A journey through the multiverse
Durango's Paco Ahlgren releases debut novel, 'Discipline'

SideStory: Food, beer and books


 

by Joe Foster

Discipline by Paco Ahlgren. Greenleaf Book Group Press 2007. 428 pages

I remember lying in bed as a kid, staring across the room at the light switch and trying to tap into The Force. I’d even reach my hand out, all strained with concentration, trying to will the forces of the universe to gather at my fingertips, just this once, to flick that switch off. I’d eventually give up, disappointed that that ass-hat Skywalker could do it, but I, of all people, was unable. I now try the same thing while sitting on the couch, but it usually involves the more complicated process of transporting a beer from the fridge to my desperately grasping hand. (Mock if you wish, but you’ve done it, too. If you haven’t, then you sadly lack in imagination.) As a kid, I read tons of fantasy and science fiction stuff, which tends to color the way you see the world, because nearly every book in these two genres ever written starts with a young person, usually a guy, living his life as normal until one day something happens to make him realize that he truly is special, and dark forces are after him because he’s destined to save the world and/or universe. This plot, as basically archetypal as it gets, makes avid young readers ache to be that special savior; certain that if they were to just try hard enough and in enough different ways, they could perform miracles.

Paco Ahlgren

Semi-local Paco Ahlgren has based his first novel, Discipline, on this certainty, among other things. Young Douglas Cole is your normal kid, growing up in Durango, with a gentle father, a philandering drunk mother, and his precious younger, asthmatic brother. As the archetypal plotline goes, Douglas learns at a somewhat young age that he is indeed special, that he can do things that he should not be able to do. One day, Doug and his brother are playing around Junction Creek, throwing a stick for a stray dog. As a preview for the horrific violence and death Douglas is to see throughout his life, the dog gets sucked under a logjam and drowns. Beside himself with grief and guilt, Douglas miraculously brings the dog back to life, to his brother’s horror and wonder and the poor dog’s infinite confusion.

Other such things happen throughout his young life, but somehow Douglas buries it, not ready to confront this major difference while battling with the normal differences we see in ourselves during those trying formative years. Always watched and protected, even nudged toward knowledge by his father’s foul-mouthed-but-not-idiotic friend, Jack, Douglas begins studying music, chess, quantum physics and the effects of acid on the doors of perception, to steal a phrase from Huxley. The concept of the multiverse is introduced, the idea that all possible realities exist simultaneously, and it is, really, the spaces between these realities in which the story truly takes place.

Tragedy stacks upon tragedy, sending young Douglas off to college in Austin, Texas, a wealthy orphan, alone and self-destructive, and unknowingly hunted by malicious forces. To say that Douglas hits rock-bottom would be an understatement, but we find that this is where he needs to be to begin his journey toward self-awareness and fighting the coming battle. Tutored and prodded and, ultimately, manipulated by Jack and his new friend Jefferson, Douglas becomes a creature of ultimate calm, able to travel through the multiverses, to move faster than the eye can see, and to revivify the dead. He also becomes a financial wizard, and in the subversive battle for the control of this reality, Douglas foresees the eminent collapse of the world economy and develops his own currency, which he makes available to all, thereby saving the world’s population from cannibalizing itself in the name of need.

The plot flows along at a brisk pace, and although at times the writing feels a bit forced and the dialog a bit stiff, the story itself is compelling, even fascinating at times. There are some pretty kick-ass fight sequences, in which we find out that Jack is possibly the baddest dude in the multiverse, and we’re glad that he’s not a bad guy. The actual bad guy, though, is evil and seemingly untouchable – as is required by this archetypal journey that Douglas travels. All in all, I’d say Discipline is a decent read. •