A recent trip to the Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago saw me loaded down with stuff to review and report on. I'll be doing it piece meal except for a short look at upcoming collectibles. But as far as comics it was once again Chris Staros and Top Shelf that came up with the gem of the show for me. When I asked the Editor and founder of Top Shelf if there was anything coming up I should keep my eye on he handed me a copy of The King by Rich Koslowski author of the excellent Three Fingers. It proved an interesting read, but an impossible review unless I was willing to tackle the books weighty theological assumptions.
The King follows a mysterious Vegas performer who may or not be Elvis Presley. Billing himself as the King he has gathered a number of disciples around himself, formed a church, and become a phenomenally successful entertainer- all without revealing a shred of his true identity. It's a seemingly idyllic arrangement that may or may not be upset by the arrival of a former tabloid journalist now investigative reporter who is sure that this story could get his life and carer off the skids. What he discovers about himself proves much more potent than that. Through a series of interviews The King and his disciples lead us through the tension between the need for truth and need for mystery.
Koslowski was on firmer territory with Three Fingers when he was tackling our need to topple idols. His deft dark satire, took aim at everything from Disney to conspiracy theories and humans need for celebrity.
But in The King we're asked to move a little farther down the road philosophically even though Koslowski ends up in a pretty bleak place. It's interesting. Koslowski lays out the reasons we choose religious belief but he falls short of why we need it. To put it bluntly people need faith because they fall, we're driven by our lack, our inability to completely fulfill or correct ourselves.
Hence God worship.
But Koslowski wants us to believe, or see value in his character's belief, that all God worship is fine as long as it makes you happy. He seems aware that we make lousy Gods but is then contradictorily happy that we litter the universe with gods who are ultimately little more anthropamorphized versions of our own fallen selves.
Noone is more disappointed in this than God himself if the Bible is given any sort of authority. When Israel demanded a King Jehovah told them exactly what they would get, and funny, the description God gave was an awful lot like the one Koslowski puts in the mouth of his King when he describes the history of mankind's creation of Gods from Zeus to himself.
Herein lies the problem. I can feel for the characters in Koslowski's story but the premise doesn't have any real emotional weight. As a person full of doubt, anxiety, and little faith I'm still not ready to make the leap of faith that Koslowski asks for. I don't just want mystery, I don't just want Gods that make me feel good, I want true transcendance. In other words life isn't about getting by- it's about truly conquering death, love being eternal for me as an individual- anybody who settles for less than that is basically settling for some version of hell or the grave.
While I wasn't particularly moved by the philosophical stab at the end of the book the rest of it was gripping- a finely tuned exploration of man's sharp toothed idolatry of everything from fame, fortune, pleasure and downright meanness. If you're an agnostic out there wondering if this was just an excuse on my part too rant about those "dern secular humanists evolutionist liberals" let me be the first to praise Blankets or at least link you to my very favorable review of it. But Koslowski just hasn't achieved the same thing here.
So is this a review or a sermon? I'd like to think it's an unavoidable response to the ideas and themes in Koslowski's work. He isn't afraid to make his characters human but he seems afraid to let his character of God be more than just human.
