Customer Reviews

The Muse Asylum

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Every year, I make it a point to read a few first novels. I think it is important to support our literary future. Usually, the first novels I read are good but not particularly special. Here is an exception--David Czuchlewski has written a truly wonderful novel, first novel or no.

In this novel, Czuchlewski tells the story of the search for a very reclusive writer named Horace Jacob Little. The search is carried on by a two young men--Jake Burnett, a young writer for a newspaper, and Andrew Wallace, who is certain Horace Jacob Little is out to get him. This lands the brilliant, though unstable, Wallace in the "muse asylum" of the title. The link between these two young men is Lara, the girl with whom they are both in love.

Needless to say, I don't want to give away any of the twists and turns of this novel. Let me just say that the writing here is wonderful. The characters are clearly drawn and, in Andrew, I found one of the most realistic depictions of madness in recent years. The plot is clever and Czuchlewski sustains the tension throughout the book. I am usually very good at predicting how novels will end but this one surprised me to the last pages. I was especially glad that Czuchlewski opted for what I would call a "realistic" ending when I was fully prepared to accept the bizarre to the point of the supernatural. Instead, I believed that everything I read could happen.

Even though it's not a particularly long book (and I dislike this trend towards superficial haste in modern novels), it is a deep and solid whole. It is a quick read but better than the typical thriller. I must admit, I'm already looking forward to novel number two.

"I see now the virtue in madness, for this country knows no law or any boundary. I pity the poor shades confined to the Euclidean prison which is sanity." Dr. Amedeus Arkham
'Batman:Arkham Asylum'

David Czuchlewski's debut novel, "The Muse Asylum", is a brilliantly wrought story about the mysterious paths our lives take, bringing us into contact with people for strange reasons...reasons which ultimately are revealed to us, for better or for worse.

At the center of this story is Lara Knowles, a young woman loved by two men: Jake Burnett, a reporter dedicated to revealing the identity of the reclusive and highly revered American author Horace Jacob Little; and Andrew Wallace, a very disturbed genius and inmate of the Overlook Psychiatric Institute for artists. Andrew is convinced that Little is trying to kill him. Because of Lara and Little, the three characters paths converge and cross many times, stoking the plot nicely.
With twists and turns abounding, "...Asylum" is an incredible and entertaining read, mysterious and intelligent. I applaud Mr. Czuchlewski's insight and talent!

Bettter than the reviews. This enticing novel moves right along and dares you leave it, even for dinner. Tightly plotted. Quickly paced. With just enough juxtaposition of past and present and literary savy and enquiry into the nature of sanity and art to be more than a little interesting. It is far, far better than most offerings and undoubtedly the characters and the twists and turns will provide me with pleasant mental munchies for some time. The little summaries and synopsis don't do justice to the novel's machinations. Write on Mr. Czuchlewshi, whoever and wherever you are. We will be waiting to see if you can do it again.

Certainly an entertaining novel, this is full of references and practices the "book within a book" style of writing (a book about a writer writing an article about a writer). It's also got narrative shifting as we slide between the present story and a manifesto-like biography that works its way from the past up to the present; identity shifting; and it includes small segments of a fictional writer's writings, as well as another person's writings, interspersed within the novel. Very meta.

I work better with movies, since most of the reading I do is ephemeral (webzines, newspapers, whatever), so I would say this is a mix of the paranoia of "Jacob's Ladder," the puzzlement of "Memento" (there's a character in the novel, Earl Jenkins, who bears a resemblance to Sammy Jankis in the movie, not only in name, but also in that Earl suffers from anterograde amnesia), the switching identities of "Lost Highway" and the writing about writing of "Wonder Boys."

I should say, though, that the novel is not a neo-noir like "Memento" or "Lost Highway," despite being about a search for an unknown man, with conspiratorial overtones. It never does establish much of an atmosphere beyond college-days nostalgia.

There are a lot of references here, from Thomas Pynchon to Wittgenstein to T.S. Eliot (not only does character quote "the cruelest month" from The Waste Land, but a name of a fictional book in the novel is named "The Unreal City").

The characters are fairly well-drawn, though one could make an argument that Czuchlewski stereotypes and glamorizes mental illness as both a recurring disease and a blissful state of creation. But it's not done with scorn, so it doesn't really matter. A lot of the psychology here is fascinating stuff.

I also admired that Czuchlewski went for the ending I suspect many were waiting for. It calls into question some of the rest of the novel, and I wonder if a second reading would boast deeper rewards. There are some possibilities that, by the end, the similarities between the two male main characters exist not just to describe and fill space. But I'd have to read it again to dig further into that. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

What I really loved was the prose. It's sometimes very technical, but Czuchlewski has a capacity to describe wonderful little oddities, and create small situations that relate well to a reader. For instance, describing, as a character is driving down a highway, the white lines throwing themselves under the car; or a seemingly sideline story about a butterfly trapped in an underground subway, snatched from above ground, taken into a dark underworld.

Czuchlewski also has a gift, I think, for emotional truth. The novelist in the novel has undergone a change in writing, from an early humanist style to a metaphysical one. While it may seem that in his own writing Czuchlewski is interested primarily in the latter, there are some moments (like that heart-beating one on a bed, with a character's mother in another part of a house) that suggest he isn't just a postmodern, heartless plotter-of-tales.

This is worth reading.

David Czuchlewski writes in a beautiful and poetic voice. But don't let that scare you. The plot here is awsome, too. He uses believable characters and beautiful scenes to wrap his fictional world around us like a panoramic screen. I couldn't put it down. A wonderful book...READ IT!

...
Today I stopped at my local library and picked up "The Muse Asylum" randomly under "Librarian's Choices." I began the book and haven't done anything since; 5 hours later, I just finished.
This young writer is a genius, and I am thrilled to see that this genre (not Cook, not Creighton, not Cornwall) is going to continue !!!
To David Czuchlewski,and to the Groton Public Librarian who chose your book ---Thank you.

I couldn't put this book down!! What an amazing debut for this young author. It is a psychological thriller/love story, and then there is the final, sardonic twist at the end. Who really is the author of this book? I loved reading THE MUSE ASYLUM. It is definitely my memorable novel of the summer of 2001.

David Czuchlewski has opened a promising career with an excellent first novel. The saying "easy reading is hard writing" comes to mind with the Muse Asylum, for it reads so well and so smoothly that Mr. Czuchlewski's work deserves high praise. It is a story told from the point of view of two different charactors - often they retell the same stories with eerie disagreement. The plot bends and twists, but keeps the reader along for the ride and ends with a very clever finish.

Bravo Mr. Czuchlewski. Good luck on your next novel!

Jake is a journalist for a weekly alternative paper in NYC. He sets out to get the story of a lifetime - to find and interview Horace Jacob Little, a reclusive author whose identity is such a well kept secret that even his agent doesn't know who he is. In another storyline, Andrew Wallace is a schizophrenic who believes that Horace Little is out to get him. Andrew and Jake are connected through Lara, the girl they both loved when they were at Princeton (which is where Czuchlewski wrote the guts of this book, while studying with Joyce Carol Oates.) What transpires in the novel are separate but intricately related searches by Jake and Andrew to uncover who Horace Little is, searches which become personal journeys for each of them.

Czuchlewski tells his story from two seemingly opposite vantage points: a schizophrenic's desire to prove his convictions and a journalist's conviction to get his story. The anticipated result for each is the illusion of grandeur, the imagined prize for each is the girl they both love. What makes it all the more interesting is that the focus of each of their obsessions is an author who is as much an illusion as anything else in their respective quests.

A very complex premise for a novel for such a young and inexperienced author. Czuchlewski pulls it off quite well, even if the language and some of the scenes often give away his age. I consider this book on par with what Mysteries of Pittsburgh was for Chabon.

This book exemplies the best aspects of postmodern lit -- the attempt to create multiple layers of meaning from which the reader divines his own truth -- and does it without being heavy-handed or staid. It's a fun read, interesting and thought-provoking. Highly recommended.