"Take me away from all this reality...PLEASE!"

In a world as uncertain as ours in which we are faced everyday with an amazing barrage of information and faces; are told what's right and wrong in accordance with and in conflict with our own desires, motivations and values; it's nice to know that if a segment of this assault on our senses was written by some omnipotent author upon an empty page another may then look at it and make some sense of it all. Find some method in the madness. Finger our antagonists, predict the outcome of our actions, decipher what's actually going wrong with our lives simply by looking at it as a 'plot' or 'storyline'. Alas, reality isn't like that, and when you're an adolescent, standing in your backyard wishing the aliens would come and take you away or that Michael Jordan would drop in for a quick game of basketball out in the driveway, and you are quickly splashed with the chill waters of reality, you suddenly realize what separates you from your kid brother or sister. The magic's dying. Your left with reality nowadays. And reality, well...it sucks.

Imagine the appeal of authors such as Brian Caswell and Paul Jennings when they can take reality and put it through the blender, serving you a chocolate milkshake that tastes a little like the fantasy of childhood....but it's still crunchy with reality.

The use of objects, people, situations and humor that the 'average' adolescent will probably encounter in the course of an 'average' day grounds stories such as Jennings' "UFD" or Caswell's "About Sam" in the everyday. In reality. And yet it is the sudden diversion from the normal that lends appeal to these stories. The twist that suddenly makes that boring everyday existence the adolescent is now grudgingly "putting up with" less of a chore.

This is the tool that both these authors have no doubt come to recognize and use again and again in there works from then on. They must detract from the sudden prison adolescent reality has become and construct a world where anything and everything can, and will, still happen.

Paul Jennings starts "UFD" in a manner that serves to draw the reader further into the world that he has now constructed. The 'conversational' tone of the writing seeks to draw the adolescent into a realm in which he suddenly has a new friend, who talks on his level, and he can therefore relate too. Consider something like "Suddenly there is a knock at the door..." on it's own before adding the next portion, which serves as a 'familiar' occurrence which most adolescents could relate too. "...'I'll get it,' yells my little brother Matthew. He always runs to be the first to the door and first too the telephone. It really gets on my nerves the way he does this." (pg 53. "Uncanny!"). Suddenly the reader has not only aligned himself with a character and his views, but has aligned himself with a new reality. The reader is suddenly drawn into the realm that Jennings has created. By associating with an item, an occurrence, or an emotion that the adolescent can recognize as being real; as existing in their own world; the bond to the constructed reality has been established. Paul Jenning's world is now the readers world.

It seems appropriate to note here that the adolescent is not like the young child in that there is now a need for some plausibility in a fantastic or fictional construct. As much as the 'real' world may be depressing, it is now an integral part of the teenage psyche. You won't believe that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden now unless you have proof, a photo, that's been analyzed in the best labs for authenticity, and then sent to another bloke in a white lab coat for a second opinion. Every element of the fantastic must now be born from the real. This is something of a complete reversal, in that as a child, it was the other way around. Fantasy and imagination gave birth to reality back then. It provided a world of endless possibilities in which to discover your limitations and the 'real' possibilities compared to the imaginary ones, leading to a complete set of rules and ideas on what can and cannot be done. Fantasy diminishes, but never dies. It's like every particle of energy on this planet. Energy never disappears, it just changes form to serve a new purpose.

For the adolescent this realm of the fantastic is now an escape. Of course the teenagers bitter, he's just realized that dragons don't actually exist and she's just realized that all this time, Barbie was nothing but an anatomically incorrect lump of plastic. There is still a place where anything can happen, it's just a matter of getting there. And that is the task of Jennings and Caswell.

Both the characters from the two chosen stories ('UFD' and 'About Sam') are liars. They deal in fictions, half-truths and the use of sarcasm (I still say it's the HIGHEST form of humor). Sarcasm being a direct attack on the simplicity and dullness of the everyday. Both characters address the reader in a conversational manner. Like they're standing beside you at the bus stop telling you what they did on the weekend or sitting telling stories while camping. It's the familiarity that makes it work. Once a credible base has been established the borders of the plausible and the real can be extended; toyed with.

While Jennings creates a situation within the real which the reader can relate too, Caswell writes tales that border on science fiction. They are still grounded in the real, but in a more practical manner. While there is still potential for the reader to relate and empathize with the characters in his stories, there is something of an 'instructional' tone to the delivery of the piece. Caswell writes in a very intelligent manner. His writing speaks as if it were some philosophical soliloquy of the intelligent, angst ridden youth. It's brain food. Reading one of Caswell's stories leaves you with something to reflect upon, to think about, which also adds to it's appeal to a different audience than the ones who like the idea of making someone vomit continuously with the press of a button on a remote control, or winning a thousand bucks from Dad cause he didn't believe your "Unidentified Flying Dog" story. Things are also more complicated now, and there are new issues that need to be resolved, again with the help of the 'unreal': "I know it all sounds a bit like a teenage romance novel, but it's not really like that at all...I'm not saying that she looks a bit like every girl I've ever lusted after doesn't have something to do with it, but it wouldn't really matter if she didn't. Understand?" (pg 27. "A Dream of Stars").

Caswell's writing serves to stimulate the imagination that was so important to you as a child. Suddenly, anything is possible. Not in a humorous or freaky manner like in Jennings' stories, but in a whole different manner in which the teenage mind can now once again take a concept from 'the real' and ask "What if?". Real can be strange too. And although Jennings' sometimes leans towards the absurd, he also uses a clever, humorous idea along these same lines to finish his story. That is, whereas Caswell might take reality and expand it, Jennings seems to take reality and place it side-by-side with the absurd. The mystery of why a dog would be flying past the window is wrapped up at that final point where what was once 'reality' and the 'absurd' collide to form something that seems entirely plausible. The boom gates flicked the dog into the air. Simple as that, but so absurd (yet possible) as to be funny.

It all seems to come down to one thing. Reality has consequences. You can't pack it all up or wake and rub your eyes anymore, you have to deal with the repercussions. That's reality. There are limits and results to your actions now. Again, a trip away from the real has, in fact, burrowed directly to the core of the real. Perhaps, underneath the endless confusion and incongruity that life has become for the 'young adult', fantasy is still the fuel for the fire. It's that most honest part of us, right next to the one that lets us laugh. It seems the child never dies in any of us. Caswell and Jennings know this, and use it. And perhaps, because of that, they may be amongst the most honest writers around.

For some veiled demonstrations of 'cognitive dissonance', refer to The Musings of Dan
or
And on their journey the Three Wise Men passed through The Lair of Dan"