Microcosmia

When astonishingly wealthy John Beregard Vane was in his early seventies he went on a year long vacation and came home with a son, Cristian. Because of his advanced age John spent all of his son’s life sick in bed and growing weaker. With no viable father Cris was raised by various vultures masking as family that lived on the vast estate who waited with growing eagerness for John’s imminent death.  In that soulless environment, Cris grew up seeing the darker side of wealth and wanted things to be different.  When his father finally passed away, Cris immediately evicted all the residents on the estate.  Karl, the faithful assistant and only stable person in Cris’s life had a massive heart attack right after his father’s death, sending Cris spiraling into a nervous breakdown. These losses and the sudden responsibility of a vast financial empire solidified his convictions to use his enormous wealth to make the world a better place.

Cris bought some land in Ethiopia where drought and locusts had savagely decimated an already dry and difficult region. Then in what was conceived and called The Mamuset Project, he brought in building equipment, food, and everything that would be needed to build an entire society from the desert up.  He built solar powered huts, a plumbing and irrigation system, and numerous other technological projects. Vast amounts of work and planning went into this complex project and the reader is given a fascinating crash course in housing and urban development. Considerable manpower is needed and the Africans turned out to be willing workers that soon surpassed Cris’s expectations working from sunup to sundown digging trenches for pipes and building homes.

The scope of Cris’s vision is astonishing and with almost unlimited funds at his disposal, what could go wrong? It turned out plenty. Corruption at every level of the Eritrean government threatened to ruin and steal his goods and Cris was forced to negotiate extortion details with another type of vulture.  Back in America, people envious of his wealth accused him of fraud, moral aberration, and innuendo no matter how unfounded.

The truth is more extraordinary. According to a desert wanderer named Xhantu, Cris is infected with a disease called “microcosmia” which he likens to masochism..  The man infected does not take worldliness seriously but rather has successfully freed himself from the bondage of worldly concerns.  Whether by witnessing intense cold-heartedness or by sudden insight, his ego withers and grows “soulful”.

     “Those broken by microcosmia, Mr. Vane, are our genuine artists, our genuine philosophers, and our genuine philanthropists.”

 Ideas presented in this book in a fictional way are truly astounding in their breadth. In fact, I wondered at first if author Ron Sanders was engaging in some sort of solve-world-hunger dream world fantasy. Not so. In fact, he presents almost every possible scenario that would destroy such a vision, even if money were no problem and motives were right. Using fascinating and realistic characterizations he explores both the very good and the very corrupt human soul and what people believe and value turns into actions that can build or destroy.

Ron Sanders has also written Carnival, Freak, Moth in the Fist, Signature, and The Deep End.

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