Parsifal

Krusoe’s latest (after Toward You) is a self-reflective coming-of-age story wrapped in a fable and sprinkled with wry observations. Parsifal was raised in the forest and, though he lives in town as an adult, he’s perpetually called back to his roots, both physically and through memories of an ideal childhood with his mother and father. A “war” is underway, between the Earth and the Sky, with microwave ovens, bicycles, and other random objects plummeting to the ground; Earth responds by filling the sky with toxic ash and smoke. Parsifal’s story unfolds as a series of nuggets, observations, encounters, biographical facts, and frequently ironic one-line codas such as: “What is the sound of sadness creeping into his heart?” Motifs run through the shaggy plot: pens, fire, birds, relationships with librarians. Outrageous developments are relayed with deadpan irony, as when Parsifal’s father believes that his oversexed secretary’s short, tight suit is “well within the limits of good taste.” With a passive hero at its core, Parsifal becomes a piquant commentary on tensions between nostalgia and reality, the past and the present, and humanity’s need for myths. (July)