Books Reviews

Blether Bookreview Site

Nirvana is the physical, emotional, and spiritual journey of Ray Sawol. This book takes the reader into the life and the mind of Ray from the time of his conception through his childhood and adulthood to his death. During his lifetime, Ray works through the normal trials and triumphs of daily life: how to relate to others, how to pay the bills, how to find someone to love, how to raise a family, and generally how to follow the rules set out by our society. However, Ray also struggles with questions of who he is, what is his life purpose, and how does he connect with God and the world around him.

Nirvana masterfully illustrates the rollercoaster ride that we all call life. A piece of Ray is in all of us. Thus, the reader will immediately feel a profound connection to Ray. Using this strong character connection, this book brings to the surface all deep feelings of frustration, hope, failure, love, disconnection, and connection in the reader. Moreover, the author successful uses a number of very unique and creative literary devices such as the use of poetry-like pieces, newspaper headlines, and irregularly spaced texts mixed with regular text to subtly accentuate different moods and feelings in the story further drawing the reader into the depths of this book.

Reviewer: Tami Brady
(9 of 10 stars)

Williamette Book Reviews

It “Smells like Teen Spirit”—the anthem of the 90’s that made grunge mainstream. But lo and behold it isn’t Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic nor David Grohl. It’s Nirvana, a 340-page novel, bursting with creativity
filled with literary guitar riffs and banging drums, and a very haunting voice by Seattle writer, Kevin Marley.

Imagine that it’s the early 21st century, not too hard to do, and that Mankind’s busy with the discovery of the human genome, nanotechnology, charged particle beam warfare, and still the splitting of atoms, and in general, opening Pandora’s Box—and possibly, destroying itself. Our technological prowess, for the most part, far exceeds our collective wisdom and compassion. But a Human Soul falls from
the skies with a remembrance of who he truly is and where he is from, and as a result, that changes everything.

In Nirvana, Ray Sawol is the quintessential seeker and turns over with curious hands and eager eyes rocks and stones, molecules and atoms, vague theories and nebulous paradigms, and String, and Unified Field
theories in physics in order to know the
truth.

Ray lives a so-called ordinary life as an American, but he still vaguely remembers the primordial bliss, the states of Heaven, that his Human Soul once resided in, and tries to change or expand his consciousness so as to experience not just the Newtonian or ordinary physical world,
but the quantum mechanical or spiritual worlds that he is native to; and in many ways, Nirvana is about a profound self-transformation, a restructuring of human consciousness, and a complete reorientation to the world, as a result.

In a poignant chapter, Ray’s friend, Roger Plunk, drives down The Proverbial Road of Life and begins speeding up to well over 90 miles per hour far exceeding the recommended curve speed of 40 m.p.h., and
as he states in the book:

"It's like driving a car down a road filled with ruts," the madman once my trusted friend continued. "Day after day, bored out of our minds, we travel down the same depressing road, Main St. U.S.A.
"Why?
"Because we're heavily conditioned human beings--literally, stuck in a rut--who fervently believe in the Illusion of Things instead of The Marvelous Reality of Life ..."
"You're gonna kill us!"
"Stop the car!"
AAGH!!!!
"But what if as physics says," Roger shouted above the mayhem, "there are multiple realities right now, and we broke not The Sonic Barrier but The Thought Barrier, turning the steering wheel hand over hand? What then?
"We'd go down A New Road, a road less traveled!"
Eventually, Ray and his friends travel down this road less traveled and Nirvana harkens back to Jack Kerouac’s novel, On the Road, as it mixes a Western life with Eastern mysticism and the hope of a kind of spiritual rebirth not just of the individual, but of this nation, too.
Nirvana has received very compelling book reviews and endorsements, and can be found (and more importantly, bought) on the Internet at www.Nirvanathebook.com.

Reviewer: Jimmy Burns