Review of The Maze of Transparencies by Karen An-hwei Lee

A work of genius and unfathomable eccentricity.

In a post-societal literal data migration to physical clouds an obsessively cataloguing vehemently organic gardener pontificates on his dysthymia in a voice infused with shades of contemporary zeitgeists through which the reader perceives a softly dystopian alternate reality where rampant “affluenza” afflicts the phantasmal remnants of a happiness-worshipping, technologically dependent, corporately desensitized indistinguishable mass of human consciousnesses embroiled in a perpetual feedback loop of remedy cultivation and symptom diagnosis. A riptide of subtext illuminates the inspired ramblings of a disembodied protagonist.
Lee appropriates techno-babble and marketing lingo to weave a kaleidoscopic prose poem 180 pages in length. An elegant ménage à trois of Eastern philosophy, Western excess, and futuristic speculation.
The only comparable book in existence is perhaps Rikki Ducornet’s recent Trafik.

After the “great leap sideways” the soul of humanity is dislocated and pursued. Yang is a grass roots mystic in choose-your-own doom era.

Never have I read such a wily and mesmeric chronicle, percolating with disturbing subliminal undertones of human spiritual heat death.

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