ABSTRACT
The collaboration of Dan and Frank begins with an overview of themes in Frank’s novel, The journey west. Combining Buddhist conceptions of rebirth, with Egyptian, Hindu and Christian iconography, Frank’s story is grounded in religious traditions. Questions posed by ancient Greek philosophers and Nietzsche’s concept of Eternal Recurrence are integrated with ideas drawn from contemporary quantum physics.
Frank’s novel is a spiritual quest through the corridor between life and death. The novel’s protagonist, Nigel, wakes up dead and begins his search for eternal life. Nigel is at once asleep and awake, dead and alive, sane and insane, creative and destructive, pious yet violent. Nigel is inquisitive. Even in death he searches for meaning. Like a detective in the tradition of Philip Marlowe, Nigel navigates a dangerous netherworld.
Nigel is in perpetual pursuit of Dr. Mekes. Meeks works with a Chinese magician, Ching Ling Foo, to create the holographic experiences we each call “life.” Mekes and Foo together hold the key to eternal life.
Looking for Mekes, Nigel repeatedly runs into the crazy architect, Max, and his Freudian psychoanalyst, Distanziert. Max and Distanziert live next door to Mekes. Like Max and Watson Page, Nigel is a patient of Dr. Distanziert.
