the extraterrestrial ruler who, in an attempt to address
overpopulation on his own planet, brought billions of his people to
Earth only to annihilate them with hydrogen bombs. The immortal spirits
of these beings attach themselves to humans, causing harm. Given the
consistent portrayal of the Great Orc as an octopus with its tentacles,
it brings to mind H.P. Lovecraft's giant Cthulhu.
The Master and
Margarita – As a nod to Mikhail Bulgakov and Middle-European fantastica
fiction, the devil makes a cameo appearance on the first page where he
tumbles in the snow.
Absolution – The Slovene word is odpusti,
which could also be translated as release or to set free. The way Adam
Bely effects absolution for the city leaders who are part of the Great
Orc is his oyster crackers. Keep in mind Aleš Šteger slides between
genres, from science fiction to horror to the fantastic.
The
Führer Comes To Town - At one point, someone tells Adam, “There're no
dark-skinned people in Slovenia, much less in Maribor, and if any show
up they're immediately banished.” Such a statement and we're 70 years
out from Hitler's visit to Maribor in 1941 where steps were taken to
Germanize the city, which included deportation of Slovens and Jews. Ah,
the long shadow of history.
The Arts – Now that Maribor is the
European Capital of Culture, what are some of the fine arts on display? I
found this one of the most intriguing aspects of Absolution. To
list several, we have huge balloons high above the Drava River. The
mayor moves these balloons nearly every day based on advice he receives
from a fortune-teller; Maister, a well-known performance artist, leads
his black pig around the city on a leash; a Dutch artist, winner of an
art contest, exhibits twenty-four thousand glasses filled with water
from the Drava River all over the city; Šava, a Slovenian artist, in
protest of the Dutch winning, sat in the Drava River waist deep and in
two hours drank twenty-four bottles of beer; and another artist from
Maribor, the blood artist, has been donating blood every month for the
past forty years. On a larger scale, there's the city's grand art
gallery (freakish exhibits; you'll have to read for yourself) and a
theater performing a version of Tolstoy's War and Peace. Keep you eye on the theater as it plays a major part in the closing chapters of the novel.
Slovania
Through The Years - "Our entire country is nothing but one big burial
ground. We all know that whenever you start digging with a shovel you'll
hit a grave or even a mass grave." Adam hears these discouraging words
but now that he's clear (a prime concept in Scientology), he's a man on a
definite mission. "I believe in beginnings. Every moment could be the
start of something new, something fateful. If I didn't believe that it's
possible to change the course of our destiny at any given moment, then
I'd no longer be on this planet."
Ultimate Showdown - Will Adam
Bely succeed in his quest to free Maribor from the clutches of the Great
Orc? He certainly faces a challenge. For, as he relates to Rosa,
“Maribor is a truly unique city in this sense. There's no other city
anywhere that is as narrow-minded as this one. And that's no
coincidence, just as it's no coincidence that we're here, you and me,
today, in this moment. Coming here means entering the pyramid of mud. It
guards will bury you alive, and you won't even realize it. Instead of
burying you in sand like an Egyptian pharaoh, they'll bury you in
useless stories and intrigues.”
Absolution. What a wild, bizarre ride. What a novel. 
Slovenian poet, essayist, and novelist Aleš Šteger, born 1973
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