A novel co-written by Keanu Reeves is actually pretty cool (and movie material)

Not to brag, but as a teenager, I got a custom signed photo of Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix Reloaded.” While I’ve long since outgrown my enthusiasm for celebrity autographs, I’m not the only one who remains a fan: of the actor’s movies, yes, but also of his dates with artists his age (the bar really is that low for men in Hollywood), of founding a small press with her Specializing in artist books and being a Generally good guySo when I heard a few months ago that Reeves had collaborated with China Miéville to write a novel, “The Book of Another Place,” I was delighted.

The idea of ​​them working together pleased me: Like Reeves, the acclaimed author of “Perdido Street Station,” “Embassytown,” “The City & The City” and many others has a kind of “I could beat the shit out of you” attitude that belies his soft-spoken demeanor. And as a longtime fan of Miéville’s books, I couldn’t imagine him working on a project that would simply feed celebrity vanity, so I was looking forward to his first novel in more than a decade, regardless of who his co-author was. While I had my reservations when I first started reading the book (his foreword is written in a staccato, choppy style that reads more like scene descriptions in movie scripts), I was soon won over by Miéville’s lush prose and the wistful storytelling interplay he and Reeves play.

“The book “Elsewhere” follows Unute, a man who cannot die. Born from a lightning bolt and the prayers of his mother, Unute has been alive for roughly 80,000 years, and over his many millennia has seen civilizations, species, technologies, mythologies, and religions rise and fall. He has died again and again (not that he is easy to kill) only to be reborn each time inside a human-sized egg sac. He has been worshipped as a god and feared as a demon, though he doesn’t believe he is either. And he is, in the 21st century, in the rather mundane position of being involved with the U.S. Army Special Forces, who have decided that his berserkers (the frenzied states in which he commits horrific violence against anyone who crosses his path) are useful.

So far, so cliché, and for good reason. “The Book of Elsewhere” works entirely as a standalone novel, but it is technically a tie-in to the existing intellectual property of Reeves’ 12-issue comic series, “The Book of Elsewhere.”BRZRKR”, which was funded through a very successful Kickstarter campaign. He is also producing and starring in a film. Adaptation for Netflix (Unute's physical features were clearly modeled on the actor's, presumably for this very reason.) In other words, the new novel's source material knows what it is: action-packed, ultraviolent, and morally ambiguous, and Miéville clearly took that to heart when he agreed to work with Reeves. He told Wired“If you want horrible violence and a helicopter chase, you're going to get it, because it would be cheating not to give you that.”

There are no helicopter chases, per se, in the novel, but Miéville's point stands: “The Book of Another Place” includes many lovingly described moments of brutality, as Unute loses himself in his berserkers: “he, in mounting riastrident glory, fists, the gun, that wet burrow of bullets in his being, and they tear, they bite, they shoot, they open, and stay back, comrades, stay back, investigators and companions of this immortal flesh, for here he was on a mission and bang, they cut, they slice.”

I don't know how the co-authors of the book divided up the work, but from the beginning… few Interviews It seemed to me that the two had worked out an outline together and that the words were largely Miéville's. This makes sense, because once I made my way through the awkward opening pages, I discovered a deeply elegant and beautiful approach to the trials and tribulations of the ancient warrior who cannot die.

The novel’s main plot follows a series of strange events, such as the brief reanimation of a soldier in Unute’s unit, the arrival of an immortal babirusa (a kind of pig), and the recent appearance of a self-help group in town. Unute and his handlers suspect that all of these events are connected, though it remains unclear until the end of the book which factions are involved and who is loyal to whom. It’s an enjoyable action mystery, punctuated by moments of existential melancholy as Unute tries to come to terms with who he is. Even after all these eons of undeadness, he still doesn’t really know.

Where “The Book of Another Place” really shines, however, is when it steps away from its contemporary context. Alternating chapters give voice to the stories of other characters throughout the story who encounter Unute. Readers meet a doctor (strongly implied to be Sigmund Freud) to whom Unute tells the truth about his immortality, an intersex servant whom Unute saves from a potential gang rape, a woman Unute married and loved deeply only to abruptly abandon without explanation, and other people whose lives brushed against his own. In other chapters, Unute narrates elements of his inner life using the second-person perspective: “You have long ago identified in yourself, no matter what evidence you accumulate, that thought is nonsense, a sense of being told. That certain things must be, for the shape of life to be a story. You have seen such longing in most people you have met. It is because you share that dangerous inclination that you hesitate to say you are not human.”

Both sets of chapters add depth to Unute, taking his situation (he's an immortal who wishes he wasn't) to emotionally satisfying and morally complex places.

While The Book of Another Place may include some tropes and contrivances, Miéville's keen eye, boundless imagination, and impeccable style make it a deeply enjoyable read.

Ilana Masad is a literary and cultural critic and author of “All My Mother’s Lovers.”