The Impediments to Joy
Part One of Translated from the Gibberish
'A panopticon of adolescence replete with elements recognisable to anyone who has endured or celebrated the dawning of adulthood, Hopkins's The Impediments to Joy presents its cast of impossibly precocious teenagers as an idealised group that makes the reader long to have been a part of their world.
'This world is idealised not because of the absence of excruciating experiences, failure, sadness or longing – all of which are present in the novel – but because the members of this engaging cohort live, love and communicate with each other with passionate intensity and humour high and low.
'The Impediments to Joy is a new kind of novel constructed ... with a fond nostalgia for the wonder years, but also for the literature of adolescence, everything from Sophocles to Shakespeare, Byron to Pink Floyd, Joyce, Salinger and, of course, Gary Gygax.'
– Mitchell Albert, editor of PEN International magazine
Excerpts
Excerpts from The Impediments to Joy have appeared in the "Writer Next Door" issue of PEN International magazine (you can download a .pdf of part of the magazine by clicking here) and in the Winter 2007 and Autumn 2008 issues of Contrary Magazine at the the University of Chicago.Prima materia
The novel opens with a hallucinatory prologue that sets the scene and establishes that Daniel Kenning has had a breakthrough encounter with Laura Bingen, the girl who will unwittingly become a central figure in his struggle for "significance."
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Sonnets to L——
The first and second sections of the novel are punctuated by a cycle of fifteen sonnets written by the novel's protagonist, Daniel Kenning.
In these highly allusive poems, Daniel borrows the sentiments of dozens of poets who have inspired him as part of a vainglorious effort to gain the attention of the cycle's subject, Laura. In the process, he inflates his infatuation with her to epic proportions.
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Taking Part
This excerpt comes from the end of the first section. The end of Daniel's Drama class becomes an opportunity for an essayistic passage about adolescence and friendship.
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Bodhi Svähä!
This drug-addled quasi-mystical sex scene marks the end of the second section of the book.
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Infernal Pizza
Next is a short bit taken from the third section, which is set in the home of Daniel's friend Rudy Balbach, the Dungeon Master presiding over an afternoon roleplaying adventure. Before the others arrive, Daniel and Rudy make a pizza—a diabolical pizza, thast is. Anyone familiar with Joe Corbi's Pizza Kit will get a kick out of this one.
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Enjoyably Pretentious
Another clip from section three: a short conversation about pretense with Mrs. Balbach.
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Preemptive Nostalgia
Yet another clip from section three: listening to Jesus Christ Superstar leads Rudy Balbach to a theory about his own generation.
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Modl-Urg
These assorted excerpts from section three are taken out of context, but they share a theme. All of them pertain to Rudy Balbach's fantasy roleplaying campaign and his experience as a Dungeon Master. Get your geek on!
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Beyond the Beyond
In this excerpt from section four, Cecilia Sinclair introduces mantra meditation to her group of friends only to have it commandeered as a sexual activity.
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Wherefore Art Thou Benvolio?
In section four, the novel shifts into comic book mode for seventeen pages as Daniel dreams a version of Romeo and Juliet in which he, as Benvolio, is the lead. Click here to see a sample of the opening page or here to see page four. (If you click the image to downsize it after it loads, you can see the layout a bit better. Warning: I'm no Picasso. I'm currently searching for an artist to draw the final version of this comic book section.)
From Volume II: The Somnambulist
Just the PréludeThis sensual scene from the second novel in the Translated from the Gibberish series shows Daniel waiting to go to his friend Cecilia's cello recital, where he will meet a girl who will change his life considerably.
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