In & Oz

I'm not sure In and Oz is speculative fiction, but I don't know what else it could be. It's fantastical allegory, taking place in an imaginary land consisting of two distinct locations: Oz, the gleaming city where the beautiful and successful live, and In, the home of industry and labor. Characters are named by function, hence we get Mechanic, Designer, Poet/Sculptor, Photographer, and Composer. Each of the characters is similar to the others in that they all desire something more. Only they don't know what that more is. And neither did I. But I think that's an accurate reflection of modern life. Most of us, I think, desire `more', but more what? Money? Purpose? Happiness? Understanding? Love? If given the opportunity to ask, what would we ask for? We are all seeking something, but what are we seeking? It's these questions and more that Tomasula's characters struggle with. Don't look for easy answers though, no snippets of motorcycle Zen wisdom. The quest is in the asking, not the achieving. 'More' is not a destination; 'More' is a journey. Musician composes without sound, seeking to be unconstrained by the limits of human hearing and the confining structure of orchestrated music. Photographer's camera holds no film. Mechanic no longer repairs - he instead seeks to make obvious the mysterious workings of automobiles so that those who drive them will no longer take them for granted. Designer sits in her office with windows all around, staring down at the splendor of Oz seeking inspiration and wondering why she feels so lost. Poet/Sculptor's media is dirt, because that's where everything comes from and to where everything eventually returns. These archetypical characters move through an exaggerated version of our own modern society, where our peculiarities, obsessions, and foibles are have come to be accepted as normal, just as Americans accept over 10,000 gun-related deaths a year as 'normal' instead of as the tragedy it is. It's obvious Tomasula doesn't hold modern society in much regard, though his observations are tinged with an irony and sadness that led me to believe he feels we are squandering our efforts on the less important things in life. He makes a variety of interesting observations. In the scene below, Mechanic is standing the mansion/museum of the founders of the car building factory. Mechanic's house is under a bridge, near the end. When cars break down on the bridge, they coast to the bottom and that was how his father got his start repairing cars. But Mechanic has more to say on it: (...)"There were other portraits of inheritance: an unbroken lineage from the painting of a long-bearded founding father, all the way up to a studio photo of a smiling, great-great-great- CEO-grandson, posing with his movie star wife as if the more money earned, the more attractive the people making it became. There was no other Art. And looking at this art history, Mechanic saw how if his parents had not lived under a bridge, neither he nor his fathe

Don't be fooled by the page count: This is a big book with big ideas. It's well written and thoughtful. It's also beautifully designed, a joy to hold and read.