In his masterpiece, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manly Hall speaks about Tarot card the fool as that card that 'represents that Eternal Power of which the 21 surrounding or manifesting aspects are but limited expressions.'
Faust Amoyo chose to take the world as it is, to enjoy the purity of daylight and the elegance of night shadows alike. He is the fool, who takes a walk through all the cards, he sees the sun of logical wisdom, the moon of mystical insight and the star of hope in a nihilist world. Along his way to wisdom he meets gurus, madmen, prostitutes, priests and a certain Marcus Minkowski. 'Beneath the garments of the fool is the divine substance of which the jester is but a shadow... Was not this card placed in the Tarot deck to deceive all who could not pierce the veil of illusion?'
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By Fady Bahig
Aug 15, 2009
"Preview" I have uploaded a preview PDF for the novel containing more than 50% of the text here: http://www.geocities.com/fadybahig/preview.pdf Please give it a look
"Journey of the Fool" This first novel by the young Egyptian Fady Bahig is a remarkable, whimsical coming-of-age story about a young Anglo/Filipino boy, Faust Amoyo, from his lonely childhood in Manila through adventures in Mongolia, India and Rumania. Along the way he meets a lover who introduces him to Tantric sex, a false guru in India, a young computer wizard in Rumania, and a tragic old philosopher. The boy's adventures include his spiritual, intellectual, and emotional development from an unhappy child to a wise young man. The novel ends, somewhat inconclusively, with a lyrical evocation of the eventual end of the Earth five billion years in the future. Along the way Faust and his acquaintances discuss subjects from Meister Eckhardt's mysticism to Carl Sagan's Cosmos, to the computer simulation of evolution. It's a remarkable first novel by a young author untrained in comparative literature.
"Attempting to understand " This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book. But perhaps to say that is to give a false impression of the range of its possible appeal. For in fact the book comprises a wide and varied range of moods, perspectives, and attitudes. The story is cast in the form of a pseudo-autobiographical narrative. I use the term ‘pseudo-autobiographical’ not only because the whole is narrated in the first person, but more importantly because it sounds like the expression of imaginary and fanciful but vibrantly lived experiences. It moves from the experiences of a precocious but emotionally starved childhood, through an adolescence torn between intellectual curiosity, sensuality and suppressed sexuality, to a youthful drive towards asceticism, spirituality, and philosophical speculation. On the first reading I felt that the sensuality was over-emphasized and that the expressions here verged on explicitness. I thought the author was depicting – even though... More > hazily – a progression from carnal bondage to mystic liberation, until the author himself assured me, in private correspondence, that, on the contrary, his intention was to give a nihilistic impression. Whatever may be the reader’s take, she or he cannot fail to find food for thought in the perceptive reflections spread throughout the latter part of the book and the graphic and sometimes astounding depictions of the earlier part. I think that the linguistic finish of the book could be improved, but this will not diminish the reader’s enjoyment of the work. D. R. K.< Less
