Shadowboxing with Repugnance

About the Book

This story is in the main an exploration and revisiting of existentialism and psychoanalysis, as well as other modern intellectual movements (structuralism, post-structuralism, etc.).  It is also a social critique, where the search for meaning in the context of pop culture and the conventions of modern society brings only despair.  Some of the themes explored in this book include the relation between beauty and ugliness, the relation between the artist and the dictator, the relation between love and inspiration, the adversarial nature of love and sexuality, suicide, and happiness, to name a few of the major themes.  I’m not interested in presenting a general summary of the plot, nor in revealing the symbols used, nor much of the intent behind certain of the more ambiguous passages.  Such is for the reader to determine.  

This book is best read by those familiar with such movements as mentioned above, and best identified with by those of the younger generation.  The quest for a salve for intellectual angst is met with a particularly obscene emptiness in modern culture.  An artist, or an intellectual, is ultimately unable to escape failure, as a culture devoid of heroes and tragedies, and brimming over with creature comforts and decadence, applies an oppressive ceiling to creative energy, condemning even the most talented to mediocrity.  A creative life without inspiration, as the context does not provide it.  The seeds of the artist cannot be sown in a culture so barren.  Even the best horticulture and breeding of seeds brings no yield in soil dried up and useless.  I’m getting a little overly flurried for the context, but this is the gist of the frustration of the existence of the characters in this novel.  

As such, the end-products of the intellectual inquiry of the characters in this novel are of a nature particular to modern times.  This, along with a few interesting turns of phrases, the roughness and sloppiness of the language, the harsh transitions, and general youthful impatience of the manuscript, are all I hope for as being of some ultimate value.  The explorations of modern ideas, and many of the ideas crafted by myself in concord with these explorations have little value as novel, or original philosophical ideas.  Some of the themes explored in the book as listed above seem to be original contributions however.  Some of the references to philosophical systems, as well as particular examples are self-conscious examples for the purpose of inquiry.  When I had originally written this book, I was under the misimpression that with the exception of the examples I had consciously crafted for the purpose of allusion to already existent philosophical systems, that many of the ideas were my own original contribution to thought.  I found later that many of them were not entirely.  Some of them were, however.  Overall, the ideas that I thought were my own and were not, serve the didactic purpose that was part of the intent of this novel.  The ideas that were original, are conclusions that are interesting, but may not necessarily hold under closer scrutiny.  But I did not wish them to be more than interesting.

I’ve distanced myself greatly from many of the ideas in this book.  I’ve grown enough since that I do not feel a kinship with the book anymore as such.  I do not think it’s bad however, by any means.  But I have absolutely no idea if it’s truly any good or not.  I thought both the book and myself were brilliant all the while I was writing it, but creativity makes even mice feel like gods.  It’s indeed a young book, sometimes poorly written, badly in need of an editor, but there’s something undying in it even after the artist’s harshest self-reproaches.  I can’t say what it is.  I’ve read it, edited it, corrected it, fretted over it, hated it, loved it, left it alone, lef

About the Author

The author of this book is 22 years old. He was twenty when he wrote it. This is his first book. He has not won any prizes, or really done much of anything. He works at a silly job. In his spare time he sits in his room. He is a philosophy student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s going to be attending graduate school for philosophy in 2001. He is currently working on a second book. He is very good looking. He likes to wear sweaters. He likes to hit people. He is currently living in Madison.