Brahma’s Maze, A Review
–by Bruce Roberts
In the Hindu religion, the god Brahma is the creator, the god Shiva the destroyer. One must know this to begin to understand Brahma’s Maze, a novel by Immanual Joseph. The main character, Tarun, begins the story as a creator, having seemingly found a cure for cancer while earning his PhD in the USA. Unspeakable horrors, however, on a return visit to India, weigh on his mind until he begins calling himself Shiva, and launching a mission to destroy those who have harmed himself and his family.
This is a book of strong black and white emotions. Gray areas do not exist.
When things are bad, they’re very bad. His family is not just annoyed by bullies. They are raped, slaughtered, annihilated. Tarun, acting as Shiva, does the same to the bullies, only in incredibly worse ways. As a cancer researcher, his knowledge of drugs and medicines becomes a vengeful force, as those who destroyed his family are themselves destroyed by exotic chemicals that cause insane acts, splitting headaches, and their body parts literally falling off. And there’s nothing they can do about it.
The extreme measures of Tarun’s revenge show the depth of his love for his family. He does nothing halfway, whether loving or hating. Similarly, Sangeetha, a young researcher at his university falls head over heels in love with him. But his love for his slain family is just as strong, and can’t be tempted by a beautiful young lady who loves him just as much. Again, love or hate, there is no in between.
By the end though, the third major Hindu god, Vishnu seems to take control. Vishnu is the god of maintenance, of normalcy. And by the book’s end, sanity and stability seem to reign once more.
This is an interesting book, but with some notable weak spots. The title, for example is never explained. Characters talk of having created a maze, but whether figurative or literal, it’s never clear what that maze is. It becomes the title of a book within the book, retelling this tale, but still is not explained.
Another problem is paragraphing. Sometimes the author indents, sometimes he uses a block style, and sometimes he just lets the writing flow, with nothing to indicate a change in paragraphs. And there’s no apparent pattern to explain the style differences.
The writing also depends too much on events that have already happened, and thus are described after the fact. There are relatively few times when the events of the plot are actually happening so that we are in the midst of the action. So while the ideas of the book are quite interesting, the writing style works against that interest.
Immanual Joseph has written 190 pages of entertainment. He likely won’t win awards for this effort, but readers who enjoy tales about life’s extremes of good versus evil will find it interesting, and thus worth a read.
Bruce Roberts, 2014