Review of Mneme’s Stoned by Luke Delin

After reading Orbo and the Godhead, I was overwhelmed by the fantastic fusion of ideas and subdued force of that novel. 

Where that novel was ecstatic and full-throttle, this novel was a quieter whirlwind. Mneme’s Stoned possesses many qualities of the previous work: absurdism, magical realism, drug use, mental illness, and wacky, unexplainable phenomena. The plot is unconventional inasmuch as it exists. It involves a journey of sorts. Discoveries are made. But in general, the plodding plot is only a vehicle for discussion. The author satirizes anarchic mentality here, there and everywhere. How can the protagonist and his sketchy friends be so gormless in some respects and yet so astute in others? Because people who awake to a purpose are often subject to repeated epiphanies, most of which only serve to further disgruntle and discombobulate them. The characters are often irrational, yet somehow relatable. At the very least believable. How would you act if your head changed form? Or if you were bitten by a human?
Our moon-haunted protagonist is the ultimate unreliable narrator. Not only do other characters doubt his sanity and reliability, he doubts his own. But it would seem that the world conforms in some respects to his infirmity, if it is in fact a mania which plagues him. He casually describes Man Vs. Horse races. There are kaleidoscopic robotic butterflies on his mind. Most remarkably, others are just as twisted and random as he. We are introduced to cults and unexplainable interactions between animals and people. All this to say this book is the best kind of unhinged. It is an unpredictable ride through an unquestionably devilish world crafted by an astute observer of human folly in a purposefully disorganized way.
While Orbo and the Godhead may be a more approachable introduction to this author’s antics, taking on this book is a safe bet. You will not be disappointed. Neither will you be entirely satisfied, for explanations are not handed out on a silver platter. It is left to the reader to draw conclusions, to distinguish fact from fiction. The duty of the reader is not to explain the book, but to brave its sticky waters. When it comes to the duplicity of scenes, the synergy of imagery and abstraction, and the distinction of its unique characters, this book promises many delights. Venture forth and encounter its frantic depths, welded together by pop culture references and that aimless nostalgia for pasts we have never lived and the recognizable idealism toward impossible futures, which is so reminiscent of the rebellious incertitude of youth.
Mneme was one of the three muses. I had to look it up. I intuited the form of the word resulting in ‘Mnemosyne.’ She was responsible in some capacity for memory. It is also a word meaning the recurrence of past experience. Another word for memory? I delight in thinking that the author alludes to a personal muse who is possibly stoned. A muse who produces a cobbled hodgepodge of mangled memory, delivering inspiration coupled with monstrosity, beauty in the guise of angsty madness.
On the level of craft the author succeeded in unlocking a readable and entertaining approach. He flits from one subject to another so frequently, that it incites a frenetic intensity to the often unrelated moments. Yet it wields the resonance of life, burbles with subtexts and a palpable intimacy. Whether the author could improve is a subjective matter. Perhaps on the level of organization. Or of varying the approach. One might call this a mere continuation of the modus operandi of his previous book. Rather than provoke the author to change I would only ask for more, for longer, fuller books. As life wears us down and we jadedly seek out unique experiences, pleasures, quirks and aesthetic textures, I would only encourage him to keep writing, endlessly honing the scalpel of his rage and ennui, turning it upon the ruthless corpse of a world we have inherited. For when we pierce memory with our wit, we discover that it bleeds the ichor of inspiration.