By Vivian McMahon (Fort Myers Beach Observer, 01/31/01)
“When I tell people my first book has been published, their first question is ‘What is it about?’.” Beach author J.P. George told the Friends of the Library Saturday afternoon. “Rather than explain it, I tell them the reason I wrote it down is that it’s meant to be read,” George joked and feigned leaving the room.
“On the surface, ‘A StoryBook’ is a fairy tale,” said George. “But underneath, it is based on real life, mostly my life.” It can be considered a teaching story, which is not about what’s actually happening, but intended to create an impact on the reader and change the perspective of the reader.
George said some traditional fairy tales may be loosing their appeal. “More familiar are Aesop’s fairy tales, which have been told and retold, and some of the details have gotten lost in the retelling. As history moves on, there are changes in metaphors. After all, how many are familiar with the planting of a mustard seed?”
George incorporated a variety of techniques into “A StoryBook.”
I have used a combination of styles, first of which is third person narrative in the oral storytelling tradition, plus dialog-driven and finally poetic prose. It is a style drawn from the Middle Eastern Islamic literary tradition begun over 700 years ago, called the scatter technique.”
George laughed about his search for a literary agent saying “while one raved that the book was brilliant and inspired, the agent did not know what to do with it—it was different.” He earned the same lauds from several other agents who did not know what genre or category his manuscript would fit. “It was a challenge to get it published,” he said. “Publishers and book retailers, who have a monopoly on what you and I read, don’t like to take chances.”
George’s research for the book began with reading and exploring the tenets of organized religions throughout the world, as well as literature, both ancient and current.
Inspiration struck when George was stationed in Germany with the military when the Berlin Wall came down and he realized “what a colossal waste of time it had all been. The East Germans that were crossing the border were really no different than the rest of us. People basically all want the same things.”
Back from the military, the budding writer spent time watching people and recording his observations “in that place that most defines the American people: the mall.” In the mall, he also spotted a young lady, a hostess at a restaurant who made a lasting impression, “even though fear and paranoia stopped me from going up and talking to her.”
George went on to study electronics and computers, and he soon landed a job at an Internet company which sent him around the world, visiting high-powered corporations and government officials. After three years he left the business. “So much of the industry in those days was smoke and mirrors, as you can see from what the stock market has done to the dot-com companies lately. Some were not much more than a desk and a PC; some were a hotel room and a laptop.”
Returning home, he was determined to find the young lady who had left such a lasting impression, “but I missed her—on her last day of work at the restaurant, she had left about five minutes before. I was ignoring fate.”
Later finding her at her new job in a bookstore, he worked up the nerve to talk to her, and “I have to say Forest Gump was a lot more confident and cooler than I was.” Finally pouring out his thoughts and emotions, “honestly and genuinely, I made quite an impression on her. She was sure that I was some sort of stalker,” he laughed.
Although a relationship never worked out, the young lady became the Princess in his story, and the antagonist is a common human emotion: “The dragon is fear,” he said.
But most importantly, what George’s experiences have revealed to him is that “while people were defined by their societies, religions, and governments in the past, today’s technology has given rise to the individuals who define themselves by relationships, no matter how brief.
“We have to trust that life will work out for the best, and we have to have faith. We often tend to forget that half of the world has to struggle to get food, and from what I’ve seen on television, predictions are that things will get worse. No one has the solution that becomes the quick fix, including this religion or that that religion—faith is not exclusive, it is not ‘what’ but ‘how.’”
“A StoryBook,” published through iUniverse.com is available over the Internet through www.astorybook.org, or available through any bookstore.
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By Helen Collins (Fort Myers Beach Observer, 01/ 31/ 01)
This is written before the Friends of the Fort Myers Beach Library’s Annual meeting takes place on January 27, and this writer has no idea how much you enjoyed the program given by J.P. George, the author of “A StoryBook.”
If his talk is anything like his book, you will have found you own thinking stimulated and entertained by a sophisticated and educated man who has evidently thought deeply about many things over a period of years. At any rate, that is certainly the impression this reader received in reading his book (No, I have not met the man in person.)
“A StoryBook” is written in three parts. Book I is a simulated fairy tale about a kingdom far away, whose King is devastated by the loss of his Queen and the disappearance of his daughter, the Princess (no names). Dragons menace a disunited kingdom that lacks purpose, and the King embarks on a crusade whose outcome has unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, the Man meets the Princess, recognizes her for what she is, but does not convey that knowledge to her. Unhappy with himself and feeling unworthy, he travels to gain knowledge. This book is a not-too-subtly disguised essay on ethics and virtues.
Book II was obviously written at a later time, and the authors interests have not so much changed as broadened. The Man and the Princess are still there, the King has died, and the Kingdom is being administered by the Ministers of Science, Law, and Finance in the manner of bureaucrats worldwide, seeking absolute power in the King’s name.
In parables, the author discusses fanatics of the Left and Right, as in the matter of drinkers of coffee and tea. Tea drinkers are a minority. They go to jail. Coffee drinkers rejoice. The dragons have mutated and are now disguised as humans. There is a country of the far left which seems to be populated by Socialists,, where the Man discovers the Sword of Truth, rusty and battered.
Materialistic government and populations are described as dragon inspired. Even space travel has its parable, In the final parable, hope and light are given to Mankind by the transmutation of the Man and the Princess into the moon and the sun.
Book III is the shortest, and consists of what were to this reader a series of sermonettes on the Virtues, both traditional and ethical. It is impossible to describe, but George is likely to be an engaging speaker for audiences who have some experience living and viewing the world with a skeptical eye. Not a simple read, but one that will make you think.
Read and enjoy! Read and Learn!