Is there anything more smug, pretentious, and self-absorbed than a young, twenty-something, know-it-all college student? I think not. Arm a developing and impressionable mind with a little bit of esoteric knowledge, coupled with a new found sense of freedom and self-discovery, and watch out! Timothy, Ned, Oliver, and Eli are four such college students, and Robert Silverberg expertly paints these insufferable douche bags with strokes revealing deep rooted insecurities hidden behind masks of debauchery and selfishness. With the promise that two of these jerks would die I read with glee; that two of them would live forever filled me with despair.
You see, Eli has discovered an old, archaic manuscript, called The Book of Skulls, that promises eternal life for those willing to make the journey to a hidden monastery in Arizona and partake in a ritual. The ritual demands for four participants, but only two will live: one must sacrifice himself, and another must be murdered in order for the two remaining to be granted immortality. Eli convinces his three roommates to make the journey, and so the four young men embark on a road trip filled with sex, drinking, food, posturing, and pontificating on the greater things in life (and the afterlife). It's a supernatural On the Road mixed with some Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Robert Anton Wilson.
The book's execution is both a boon and a curse. It is told from the first-person perspective, and each chapter is told from a different character's POV. The chapters are titled with the specific character's name, but Silverberg does such a great job at defining their voices that by mid-book it becomes clear to tell who is speaking without being overtly told. More than anything, this book is a detailed character study, and in this regard it is quite good.
While I do like first-person narratives, there are some problems with them if the author is not careful, and here Silverberg commits one of my biggest pet peeves. We know from the beginning that two of the characters must die, and two of them do die. So how are we reading their tales? We are never told that the characters are writing in diaries, or keeping a journal of their adventures. We read their thoughts told in the past tense, but two of the characters are dead, so then we must be hearing the tale told by ghosts. This is a minor quibble, but it is something that bothers me tremendously.
Beyond this slightly flawed execution lays a mysterious narrative wrapped around a nuanced character study. Towards the end of this unfortunate adventure I felt as though I really knew Timothy, Ned, Oliver, and Eli, and I hated them. I wanted to reach into the pages of the book and strangle them, or at least knock some sense into them. I wanted to let them know that they are not great, they are not special, and the world really does exist past the distance of their limited view. And just when I thought their characters couldn't get any more despicable, along comes the confession, a moment in the ritual in which they must each purge themselves of a great and terrible secret.
The road trip to the desert monastery is relatively uneventful. It is not a haunting trip fraught with danger or despair. Truth be told, The Book of Skulls is a surprisingly mellow affair. This was my first experience with Silverberg, and for some reason I was expecting something more fantastic, or something with more horror, and more elements of the supernatural. You could remove the idea of the quest for immortality and still have a decent narrative detailing these four young mens' lives. But by adding the promise of impending doom, this proverbial road has a literal dead end, Silverberg sets a literary timer thus increasing the suspense in a meaningful and immediate manner. We do not need any artificial action, scares, or fantastic situations because everything is working up to a single, great, climatic moment: the ritual itself, one dealing with the ultimate mystery.
The most impressive thing about this short novel is Silverberg's prose. He really is a fantastic writer, much better than I had imagined. I don't know why, but for some reason I had always imagined his prose being only serviceable. However, with Book of Skulls he totally impressed me. Meaningful and well-written passages were jumping at me from every page, and I read each passing chapter with glee and astonishment. This is saying a lot considering how despicable I found the main characters, and, what's more, I can tell this will be a book I will return to for greater understanding.
A book that makes me want to read more from its author is a good book, and I will definitely be reading more from Robert Silverberg in the near future. He seems like an author with something to say, and does so by using genre conventions and solid prose. I am grateful for the time I spent with The Book of Skulls and I look forward to my future adventures in Silverberg's worlds.
