The Rest is Illusion

‘The moon’s brightness made the creek below resemble a forgotten cobbled road leading to some ancient and terribly important place. A place out of which myths are born. A place where the feeling of new experiences never dies, never exhausts or extinguishes, where the passion for truth is enmeshed in the very notion of life.’ (page 99)

The Rest is Illusion tells the story of a tree, watching a river and witnessing the story of Dashel.
Dashel is grabbing the last days of his life, and his friends Sarah, Ashley, Tony, and ‘Wilder’ are jumping the last obstacles so to reach adulthood.
The ancient Celts venerated trees as font of wisdom, hope, and imagine of the cycle of life / seasons. So The Rest is Illusion tells the relation between Nature, also as weather, physical universe, life, and people wanting to hear about magic, helped by Nature.

Eric Arvin could have written the usual coming of age tale, but he has preferred magic’s help. The characters find comfort close to the tree and its surroundings, and Nature give them advises through magic.

I didn’t like: the end of the story, kind of life goes on; Wilder’s character is depicted too many times; some dialogs say more than once the same concept.

A note, page 127: Giacomo Puccini’s title opera is Gianni Schicchi, and not Scacchi (chess). An aria from this opera is quoted ‘O mio bambino caro’ (Oh my dear child), instead of ‘O mio babbino caro’ (Oh my dear daddy). Maybe the correct quoted aria is coherent with the character of Sarah Coheen and her father’s relation. ( )

The rest is Illusion was an interesting read but at times it was a bit hard to follow. I thought at times, the esoteric nature of some scenes interrupted the story. Even so, those scenes were beautifully written.

I enjoyed how the author sensitively portrayed the struggles and insecurities of a group of college students. I would have liked more development in all of the characters. I wanted more history for all of them and the brief hints that were provided weren't enough. In the end, I wanted more justice for the characters who were so savagely wronged and abused,but I was moved by the author's message of forgiveness and tolerance. I don't think that neglect or abuse are excuses for abhorrent behavior and have my doubts that someone would truly be able to change, regardless of the circumstances. I didn't feel the consequences matched the crime. Forgiveness is one thing but allowing an abuser to move on without logical consequences is difficult for me to accept in a novel.

I also thought the setting was a bit odd. It seemed like it might be a Bible college and I wondered if the level of tolerance for a young gay student was truly realistic. It would be wonderful, but I wondered about it as I read.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would consider this author again in the future. ( )

The Rest Is Illusion is a coming of age story of four college students in their senior year. It is a story about learning who you really are and then learning to be okay with it. Arvin does very well with making interesting characters that are easy to care for. They were real enough to be believable but too boring because of it. He captured an insecure college student well. Yet, I did not feel as if he developed the plot enough. The end of the story was a bit dissapointing because it left you feeling as if nothing really happened. Where was the climax? The conclusion? A good first novel for a young author, but not a bestseller.

A stunning read!, September 30, 2010
By Mrs Mary Aris "Mrs Aris" (Oxford) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rest is Illusion (Paperback)
The Rest is Illusion

The Rest is Illusion is the story of four college students who battle and come to terms with their own daemons. Young Dashel Yarnsbrook is dying. He finds comfort in a mystical tree which is also dying in the forest near Verona College. Sarah, his colleague, struggles to come to term with a controlling Father; Ashley learns to come to terms with his physical impediments and Tony questions his sexuality as he develops feelings for the dying Dashel. Together, the four college students at Verona Liberal Arts college form a bonding friendship as they each struggle with their own impediments. Not only must each of the Protagonists learn to overcome physical and mental anguish, but they face a foe--Wilder Rawls who is the son of a politician. The tree is the underlying force that brings solace and comfort to a dying young man and transforms the life of all four college students. Eric Arvin uses it as a symbol in this wonderful story of death, overcoming obstacles and the fight for survival. I enjoyed reading this allegorical tale--Eric Arvin's first published book. ( )

The Rest is Illusion by Eric Arven is a story that’s so encumbered by the writing that tells it that for the most part, it is a struggle to maintain interest in what the characters are doing and why. The writing tells more than it show, letting you know, without a shadow of doubt, that a character feels a certain way, without showing you the external signs and letting you determine for yourself how everybody’s feeling and why.



The constant use of adverbs was off-putting. There were over 100 adverbs in the first chapter. Wow! Granted, I graduated from an academy and a university in which more than five adverbs in a paper, regardless of length, resulted in an F. But, it’s also just good writing: The Elements of Style (Strunk and White) and the Turkey City Lexicon both say that an adverb is a leech sucking the strength from a verb. As such, this book has the weakest of verbs.



Another thing that resulted in an F during my educational experience was passive voice. A sentence in passive voice inverts the subject and the object of a sentence such that the subject faces change based on the result of actions by the object, or, the subject is a passive element in its subject (e.g., “The book was read by the unimpressed reviewer”). This too makes for unenjoyable reading. Thus, it should come as no surprise to you that this book contained plenty of passive voice sentences. Though it should be a surprise that any book nowadays does, since most word processors, during their spelling/grammar checks will tell you what percent of your writing is passive.



While you have your Turkey City Lexicons open, let’s see the passage of Rod and Don conversations. (e.g.: “As you know, Don” said Rod, “we just robbed a bank, and as such the sheriff is on our tail!”) These bits of dialogue serve only to inform the reader about things that happened “off-screen,” but do so at the risk of breaking the hypnotic effect of The Story. If the dialogue doesn’t seem natural, organic, even, then the reader gets this feeling of being popped out of The Story, and back into that chair, as a person, reading a book. This book was rife with such.



This book features altogether too many similes (e.g.: “x was like a y-ing z” or ). After a while, this became annoying.



Much of this book felt like the author had taken advanced courses in linguistics and literature, without building a solid foundation upon the basics, and as such, purple prose bloomed left and right, but had no trellises upon which to cling. The author would use big, rare, and unique words on occasion, but built upon the sand that was the writing, the story could not withstand the slightest gust.



The final qualm I had with this book were the sentence fragments. There would be incomplete sentences that existed, it seems, for the purpose of punctuated writing: the make the reader feel on the edge of a seat, or to indicate the importance of the previous statement. Nevertheless, it felt choppy, bumpy, and sometimes like the author was using a sledge hammer to drive his point home.



This book could bear to have some heavy-handed editing to clear the above issues, because the story itself was not terrible. Until then, though, I recommend spending your time instead reading books by authors including Lev Grossman or Brett Easton Ellis for similar subjects and for stories not encumbered by amateur-sounding writing. ( )