Joel, again..?

A little more info about the elusive and mysterious 'Philosopher Joel'.

THE PHILOSOPHER JOEL is indeed a strange beast. Born from the ideas of two projects and unified under the carepul (sic) watch of Pare Joel, it is an important release for me as it heralded the arrival of A Tree in Bani.

The history of The Philosopher Joel goes far deeper than you would think. The project is essentially a bridging of two previous unpublished projects; one called Bruce Vs Lee, the other The Sounds of Shutter Echo. Both of these projects had previously been in my production timeline for a few years, before I even recognised there being such a thing as a timeline.

I started The Sounds of Shutter Echo at around 2016/7 and it was a collection of anecdotes from my time in the events industry (c.2009-2013). With this script, I had many problems reconciling what was to be presented as fiction versus its real-life source. Short of uncovering some of the "tricks of the trade" in that industry - "outing" friends I still keep in touch with, I kept the prime cuts from the project as it was eventually shelved (the term "Shutter Echo" refers to radio terminology and the phonetic alphabet).

The other project, Bruce Vs Lee was initially a short-film idea I had pre-2010. I had kept the name as a working title for many projects until some-kind of satirical storyline was agreed on.

Above, you can see some of the philosophies I had collected and redeveloped during that time. A lot of emphasis was placed on ancient Zen (Taoist) philosophies and the Japanese samurai code "Hagakure". Trying to manage these proverbs with a comedy-orientated story was almost impossible, and so, upon the thirty thousandth draft of Bruce Vs Lee, I felt that the project was going nowhere, and a rejig was needed (as is common with all writers).

The biggest difficulty with BVL was that the manuscript - in all of its drafts - did not speak in the perspective of the Philippines, and could be seen as a more generic 'Asian' (read: Oriental - a term I am not as sensitive about, as with other people I know) example of literature. I am neither of Chinese nor Japanese descent, the origins of which these philosophies are birthed, and so I found between those lines, a serious personal disconnect.

A second failed project is a tough thing to handle, but I knew there was a commonality in there somewhere. The answer was three-pronged: 1. I had written myself into oblivion, certain that at least one of these discarded projects was a sure-fire masterpiece 2. even though both projects were essentially different, there were plenty of instances where wires had been crossed and overlaps in mood were evident, and 3. Kazumph!

I will get to the importance of Kazumph! in relation to Joel in a different post, but in short, having that separate project with co-collaborators involved changed my own chemistry for the better.

Eventually, the balance I was looking for was found from the actions of one particular character, who had been existence since the very first draft of Shutter Echo. Here was a character who could refocus my own (deluded?) objectives and bridge an unknown gap and a purpose for the hundreds of thousands' worth of words I had struggled over. His name was not Joel, rather it was Nasir.

Nasir was written as a counterpoint to the serious narrative line of Shutter Echo. He is the distillation of a few characters (all Asian) I had supervised in the events industry, a job infamous for its 14 hour-a-day, 20+ days-in-a-row shift patterns. A job where honesty and madness manifests itself in many creative and sometimes (read: many times) agitated outbursts.

In essence, Nasir - with the power of ten or so former colleagues - in his psyche, formed the idea of Joel, who is, in similar essence, a distillation of half a dozen provincial uncles I have. And so the biggest problem had been solved, because by pairing the two characters together, I had also unwittingly strengthened what bound them in the first place, the source of how those old work colleagues became my friends and the qualities that rendered those uncles utterly memorable: Humility.

With that seismic change of perspective, came the confidence that I would be simply writing without any fear of scrutiny, nor any huge expectation other than The Philosopher Joel being the proud first child in the A Tree In Bani bookshelf. Everything fell in place after that. True there are scenes that have been salvaged from the two other projects, but in my mind, they were always one and the same. I just never knew that at the time.

So fast forward to today and Joel has been well-received. The digital versions of The Philosopher Joel are now available, even if they took me a while and a half to produce. Both digital conversions (Epub and Kindle) are technically 2nd editions of Joel. It has been minimally revised, of which a reprint and reboot of Joel will come hopefully in the late summer. Did I hear somebody say "sequel?" I hope not. Perhaps further (much, much further) down the line, eh?

---

The Philosopher Joel is available on all formats from the A Tree In Bani store.

A sample of the novel can be downloaded below as a pdf.

The Philosopher Joel - SAMPLE 2021 Versi.

Download • 194KB