“Beast” the protagonist in The Book of Changes is a pure innocent with one simple goal--to become an expert on the Middle Ages. He comes to Berkeley, the Cathedral of Learning, in 1971, a time of political upheaval, hallucinogenic drugs, abundant sex, and down-and-dirty rock and roll. On his quest for meaning he hangs out with a Harley-riding dwarf, a pre-goth artists' model, a sorority girl turned nymphomaniac, and the heir to a family of French aristocrats with a bloody history dating back to before Joan of Arc. Beast soon discovers that he can’t live in the past but has to embrace the present, with its traps and land mines and the horrors of contemporary society—death by motorcycle and bad acid trips. The world is exploding, but students still go to classes, fall in love, get laid, study in libraries, win awards, even graduate. The country is on fire, and Berkeley supplies the fuel. The Book of Changes is the third book of the California Quartet
Genre: FICTION / Cultural Heritagesales--marginal; rankings--high.
At two in the afternoon on a cool August day, we came through the Caldecott Tunnel and crested the hills. For the irst time, I looked down on Berkeley and the Bay. A city of the plain, Berkeley spreads out from the hills on the east to the North Bay and south to Oakland before running west to the mudlats, where the bridges spun their steel webs across the water.
From high up in the hills rose the Campanile—the lone spire of the Churchof Learning—the bell tower, crowned with four gargoyles and a spire with ayellow jewel of a light in it. We swept down out of the hills, like an army, our bike exhaust a howl of rage. We swooped into the city and into the sound of bells and a breeze blew through the arches of the bell tower carrying the scent of horses, and from the fields the smell of decaying flesh and in the sixtieth day of the siege the Duke ordered a counter-attack and fire scarred the walls of the keep, stone discolored from oil and Greek fire we poured on the enemy—and the bells—I heard howls of pain, saw flesh boil of bone, saw eyes burned out from flaming sulfur and they breached the parapets but we held, held and turned them back in rivers of blood—Bells—the Duke called me, Beast, we’re counting on you to deliver us from these eaters of dog-flesh—Bells—he handed me his damask blade brought back from the Holy land, the hilt—Bells—rubies, two cloisonné crosses in turquoise, Jerusalem! Saracen blood!—Bells, bells.
Tim pulled up, unzipped his jacket, brushed the last of the insect corpses from his jacket. Legs planted, a black-gloved hand beating a rhythm like a conductor leading a metallic chorus in the “Ode to Joy.” Bells. Bells. The Cathedral of Learning--Berkeley.
