Journey to Virginland - Epistle 1 [Hardcover]

Armen Melikian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2011

At turns heartbreaking and diabolically funny, Journey to Virginland is a tour de force, delivered by a master storyteller.

The protagonist, a loutish and uber-cerebral antihero known simply as Dog, takes on the challenge to navigate the perilous paradigm shifts of our age, determined to find his proper place under the sun. Is he doomed to failure? Or will he pull it off by heeding his own irreducible voice, given the ebb of the old certainties?

Dog pursues the answer unrelentingly, through an impassioned quest for identity and meaning. He revisits his relationships with women, family, literature, and homeland, in the process illuminating his journey with commentaries on history, religion, politics, and culture that unravel our very fabric.

Marked by biting satire and tappings into lushest scholarship, Dog's naked critique touches on some of the most pressing issues facing humanity: the arrogance of empire and organized religion, the persistence of bigotry, xenophobia, and social Darwinism, the double standards of sexual politics, the bankrupt rationale behind patriotism and state propaganda, and hypercapitalism and consumerism, among others.

An ocean of struggles and epiphanies takes Dog to a spiritual ground zero called Virginland, where the story unfolds. It is also in Virginland that Dog unearths an ancient calendar based on a cosmic worldview. His discovery reveals the mythological underpinnings of the Zodiac, subverting the current conventional wisdom about the subject. 

What emerges from the protagonist's odyssey is not only a cogent depiction of what makes us tick, but, as day follows night, a dazzling new vista for social and spiritual transformation.

With its vibrant style, thematic breadth, and, ultimately, unfettered sense of humanity, Journey to Virginland establishes itself as a groundbreaking literary enterprise and a true original.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Dog vs. God. In an iconoclastic story, Dog demolishes the foundations of Western civilization." --Publishers Weekly

"An engrossing, brillantly crafted read... a searing commentary on the earth and its inhabitants. Melikian is an astonishing writer who teaches his reader about the world and the human condition through tragedy and humor."--ForeWord Reviews

"A novel that is completely different than anything that I have ever read before."--Paige Lovitt, Blogcritics

''The world seems like a giant storm of everything wrong with the world and not a whole lot right. With plenty to ponder and plenty to entertain, Journey to Virginland is a fun and enlightening read and is quite the recommendation.''--Midwest Book Review

"The author has moved ahead of the zeitgeist. The self-confident writing is of high quality. The novel is ambitious and it certainly breaks new ground."--Writer's Digest

"Every once in a while a book comes along that shakes up the foundation of what we know to be true. Journey to Virginland accomplishes just this. Everything we know on religion, war, economy, and social mores are up for grabs in a satirical and nihilistic sojourn. Melikian is a much-needed voice in the world of literature."--Long Beach Book Examiner

"A book unlike any other... A very intelligently written, original work of fiction... A book quite out of the ordinary."--Kam Aures, Rebecca's Reads

''Journey to Virginland is one of the most creatively, philosophically, culturally, semantically, and thematically ambitious novels I've ever read in my 35 years of professional life. In the best sense, I'm reminded of George Orwell's classics, and other authors of similar stature, though there is no true parallel possible with a novel and trilogy as unique in concept and execution as Journey to Virginland.''-- Paul McCarthy, Prof. of English (25 years Senior Acquisitions Editor at Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, and Doubleday)

From the Author

Armen Melikian: Journey to Virginland: Epistle 1
 
Reviewed by 
William Michaelian at
Recently Banned Books

As with all books that question social, cultural, and religious mores, Armen Melikian's Journey to Virginland is certain to offend some readers. For the most part, what has been handed down in the form of beliefs and customs goes unexamined, and is embraced as a matter of convenience, identity, and survival. Therefore it takes an open-minded individual to accept the author on his own terms, and to listen without feeling the need to argue with him or change him in any way -- in other words, to go ahead and enter his vision or dream. It is not necessary for the two of them to agree. Only madmen are unwilling to entertain the possibility that they do not know everything -- madmen, and those whose lives have taught them to be wary, jealous, bitter, competitive, and afraid.
 
There is, of course, another side of the matter: namely, how well -- how inventively, imaginatively, effectively -- does Journey to Virginland meet the demands of literature? And equally important, does it live up to and transcend its own demands, and ultimately surprise its author? Because if the writer is beyond surprise, and therefore unable to laugh at himself, his readers will sense it from the beginning. A book that is merely clever and cunning will appeal only to clever and cunning readers. A book that is human, on the other hand, is apt to be treated as a worthy document, friend, and companion.
 
So what kind of book is this? Most assuredly, Journey to Virginland possesses the requisite humor that serious art must possess if it is also to be human. Likewise, we find in it a compelling sense of urgency: in essence, the time to think and act is now, because nothing less than our self-understanding is at stake:
 
The choices are literally between transcendence and self-destruction, even through revolt. And as long as there are oppressors in the world of men, the fake currency of saviors will be in high demand.
 
Ethnicity, nations, religions, politics are, in effect, surface phenomena; we need to dig deeper than that, to the heart of things, and this book, at turns feverish and poetic, and always refreshingly unapologetic, leads us in that direction. Satire and wordplay flow freely in this outsider's narrative, this twenty-first century life of the artist as a young dog. To the degree that they are obstacles, they yet serve as their own kind of visual-rhythmic accompaniment. After all, as a cursory glance at old English texts reveals, language is a living, changing thing. And so to a degree, conventional meaning is both transitory and a drug. To rely on it exclusively is to be defined by words themselves, and to be enslaved by them. The danger becomes even greater when we approach the old religious texts. Venerable, hoary institutions, beware.
 
Ultimately, there is no need to compare this novel, or anti-novel, to other books. To those widely read, several will suggest themselves. Melikian is obviously among that number, and cannot believe his work is without influence or predecessor. But Journey to Virginland is different enough, energetic enough, challenging enough, and informative enough to carry its own weight. In the end, Armen Melikian has not only written this book; I think it has written, and will go on writing, him.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Two Harbors Press; First Edition edition (January 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1935097512
• ISBN-13: 978-1935097518
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #811,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Armen Melikian (b. 1963) holds a Master's in international relations from American University in Washington, DC. He has also studied mathematics at Harvard and elsewhere, and was admitted by the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University to pursue graduate studies in Analytic Geometry, Mathematical Physics, and Topology. However, he eventually abandoned both politics and mathematics in favor of literature and dedicated his life to writing. Melikian lives in Los Angeles.

Melikian is one of those rare thinkers whose intensity of passion matches their sharp wit and intellect. His poignant observations take to task the core tenets of meta-ideologies and jockeying civilizations, helping to discard layer after layer of entrenched misinformation and dogma.

Melikian brings a fresh, prodigiously layered voice to contemporary literature. He expands the limits of the novel as an art medium, and infuses it with extraordinary urgency and relevance in terms of sociopolitical, cultural, religious, philosophical thought as well as mythological exegesis.

To date, awards and honors earned by his debut novel, 'Journey to Virginland,' include the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for Best Fiction. The novel was selected by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards as one of the year's top books in the Humor/Comedy category, and received the only Honorable Mention at the prestigious ForeWord Reviews' Book of the Year Awards in Literary Fiction. These awards were based on a limited pre-publication copy of the book that was made available by the publisher before its release.

Given its prescient vision of the shape of things to come, Melikian's novel has been compared by critics to some of the masterpieces of contemporary literature, among them the politically explosive works of George Orwell. It has also been compared to Gurdjieff's 'Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson,' and even to the book of 'Revelation.'

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars ARC - Vland June 22, 2012

By T

Format:Hardcover

Did the synopsis leave you confused? Do not worry, me too! Let me put what this book is about in normal people terms : Some really smart guy, the author, uses really big words in a dystopian type of book. He pulls from all the cultural differences that the world has and lays them out for us using literature. The author portrays the main character, Dog, as a single traveling man who is caught up in all the bias the world places on one another. As I read the novel I could honestly say I could pinpoint what culture he was talking about while telling his tale. Journey to Virginland does make you think and wonder how in the world there are such different perspectives on life and how people live their lifestyles. Although we live in a rural area, we travel a lot when we can go. I am very outgoing, loud and stick out like a sore thumb with my blonde hair. Some people give me the stare down while we are in other countries, but it is the cultural differences between countries and religions. As Dog traveled through the fictional world and discussed how the views of women were, I understood why I was getting the 'stink eye' from people. Even though Dog's world is fictional, it definitely combines real life experiences and honest to goodness real impressions people have on others
ARC-blondiezbabbles.blogspot.com

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A mind boggling journey into our inner self December 9, 2010

By GARABET K. MOUMDJIAN

Format:Hardcover

This is one of the books that I read without stopping, because it created an anticipation to know what is going to happen...Aside from the regular story, the book is infused with so much symbolism, philosophical, ethnographic, historical and other. It is a definite read and I recommend it to anyone who tends to possess a bit of a brain that is still working (let's hope it is working)!!!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars ammmazing August 16, 2012

By Edward D and Family

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This has been an amazing book to read, witty, smart, and funny. A new way of looking at the world around us as it is today. I read it slowly though, becasue threading it is like climbing Everest...you have to go slow and understand what youre reading...eventually you'll get to the "top". Its a definite mind exercise, like watching a smart movie (Crash), but it last a bit more than 1.5 hours :-)