The New Fate

This short narrative had a curious name, “The New Fate” — is it possible a new version of a fate? So, the cryptic nature of the story arises from the title. About the author, Jonathan Wood, I know nothing unless this is your first book (previously there are only some participations in compilations) and its publisher, Ex Occidente Press from Bucharest, published one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever had in my hands. Typography, design and workmanship of the edition are tastefully decorated, with interesting details: the book cover is a fabric, probably a type of plush, reminiscent of the animal, warm and soft to the touch. In fact, the whole collection which The New Fate belongs, titled “The Last Thinkers”, has this level of artistic book mastery (the series motto had this feral and subtly acuteness: “The Seer is Never Thanked”).

Besides the beauty of the book, the narrative itself, patiently fabricated by Wood, is extraordinary: part philosophical digression, part fantastic tale, part hallucination or dream, we see a bestiality that throughout the narrative proves to be the Nazism, transfixed from a singular point of view, the delirium. We follow a hallucinatory perspective in a work of expansion of the usual meaning to the concept of Doppelgänger by moving the point of view of the same for the otherness, the threatening spectrum had its gravity displaced to the viewpoint of the other. The outcome reminds us that totalitarianism, whatever its range and even when supposedly declares the triumph of the myth and the supernatural, is only a destructive force to the myth and the supernatural, preventing the possible interactions with the Other, the most powerful fuel to the myth continuous reconfiguration. One side of the double, Pieter, seduced by the fierce routine of the totalitarianism universe; his double, the second “ I” that is Karl (or Klaus) however, had the perception of this new reality reacting in a simple and emotive (perhaps disturbed and disturbing) way. The plot also has strong resonance in speculative and philosophical knowledge arena, focused on a philosophical experience that not only reflected in the description of concepts but includes the visionary aspect of a dissonant being-in-world. The complexity of concentric comings and goings (one of the recurring images of the plot is the spring , the spiral) not detract from the powerful outcome of something moving. This is one of the best narratives of our newborn century, something that can not be questioned.