Woah! When it was announced that Keanu Reeves would be co-writing his first novel, we were all excited. That it is set in the same universe as BRZRKR – the three-volume comic series Reeves created alongside Matt Kint – added even more hype. Ahead of the novel’s July 23rd release, Keanu Reeves is chatting his inspirations and the book’s heavy themes.
That The Book of Elsewhere – which he co-wrote with China Miéville – spawns from BRZRKR probably isn’t a surprise considering that comic series practically begs for expansion in some way. (There have already been spin-offs and Netflix had talked about adapting it in live-action form.) Through work on both the comic and the novel, Keanu Reeves said the complexity of it all allowed for some self-analysis. “It surprised me in the creative act, what gets revealed to oneself. Maybe the creative act is a kind of talking, you know. And so maybe I have father issues and mother issues. And maybe I think about death.”
Keanu Reeve also said curiosities such as these thrust him into more themes that he couldn’t help but explore in the novel. “Maybe I don’t understand the violence of the world. I don’t understand that we all know we’re going to die, and we kill each other over things that are, perhaps as you look back at them, not so important. Maybe I wonder about the world, you know, how did we get here, who are we…Maybe I wonder about love. And the power of it. Why is death so strong and love so frail, and yet it’s the strongest force on the planet? So, I like to think about those things, and I thought maybe I found that they could come out” in the comic and the book.
What’s so cool here is that Keanu Reeves has been able to mash complex themes with action in both BRZRKR and, presumably, The Book of Elsewhere (sadly, I haven’t had a chance to read this novel yet, although my pre-order is due next week). Combined with his own explorations and fears of the constant evolution of technology, it’s always great to see someone who cares taking charge and expanding on genre norms.
Will you be pre-ordering Keanu Reeves’ debut novel? Were you a fan of BRZRKR?
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