MASTER! OF! ANGST!

After my less than ecstatic review of KL Hong's book of stale wisdom for teenagers,  I was deluged with emails challenging my assertion that fiction could better speak to the unsettled, isolated adolescent condition. Deluged means zero, I think. 

I work with at-risk students. The most general escape for them is music. The earbuds go in and the world melts away. There is solace and predictability in familiar music, but also the capacity for imagination. It's a safe place. When I was fifteen, blasting Master of Reality, or Master of Puppets, or Master of Disguise (Turtle! Turtle!) the idea was to shut out the source of frustration or discomfort, whether school, family, loneliness. And there was a lot of loneliness. Music helped immensely. Always loud, always present, never let me down. It was mine, but I was willing to share control with the artists because I identified with them. Their music made me feel whole. 

Which brings me to this book:

METAL.

33 1/3 is brilliant in concept and clever in execution. The group sifts through reader proposals for albums to choose writers for slim, pocket-sized editions of analysis of landmark or classic albums. At the moment there are 86 of these. I've only read three because they're hard to find cheap, but I believe that John Darnielle's treatment of Black Sabbath's Master of Reality one of two or three in the series to be a piece of fiction, in journal form at that. 

Roger Painter finds himself in a mental health facility for teenagers, where he's denied his only desire: his metal tapes and Walkman. Instead, he's provided a journal, in which his initial hostility and anger give way to the clever idea to write meditations on his favorite album, Master Of Reality. In between, his thoughts on the record provide the clarity to approach the numerous family and life issues that earned him a trip to the facility. 

This is a fantastic plot idea, and seems like a natural extension of adolescent troubles. The volume is short, and the indirect nature of the narration might be more accessible to teenagers, who find a sympathetic peer figure in Roger, rather than an adult stranger who went through the same thing, but advocates nature walks and yoga. I think I know which option is most immediate and present in a student's life. Because of the record at the center of it all, this book won't appeal to everyone, but the universal message of trust in music and reconnecting with one's fractured youth cannot be ignored.

You look me in the eye and tell me that doesn't rock!

You might notice that most of the 1-star reviews on Amazon are from those who blindly bought the book as part of the 33 1/3 series, thinking they were going to get information on the production of the album and some historical context. These might be the same people who think The Onion is real news. 

Boring Stuff

Master Of Reality
John Darnielle
Continuum Press

Amazon

33 1/3