Review of “The Surreal Adventures of Anthony Zen” by Cameron A. Straughan

Score: 90/100 (9.0 out of 10)

Do you need an escape from reality? Do you want to dive into some absurdist fun involving anthropomorphic animals and surrealist situations?

Well, The Surreal Adventures of Anthony Zen may be the short-story collection for you.

Anthony Zen is a collection of surrealist, absurdist, and—quite frankly—ridiculous short-stories by Cameron A. Straughan!

Who says that literature has to be serious, deep, and complex? Sometimes, literature can just be weird, funky, and fun.

This book follows the titular character, Anthony, through many hijinks, shenanigans, and mundane/daily events that often inevitably turn into hijinks and shenanigans.

In “Anthony Gets Up for Work,” we are introduced to Anthony and his strange pet cat, Monty, who often rings like an alarm clock for some reason. This story kinda pokes fun at the cliché of having the main character tell the reader who he is by looking in the mirror while telling us little at all (ironically). For example, we are told that he appears to be around 13 to 96. Well, that's a huge range! Most of the story implies that his age is probably in early adulthood. He's even explicitly called a “responsible adult.” He goes to court, he works, he shaves, and he is said to have facial hair at some times but not other times (like when the giraffe pulls on his non-existent beard). However, despite these mature features, activities, and characteristics, he often acts like a 9-year-old. The same can be said about his parents, as we'll later discuss.

This first story sets up the idea that Anthony's life is far from ordinary, filled with random and nonsensical events that he navigates with bemused detachment. This also introduces us to the author's dry, deadpan sense of humor. No matter how wild, wacky, or crazy things are in the book, it's almost always presented in a matter-of-fact, so I guess that's just the way it is manner.

There are some relatable things about Anthony that emerge in the first couple of stories (“Anthony Gets Up for Work” and “On the Way to Work”). For instance, we can already tell that's he quite a self-conscious person. We're told:

“He was picky about his appearance. He liked to arrive at work looking his absolute best; it put him in a positive state of mind and increased his self-confidence.”

Despite all the crazy stuff that happens in this book, it's human things like this that help us to relate to the character.

His parents are a bunch of oddballs, arguably even weirder than Anthony himself. His army-boots-wearing mom makes sport of crank-calling/pranking just like Anthony's supposed “friends” do. His dad seems to be a nudist, or at least a fan of going without clothes in public. Why? Well, it's best you don't ask. There's no good explanation for a lot of things in this book.

Anthony encounters a variety of bizarre and whimsical animals throughout The Surreal Adventures of Anthony Zen. These creatures play significant roles in the absurd and surreal situations that unfold around him. Here are a few examples:

While Anthony is running to work, he is plagued by flocks of flying snapping turtles that pluck strands of hair from his head as they fly by. These acrobatic creatures are described as pests that often nest atop a government money tower. Why? Well, don't bother asking.

In one surreal episode, a giraffe aggressively grabs Anthony by his beard and shakes him violently, throwing him into various obstacles. This encounter is strange and unsettling, yet Anthony eventually realizes the absurdity when he remembers he doesn't have a beard. Why?

We do get the pretty humorous passage:

“Anthony didn’t know what business the giraffe had on that side of town. Quite frankly, he found the situation rather startling. After all, the entire area had been designated a 'Giraffe-free Zone.'”

Anthony observes a police hippo, a giant creature wearing a blue tie and hat, who aggressively enforces justice after a chaotic scene. The hippo engages in a battle with a tall man, swinging its massive body around and causing destruction. Why?

At an arena, brightly colored butterflies flock to Anthony’s improvised trousers (made of black hockey tape) and become stuck to him. This kinda reminded us of the sisters made of flies from Resident Evil Village.

Anthony also meets a sheep who happens to own a restaurant. Why?

Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY? WHY? WHY?!

That's the question that kept reverberating in our heads the whole time.

It's not like we're unfamiliar with satire. We've read Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Kurt Vonnegut, and others. We'd admit that the author's style is most like Vonnegut.

Like Vonnegut, Straughan’s short-stories often read like a dream, with unexpected twists and shifts in reality, akin to Vonnegut’s non-linear and fragmented storytelling. Both authors play with structure and reality to convey their messages, leaving readers with a sense of disorientation and dark humor as they navigate worlds where logic and reason are frequently upended.

These stories also have similarity to Terry Gilliam films like Brazil or Time Bandits. Gilliam's films are filled with bizarre and fantastical imagery that often distorts reality.

We did have some takeaways in regard to social commentary.

In "Anthony Goes to the Arena,” a violent game called "Dead as a Doornail" is described in detail. The game involves players trying to kill each other while rabid badgers are tied to their waists. The story critiques society's obsession with violence and spectacle in sports, echoing real-world issues while pushing them to the extreme. As fans of pro wrestling, football, boxing, and MMA, this spoke to us.

"Anthony Goes to Court" is a humorous courtroom drama in which Anthony finds himself in legal trouble for reasons that are never quite clear. The proceedings are equally nonsensical, with the judge and lawyers engaging in absurd arguments and ridiculous antics. The story pokes fun at the legal
system, portraying it as just another area of life where reason has little influence. The justice system and courts in general are overly complex and complicated, full of jargon, procedures, and codes/expectations of conduct that get ridiculous at times. Ironically, this is something that Justin Kojok's lawyer character talked a lot about in Driving for Justice last season.

There were some other things we found amusing:

- The Shakespearean soliloquy from Hamlet, “To be or not to be”--often touted as the greatest passage in the English language—is recreated and satirized in full as “to bathe or not to bathe.” This must've taken a little thinking and creativity on the author's part.

- On a similar note, we get the line, “Shakespeare is the Brussels sprouts of the literary world... I don’t really like him. I’m just forced to have him because he’s supposed to be good for me.” This passage might appeal to anyone who has ever wondered why Shakespeare's plays— which often involve murder, minors getting married and having sex, suicide, betrayal, and glorification of Machiavellian concepts—are forced on impressionable middle school and high school students.

- There's a somewhat humorous story about visiting a doctor who happens to have a psychiatrist on hand. Both of them simply point out the obvious like “you have two ears.” This kinda got to us because we work with doctors all the time. Some of us literally live with doctors. Some are brilliant and others... well, we often wonder how they ever got into college. Having an MD or a PhD doesn't make you an insta-genius. Sometimes, as the Big Bang Theory points out, doctors can lack common sense like the rest of us. They're not immune to human stupidity and incompetence.

- The author seemed to satirize actors, celebrities, and other people with long, strange, or like-sounding names that create a confusing environment. This reminded us of how we poked fun at all the authors in the last contest who had needlessly complicated names and pen names. Anthony talked about movies starring “Bobbie Dana Taylor, Dana Bobbie Taylor and Taylor Dana Bobbie” (obviously a reference to Millie Bobby Brown). This might also poke fun at the fact that it seems like every movie and TV show has guys like Ryan Reynolds, Chris Pratt, and Pedro Pascal in them.

- There was the line “I’m a professional bus driver... I have to know these things!” which reminded us of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, going back to how this reminded us of Terry Gilliam. Hey, that might also explain the name of the cat.

- There was a creative and humorous reference to a “Mount Tingtension” (obviously phonetic for “Mounting Tension”) which “originates in Holland; where it then twists through Belgium, passes through Germany, cuts up through Russia, bends back to France, completely avoids Switzerland and continues to China where it goes beneath the earth and resurfaces somewhere in the Canadian Prairies”

We had two major problems with this book:

1. It really wasn't that funny (to us).
We've read much funnier and cleverer books like Way of the Wall Street Warrior by Dave Liu and Bacon Grief by Joel Shoemaker. We rarely so much as cracked a smile or a laugh.

2. It never seemed like anything really mattered. There were no lasting consequences. Things just kept happening seemingly for the sake of happening.
However, this was still a worthwhile read that might appeal to you if you just need a bit of escape from cold, harsh, overly-serious reality.

Check it out on Amazon!