ABBA

About the Book

I have always wanted to try my hand at writing an epic in the tradition of John Milton's Paradise Lost and Homer's The Odyssey and this objective came to fruition with my short story Incite.  This tale was a product of a gentlemen's bet between myself and my father, who is an Episcopal priest, that each of us would try to write something creative on Psalm 68.  (I don't remember if my father produced anything for the occasion.)  My purposeful invocation to the muse in the beginning of the tale, and from time to time throughout, is the very device Milton copied from Homer.  And yet the Muse I invoke is more similar to Milton's than it is to Homer's as I draw from Judeo-Christian motifs and not Greek mythology.  And then I provide a little literary twist of using the present tense on verbs whenever referring to this Yah, providing a little surprise at the end wherein I reveal a kind of trinity in the Narrator, if you can imagine.  Such is the complexity of taking on the eternal.

The concept of writing something that endures, that teaches and has the structure of a tale wherein the hero leaves home, goes off on a grand journey and then returns, à la Milton's Satan and Homer's Odysseus, is a principle that impacts much of my writing.  Certainly that pattern is what the structure of the ABBA collage is all about - "A" being a kind of syllogistic variable representing the staying at and/or returning to home and "B" representing the process of exploring other grounds, thereby leaving the homefront.

But what is home?  Why go out into the world?  For what purpose does the hero travel?  Does the returning home provide resolution?  Is the resolution long-term and who does it impact?  I think the resolution in ABBA provides more questions than answers, although one might argue that the demon exorcised at the end will no longer be in the dream-like psyche of the narrator any more.  The resolution seems to have something to do with a young man coming to terms with his father, per Robert Bly, if not harmony with the Father which would appear to have even more magical power.  Also, the word "Abba" was purportedly used by Jesus during a prayer to mean something akin to "Daddy."  Clearly my choice of this title for the story ABBA and this entire book has everything to do with these two themes - resolve conflict by returning home, resolve conflict by returning (or preparing to return) to the eternal Home.  One might argue that this latter theme is both fully "A" and "B," thereby confounding my attempted pattern.  But what is literature without some kind of exploration of the ultimate mystery?

The return in Incite certainly is a returning home even though the wandering nation of Israel is arriving at the Promised Land for the very first time.  The return may have something to do with reestablishing a pristine inheritance and existence that is in harmony with the great One as the most favored nation should, one would assume.  I hope the reader does not take too much offense in the bloodletting and executions, but I wanted to provide some fictitious context to the Biblical conditions that supposedly led to the real nation of Israel's entrance to the Promised Land (none of the enemy was to be spared upon arrival - not a man, woman, child or beast).  I have always felt that that genocide of the previous inhabitants of the Promised Land should never have taken place.  So I used a fictitious narrative to reverse the tables on a nation that was operating under unjust, if not morally reprehensible, heavenly orders.

I feel that I achieve a kind of harmony after the horrific battles when peace is quickly established.  I even produce a statement to balance against the implicit racism of the original Israel nation for whom intermarriage would have been most abhorrent.  My two opposing groups intermarry nicely a

About the Author

ROBERT MARSHALL HAVEN is a young artist with autism growing up in Poughkeepsie, NY who is also a Quaker. His work happens to charter new territories in the art community and has been well received at numerous art shows including at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York and at Mr. Musichead Art Gallery in Hollywood, California. RMH, as he is known through his website at RMH-Art.com, has work that is sometimes simplistic, sometimes pristine, sometimes a bit rough and tumble, if not complex, but it is always awe-inspiring. He has this way of filling things in that we haven’t seen before. He guides us, he holds our hand, he even sometimes sheds light on things that we ourselves would never imagine, as we may or may not catch a glimpse of his very specific, if not particular prism as perceived by his brilliantly bright and living eye.