Un roman initiatique, assez déroutant, racontant une virée entre quatre adolescents vers un hypothétique lieu de culte qui leur permettrait d'accéder à la vie éternelle. La narration se fait par le biais des témoignages de chacun d'eux, un chapitre par personne qui nous racontent leur passé, leurs envies, leurs pulsions, leurs secrets inavouables, leurs motivations et les péripéties qui agrémenteront ce voyage vers les confins de l'Arizona, au fin fond de l'Amérique et au fin fond d'eux-mêmes. Toutes les préoccupations des Américains post-Viêt-Nam y passent, des a priori aux appréhensions, des préjugés aux grandes espérances. Ces jeunes gens qui se cherchent un but représentent chacun une facette d'un pays en pleine mutation, rongé par ses doutes et ses peurs, écrasé par le poids des traditions et l'idée de sa propre grandeur.
Une oeuvre singulière, cathartique, qui met mal à l'aise et explore avidement la face cachée de ces quatre garçons dans le vent. ( )

This book is rather different from the author's general science fictional output as it is a psychological study of four young men which was in a contemporary setting when originally published in 1972. The story is told from the four men's viewpoint and switches around between them so that we see their assumptions about the others and then how those assumptions are usually wrong.

Four young men are on holiday from their university where they are friends and/or room mates. The four are on a long road trip across America to find a retreat or monastery supposedly inhabited by men who are immortal. One of the four, a scholar called Eli, has come across a manuscript in the university library while there to look for something else and, intrigued by the illustrations of skulls in it, translated it. It turned out to be a guide for how to win immortality by turning up at the abode of the "monks" as a group of four to undergo initiation/trial. The snag is only two can win through: one must commit suicide - sacrifice himself for the group - and the other must be killed by the remaining three.

Eli believes totally in the message of the manuscript and has convinced the other three in the preceding months to accompany him to the place where he believes the monastery currently resides - it is presumed to have moved from one place to the other over the centuries, but before finding the manuscript, he had come across a newspaper article about a place which he believes houses the same order. Ned, who is a cynic, fluctuates in his belief and toys with the idea of committing suicide - as long as he can 'have' one of the others first, the physically attractive Oliver, while Timothy, from a long line of rich men, is going along for the ride and treating the whole thing as a game. As the trip proceeds we learn that Oliver is obsessed with living forever because his whole family died prematurely, leaving him the family farm - the sale of which paid for his attendance at the university. All four have dark secrets which later come to light.

The problem I had with the story, apart from the voices of the four being very similar, is that all are basically repellent characters - not only because of some terrible things they have done, but because of their attitude to women. Women are mentioned in the various flashbacks, and even where they are stated to be intelligent and strong characters in practice they are little more than chattels. The men constantly refer to women in abusive terms. One character "lends out" his girlfriend to another so that the latter can experience sex with an attractive woman whom he regards as out of his league - and she goes along with it. The attitudes to women are truly appalling and although some of this is a product of the book's time, it is hard to believe that all young men of the 1970s were as bad as this. There are women at the monastery, but they too are treated as possessions/vessels to teach the 'lads' how to control their orgasms. The bisexual character is also depicted along the lines of a stereotyped gay man of a kind that would not be tolerated in anything written today.

Although there is some clever switching around of whom we are led to believe will be the sacrifice and whom the murder victim, ultimately none of the four deserves immortality and all of them lost my sympathies, hence only a 2-star rating. ( )

Interesting book. Not so much horror or science fiction or fantasy as just a good well-written literary story. Virtually the entire book is chapters alternating between the four principal characters and their internal monologue. ( )

DNF @ p50. I don't know why SF Masterworks published this as there doesn't seem to be any SF content. There's plenty of misogyny though, plus a decent smattering of anti-semitism and homophobia. Meh! ( )

Very good read! I was amazed at this book. Is it actually science fiction? Is it horror? I loved the ending. ( )