Customer Reviews

Distance Haze

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

DISTANCE HAZE, Nasir's fourth novel, is a breakthrough book for this author. Always highly rich and visual, this time his prose comes together with a plot that is downright balletic.

Main character Wayne Dolan, a novelist, is going through a midlife crisis that ought to have a little in it for everyone--absent children, sexual insecurity, financial burdens, spiritual panic, creative block--when his editor arranges a nonfiction book assignment for him. He takes it reluctantly, and begins a painful, scary journey in many dimensions. It's science fiction, not a fairy tale, but midlifers will find no small comfort in the book's resolution.

Slightly flawed by an excess of characters, some of whom are too interesting, too hastily drawn, or both, DISTANCE HAZE is nonetheless full of "maddeningly beautiful" (to quote Dolan), disturbing descriptions. These include ones of Lake Michigan which, not unlike descriptions in THE SHIPPING NEWS, raise a body of water to the status of a character.

Distance Haze accomplishes the almost impossible -- It raises important and thought-provoking issues concerning religion and the importance of brain chemistry on the outside world, yet it is also an entertaining page-turner that thoroughly engages the reader. It is also a mystery and a love story. Jamil Nasir has found a wonderful voice in telling this story, which crosses over from the usual science fiction. This is a book that anyone who is interested in these big issues would enjoy, not just science fiction devotees.

Where Tower of Dreams, Jamil Nasir's prior book, went out to the limits of our fascination wth Exoticism in its exploration of dreams and desire, Distance Haze pulls the reader back to personal aaccountability for dreams.

By establishing an academic forum with unlimited resources to discover God through Science, Nasir cleverly plays out one man's reach for faith and love, without pandering to maudlin sentimentalism or the very glossy commodities that Tower of Dreams exposed as perilous.

Wayne Dolan, Nasir's protagonist, is a recently divorced writer. As he undergoes some of the most probing and disturbing visions of what could be, what has been and what he wished he'd done in the past confront him at every turn; Counter-balanced against these reflections are the contentious academic egos at the Deriwelle Institute. The egos probing the questions of God and scientific integrity remind Wayne Dolan just how fragile human beings can be and why dreams play such a large part of our inquiries into truth. Such frailties come into sharp relief when Dolan wiggles into a painful affair with the troubled daughter of one of the institute's shining stars.

Distance Haze brooks no quarter where painful inquiry is concerned, but it is not without its hopeful moments...episodes of faith in the human ability to circumvent pettiness in the interests of beauty abd tenderness.

This book is not only well written, it also defies all stereotypes of science fiction writing. Fascinating and terrifying in turns, it leaves one wondering about the true meaning of life. This authors books just seem to get better and better...

Nasir is obviously deeply attached to the question of dreams and their relationship to our experience of reality. As in "Tower Of Dreams", the primary character in "Distance Haze" is intrigued and confounded by his dreams, by their implications, and by the deep basic question of "what is our reality".

Our writer hero, Wayne Dolan, is drawn out of his humdrum distressing life by a chance to get away to a hidden enclave of brilliant thinkers and scientists at the Deriwelle Institute where the issue at hand is the scientific basis of religion. Numerous methods are being used to identify and quantify in a rigorously scientific way the origin of religious experience as it springs forth from our biological human brains.

This deep quest is set in an otherworldly beautiful environment on the coast of Lake Michigan. Nasir's descriptions of life by the lake, of the numinous colors and feelings evoked by it is most wonderful. Dolan's sense of the lake as he approached it for the first time had me gripped tightly, and I reveled in his experiences of it.

Add to this palate the complicated relationships between Dolan and the members of the Institute, and his disturbing love affair with a woman from the nearby town of St. Clair. Now throw in a heaping handful of Dolan's visionary experiences with an Indian advisor that visits him in his dream states, and with the charged atmosphere of the Institute and the environs of the Lake, and both Dolan and the reader are transported into the space between dreams and reality where they mix unimpeded, promise everything but answer nothing.

Although this is a complicated story with the deepest questions at its heart, it moves quickly and remains beautifully visual and sensual to the end. A most intriquing end it is; thought provoking and satisfying enough to insure that I will be looking forward to the next dream-like experience that Nasir plays out for us.

I had mixed feelings when I picked up this book, but wanted to give it a try. In the beginning, I was fascinated. Nasir has some great ideas in regards to science and religion and a very eloquent way of presentation. I really enjoyed how it got me to thinking and the conversations w/ my husband that it inspired. I was sucked in and hooked. Then the last third to half of the book started to lack greatly. I found myself not interested in it at all, but kept plugging away in the hopes Nasir would redeem himself and capture some of the magic from the beginning. I finished this book very disappointed, confused, and angry for wasting my time. To add injury to insult, all of his female characters were very 2 dimensional, weak, and outright cartoonish. This would have been better as a short story.

I will admit, I picked up this book because the cover is orange. And I bought it because of the concept of a vaccine for religion, to see what Nasir did with this idea. And by the third page, I was in love with the beauty of his writing style, the descriptions that are akin to poetry. For the first half of the book, between the fascinating theories and the gorgeous writing, I was in heaven, and stopped regularly to inform people to read the book. I will admit, I was thrown somewhat by the relatively graphic sex scenes in the book, and while I see how one of them steered the main character somewhat, I don't know about the others. The book's ending left me wanting more, a clarification of one or two of the issues brought up earlier, but I would still recommend reading it, if only for the beauty of Nasir's writing.

Distance Haze is a rare find. It is accessible equally to readers of science fiction and fine literature. The characters are fully developed. The plot is both complex and spellbinding. It is quite fast-paced with a number of surprising yet realistic turns. It is an innovative and entertaining book . It will keep the reader thinking long after its conclusion. Highly Recommended !

It's not surprising that this book generates extreme reactions - good and bad. It's an extreme book and won't be to everyone's taste. One reviewer who pans it called it disturbing. I agree with the description but loved the book. It's Jamil Nasir's most personal and subjective effort to date, and he pursues issues regarding human meaning and our place in the universe more deeply than most other SF or fantasy writers, or, for that matter, fiction writers in general. Some readers won't like where Nasir comes out, and they may be "disturbed," even revolted, by the trip along the way. I say it's a hell of a ride, and I look forward to more such rides from this original and talented writer.

Although the graphic and disturbing X-rated scenes seem unnecessary, the book is well written and interesting. Here the philosophical angles supercede the scientific ones, which is a welcome switch from most current science fiction and a great treat for fans of classic sci-fi.