BOOKS: The Fifth Sun

Reviewed by Rowan Wolf
Editor in Chief, Cyrano’s Journal Today

“The Fifth Sun” could could be considered an epic saga. It grapples with the big issues of life such as: religion and colonization; Old World and New World; and the rise and fall of civilizations. It has a cast of characters who try to find themselves and their personal and cultural identity anchors in the shifting seas of life.

One could argue that everyone in this book is “crazy.” Some classically so as with Sarah who openly struggles with trying to stay in this world as she is continually drawn by one force, and another towards the unknown where chaos lies. Robert Jay who wanders in and out of alcohol addiction searching for freedom, and then to remove the haunting memories that grab at him at odd times. Ultimately, he finds his anchor in a four legged friend, Hector,  who somehow survives a metaphorical holocaust against his comrades. This canine plays an important role in this novel. On one hand, he is a canine companion who kind of “grows” on Robert Jay. On the other, he is representative of the will to survive the atrocities that “modern society” throws at us and that ultimately leave us all adrift.

Of all of the cast of characters, it is perhaps Diego whose conflicts and struggles seem to represent the geopolitical and spiritual terrain on which all of the characters struggle to maintain their balance. He is a Mexican who is of Aztec origin. His grandfather grounds him firmly in his historical cultural origins and skepticism, and yet selects him for the priesthood. His path is set by cultural practices. However, his training as a child was to look beyond the surface and to see the “Aztec” underneath. The overlay of modern Mexican Catholicism was presented as a “mask” that covered the reality underneath. This upbringing, came into headlong conflict with his role as the family priest, whose priesthood would be “the guarantor of salvation for the entire family.” So Diego sets out to walk with his feet always on conflicting paths:  ancient Aztec and modern Mexican vs white educated European;  ancient belief in the old gods versus the death oriented Christian and Catholic Church; attractive assumed heterosexual celibate priest versus repressed homosexual. On top of all of this  rides the expectations of his family, and their “eternal salvation” resting on his shoulders.

A common struggle of all of the characters (with perhaps the exception of Hector) is sexuality. Each character struggles with this in their own way. Robert Jay has trouble with enduring intimacies. However, it seems likely it is his inability to embrace his creative self fully that is the underlying issue.

As a priest, Diego is pledged to celibacy. While he is apparently attractive to the opposite sex, he leans towards homosexuality. However, this is something that is unpalatable to him for much of the book. His life seemingly takes a turn for the better when he leaves the Church and accepts his homosexulaity.

Sarah seems to attempt to find herself through the men she pursues. While she presents as highly sexual, her identity is significantly embedded in her appearance, and namely in the positive regard of men (sexually attractive). She is wildly attracted to Diego who is unavailable and “violent”. She ultimately settles down with Michele – also a “catch” and he becomes her anchor to sanity. It is an anchor that ultimately fails, in part because he is on his own identity search for the unknown. This is a search of Sarah’s as well, but her’s is linked to the pull into the dark edge where madness lies.

Michele, who seems the most stable of the characters, is an active artist. He has an angelic appearance and seemingly a loving nature. In persona, he is a stark contrast to the other characters. However ultimately we see that he too feels he is in a mask and he cannot quite see the real self who lies beneath. His fascination with the masks is similar to, and perhaps overlaps with Sarah’s other self and with Robert Jay’s ravine.

The ravine in this book that resides behind the villa where Robert Jay is caretaker. It is a character in and of itself. It is more than just a piece of scenery, but embodies the unknown, and frankly a malevolent unknown. It has the power to steal life and loved ones, and in its obscurity lurks … something.  In some ways, it is similar to – or even overlaps with – that “other” self who both beckons and repels Sarah.

Hector is an ancient breed, a throw back so to speak. He is the canine version of Diego – a  Mexican-Aztec Catholic priest who struggles between the expectations of a death oriented institution, and the vibrancy that refuses to die  – his gene level memory of Aztec Mexicans. Diego represents the old New World, and Hector the old Old World (so to speak). It is part of the tension of civilizations that Stewart includes as a larger framing context in The Fifth Sun.

Given that Hector becomes the sane “anchor” for Robert Jay, one could say that Robert Jay has found solid ground in the old Old World (versus the current one). This contrasts with Sarah’s more classical struggle of staying in this “version” of reality, and Michele’s ever shifting hunt beneath the masks in an effort to capture the “true” representation. It is somewhat ironic that Michele serves as an anchor for Sarah when in many ways they are fighting the same battle to see who they are, The metaphor goes over the top when Sarah’s public mask becomes a mask she attempts to escape at the same time that Michele finally captures (he thinks) a hint of the true visage beneath the mask.

Hector survives while the rest of his assorted pack come to vicious endings in “the ravine.” The ravine, could be seen as a semi-”natural” corollary of Diego’s death oriented Catholic church. Diego escapes from the Church to find parts of himself and attempt to connect with that “ancient” piece of his ancestry in a slum in Mexico. Hector is left seemingly whole, but destined to travel far from any home of his choice at the whim of Robert Jay.

It is part of this deeper struggle that all are “finding” themselves in Mexico, returning to the New World, chasing the old New World; Sarah directly so, Michele less directly through his art, and by chasing Sarah); Diego, who seems to disappear in some ways with his return to Mexico having resolved his sexual conflicts in accepting his homosexuality, but held in thrall by is hunt for the Aztec he never was; Robert Jay (and Hector) by accident, or the accident of friendship to Michele and Sarah.

Each character is looking for an anchor, or series of anchors, as they struggle to maintain clarity of self, but somehow function in a world that is itself insane.  Ultimately, one set of connections survives, but not for all.

The “unknown” has three different character faces in this book. The first we meet via Diego and his roots – the Mexican Aztec and the undiscovered (uncorrupted) new world. The second is the ravine – a wild and ruthless, seemingly malevolent entity. What lurks there is unknown and unknowable, but it seems to steal what is valued (by Hector and Robert Jay). The third is Hector, the long distant representative of the wild(er) Old World.  It is very possible that the Old World is not that different than the old New World. They are perhaps two halves of the same whole.

From a struggles for actual identity with Diego who is given to The Church, but finds within his soul the Aztec who struggles to rise from the ashes of conquest and colonization. To Sarah who feels the pull to “other” and fights to find a center in her lover.  Robert Jay who is an artist who is afraid to create, or afraid to what he has created and hence retreats into alcoholism, but struggles over and over again with loss by the predation of the unknown.

Stewart seems to make the attempt to connect the human characters via sexuality, but somehow Robert Jay is excluded from this pursuit. However, Diego, Sarah, and Michele are not only sexual, but they are sexual with each other. It is a form of bonding, but not in the context of extended relationship  except for Michele and Sarah who are definitely in a long term sexual relationship. For Michele and Diego, and Diego and Sarah, this sexuality seems almost an extension of friendship which elevates it above casual.

I found “The Fifth Sun” to be a book that I at times wanted to push away, but somehow found myself coming back to. It is complex, as is “real” life. The characters struggle with being sensitive to the forces of this world from nature to empire to the gods and back again. Each living lives as a gyroscope that cannot find its balance point, but somehow keeps spinning – sometimes of a volition that seems beyond the rational. I guess, that I felt that my life follows a similar crazy course.

The socio-political realities of conquest and rebellion; deep cultural roots and new expressions of those cultural forces, plays out within the lives and identities of each of these characters. Ultimately, the struggles of the fractionated character in “The Fifth Sun” are reflective of the struggles of self that many go through. In that sense it poses a deeper examination of self than is customary.

The Greanville Post, and sharing the same political goals and values.