By now, most of us have seen what video games can do to a person without the patience for long books or foreign films: the glassy transcendence and the rigorous commitment, the hours that float away like magic alchemic bubbles.
As a result, D.B. Weiss' \Lucky Wander Boy"" seems both amusing and unsettling. Lauded as the ""great American video game novel,"" Weiss' first book taunts bookworms who see this novel as ""the enemy"" invading their medium. In the end, ""Lucky Wander Boy"" wins, and fortunately there is more to it than video games.
Weiss' novel begins in the selfish and deluded mind of neurotic Hollywood twenty-something Adam Pennyman. If it is possible to find a fresh take on the stereotypical, apathetically creative Gen. X-er, Weiss does it: Pennyman floats from job to job under false qualifications until he stumbles upon a file-sharing program on which the user can download classic video games.
His world implodes as he spends his days halfheartedly copy-editing for an entertainment company, and his nights passionately researching and writing his masterpiece-""The Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainment.""
The catalogue becomes a driving force in Pennyman's existence, yet he is constantly tormented by the one video game from his past the one that was both an enigma and a religion-""Lucky Wander Boy,"" now the only game that cannot be converted or found.
As the story progresses, Pennyman stumbles across people, objects and scenarios that bring him closer and closer to the person who holds the answer to his life's question; Araki Atachi, the creator of ""Lucky Wander Boy.""
Pennyman's journey towards the consummation of his love affair with ""Lucky Wander Boy"" parallels the plots of quest-like role-playing games where seemingly arbitrary objects appear for future use. Gimmicky? Yes, but Weiss' tongue-in-cheek style makes this seem like a big joke shared between those who grew up in the '80s.
For a book that could have easily exploited the notoriety and nostalgia related to arcade classics such as ""Donkey Kong"" and ""Double Dragon,"" ""Lucky Wander Boy"" was a pleasant surprise.
The way Weiss deconstructs the elements of the classic video games in his catalogue, with the critical vocabulary of a liberal arts major results in a novel both light-hearted and ironic-""Lucky Wander Boy"" is modernism with the ability to laugh at itself, which is a lucky find in modern fiction.
