The Rozabal Line

What is the thing Ashwin is trying to create, here is a time machine that takes you back and forth over two thousand years and a high in space swing that tosses you between continents in a second and a giant roller coaster to keep flinging you topsy-turvy for the full length of the fictional journey.

The central thread is the apocalyptic events being plotted spread all over the globe running in parallel to the apocryphal revelations after revelations of the prophets and Gods of the religions likely being same or clones or derivatives of one another. Ashwin could have written a Wikipedia on Religions Interlinked, with the amount of information on this topic he has accumulated.

He has unearthed thousands of terminology, ideology, legends and migrations to drive home the belief that even the most seemingly unrelated religions were in fact one and the same! It is wonderful and amazing to encounter a number of encyclopedic lists but they also stretch too much after a while.

The long list of conspiracy theory killings are like reading a scrapbook, the genealogical string of information about Issah (Jesus) and later are academic, and the build up to monthly terror attacks by individual sleepers is rambling, could have been condensed to deliver a more crispy output. All through the narrative, continual dropping of road names, geographical details, street names and names of menu card items of eatables and drinks, even of tea or coffee, doesn’t matter for the story telling and one is tempted to skip such trivia.

The many past lives of Vincent Sinclair and the many and various deaths of the apostles and saints become too long and predictable hence do not excite beyond the threshold. It’s a mind boggling, head spinning mythical ride that is awaiting the readers. The climax is the three entities of The Rozabal Line enlightening Vincent Sinclair about the fundamental idea the book is about.