“There comes a point in life when you’ve seen so much that hardly anything surprises you or bothers you, and that’s a shitty moment. Wisdom is so terribly overrated.”
Drew Margary’s genre-bending novel The Hike (published
August 2016) is the kind of fun read I’d like to dabble with after going
through weeks of heavy and deep literary fiction. This crazily entertaining
novel opens with a man named Ben, a regular family guy (a wife and three kids),
going on a hike to shake off the tedium of his hotel atmosphere, while taking up a
business trip near the picturesque Pennsylvania countryside. What was supposed
to be a leisure walk soon turns into a nightmare as Ben is caught in a loopy,
unwinding path. Reluctantly taking up the advice to never veer off the
well-marked ‘Path’, the bewildered Ben’s surreal journey brings him
face-to-face with homicidal maniacs wearing dog-faces, talking crab, a giantess
snacking on human flesh, and other odd nightmarish creatures. Styled like a
fantasy role-play or video games, the path leads Ben to terrifying mini-adventures,
while the eventual quest is to meet ‘The Producer’. Scattered throughout
Ben’s fever dream of a mission are the brief trips down the memory lane,
parceling out information about this middle-aged dad’s past.
The strength of The Hike is that it couldn’t pigeon-holed
into a particular genre. Hence the utterly unpredictable and vividly
imaginative craziness Drew conjures keeps us on our toes. It’s a part horror, I
mean who couldn’t feel for a dad grappling with the prospect of never seeing
his lovely family again. It’s a dark
campfire folktale, filled with compendium of eerie, magical creatures. It’s a
love letter to fans of old video-games. Then there’s a snarky, sentient crab
and a domineering yet endearing giantess named Fermona bestowing healthy dose
of humor to the proceedings. Amidst all this The Hike also deals with
thoughtful themes and meaningful life lessons, largely questioning humans’
control over shaping up his/her own destiny. Eventually, I liked the novel’s
‘what-the-heck?’ kind of twists.
Drew Margary, a popular columnist for Deadspin and
correspondent for publications such as GQ (I went through some of his hilarious and engaging columns after
reading the novel), in interviews has remarked that this bizarre tale has some
autobiographical elements. Ben’s insights about marriage and parenting are
pretty much taken from Drew’s life experience (like Ben he is married with
three kids). The touch of loneliness Ben wants to escape during the business
travel is also something drawn from Margary’s personal feelings. The author has
cleverly and imaginatively amplified the nightmares he might have had during
those lonely business trips (a mix of grotesque body horror and traditional
fairy-tale creatures). Of course, it’s not an easy task. Despite unfolding the
tale in series of weird vignettes, Margary deftly balances between delivering
the emotional punch and sumptuously detailing the madcap adventures.
From Lewis Caroll, Tolkien, Dante to C.S. Lewis and Twilight Zone, the
sources of inspiration are obvious (furthermore Margary cites Ruth Manning-Sanders’ short fictions/compilation of worlds with make-believe beasts
as a chief influence). Yet the author’s
energetic style of writing, punctuated with crunchy descriptions
and undercurrents of emotional honesty gives off a distinct sheen. There are
also some problems with the episodic nature of writing since at some point the
surreality beings to dominate the emotionality. We know that, however harrowing
and insane the situation is, Ben would somehow emerge unscathed and move on to
the next one. Particularly towards the later-half (the episodes chronicling the
face-off with Voris and the stretch accounting crab’s life), I began to wonder where it’s all gonna
lead. It’s a rather niggling issue, which I felt was overturned by the
intriguing ending. The metaphor of ‘Path’ is very obvious from the start, yet
the timeless themes discussed here (family life, parental fears, ageing, etc)
takes the novel beyond the genre trappings of fantasy/horror. Overall, The Hike
takes us on a fascinating gonzo adventure that’s nerve-wracking as well as
heart-felt.
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