½—one and a half sticks of doom

If you love circuitous stories that do not really begin or end, if you love narcissism and solipsism and sexism—you'll love Jim Morrison's Adventures in the Afterlife, a novel by Mick Farren. Jim Morrison kicks it with Doc Holliday, Jesus hangs out inside a tumor in Godzilla's brain, and people randomly turn into cartoons. It all sounds so promising, doesn't it? Ordinarily, I'm a huge fan of this sort of absurdity. I'm always the one who goes straight for the cult section in our local video store. But, there has to be something to grab onto in the story—whether it be a particular theme or just a vividly portrayed character—something that justifies the time you spent reading or watching it. I was ticked off while reading JMA, and even more ticked off when I had finished it.

Now for a too-generous comparison: This book reminded me of Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld" series, in which the entirety of humankind is resurrected along the banks of a giant river and is forced to create new civilizations from scratch. The first two books were fascinating and brilliant (To Your Scattered Bodies Go even won the Hugo Award), but before long it became clear that the premise had exhausted itself. I mean, where do you go beyond the afterlife? When these characters were killed, they were merely resurrected on some other portion of the river. There was no longer anything at stake. The once-riveting story, therefore, sputtered along through a few more books before ending with the lamest, most anticlimactic denouement since Geraldo Rivera covered the opening of Al Capone's vault. JMA suffers from the same logistical limitation, except that the author doesn't seem to give a crap (and if he doesn't give a crap, why should we?). He also isn't much interested in things like internal consistency, sympathetic and/or believable characterization, or plot. It's just a bunch of far-fetched fantasies crudely stitched together to make a not very entertaining whole.

I'll concede that there are good things about Farren's overall design for the afterlife. For starters, there is a Great Double Helix where the newly dead hang out until their consciousness ripens and moves on. Once they leave the Helix, they get to choose their own type of existence. There's no celestial supervisor (although there are some gods), and the point is well made that in such a self-determining world, we wouldn't be likely to see much wisdom or growth, just more stupid-human tricks. Christians are disappointed by this turn of events, but Hindus are not, because it turns out that just down the road from the Double Helix is the Canal of Reincarnation, where the dead who wish to be funneled back to earth have only to let themselves drift into its gravity. Kind of cool, huh?

Beyond matters of design, though, I was wholly unimpressed. But if there's one thing this author knows how to do, it's how to denigrate women. We're given a "strong" female lead who is little more than an S & M pin-up, and then we are forced to watch her suffer all sorts of indignities at the hands of the multiple patriarchs (including a Charlton Heston-like Moses) cluttering up the afterlife like so much yard art. She is embroiled in catfights, naked slave auctions, and sex-for-survival scenarios. Sounds like the fantasy section of Hustler, right? And the best part is that there is no point to any of it! This is no Moll Flanders, where the seedy environment is a necessary instrument for highlighting the character's personal struggle. It's not even a fun and playful romp that pokes fun at sexual conventions (see Robert Anton Wilson's Masks of the Illuminati). The only explanation for any of the nastiness in JMA is the demands of the author's insatiable libido. Don't get me wrong—there's nothing wrong with a book about sex. I'm all for it. What is bad is unleashing a gender-typing festival of puerile depravity and abuse. I feel sorry for this man's blow-up doll.

You know what else bugs me about this book? How bout I tell you? This guy doesn't seem to have any idea what Jim Morrison was all about. The Jim Morrison in the book looks like he should, but he doesn't have the slightest interest in music or poetry or anything even remotely artistic. The author seems to recognize this discrepancy, and tries to buy us off with a cheap comment about how maybe art isn't necessary once you're dead (an interesting notion, but poorly handled here). Here, Morrison is like the cardboard cutout that fans pose next to. Believe it or not, the Lizard King was just as interested in spiritualism as boozing it up, and it's ridiculous to think he wouldn't have a thing or two to say about the disappointing chaos of this afterlife.

Here's something else I noticed, and when the realization occurred to me, I could imagine the author chortling with pride at his own wittiness. The name "the Doors" was taken from an Aldous Huxley book called The Doors of Perception, a narrative of Huxley's first encounter with mescaline. That title was in turn borrowed from the writings of William Blake: "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." But back to the mescaline for a moment. JMA is totally and unabashedly a drug novel. It's almost as if—dare I say it?—the author was attempting to carve out a Hunter S. Thompson-esque niche for himself by writing a book entirely under the influence. Portions of the text do support such a reading, especially one scene where some guys in an opium den do an obvious riff on "Kubla Khan," Samuel Taylor Coleridge's classic example of writing while stoned.

Yes Mick, I get it. You're quite clever to draw such a comparison. But just because you write a book while bombed out of your mind doesn't mean you're on par with the literary talents of Coleridge.

Just stick with writing letters to Penthouse. At least you and your readers will be on the same page.