Jepson, “BYUCK!” (Reviewed by Julie J Nichols)


Review
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Title: Byuck!  A novel
Author: Theric Jepson
Publisher: By Common Consent Press
Date: 2023 (or 2012, 2022)
Pages:  343
ISBN: 978-1-948218-72-6
Cost (paperback): $10.95 (on Amazon)

Reviewed for the Association for Mormon Letters by Julie J. Nichols

As a person who swore a few years back never to teach freshman comp again (phyoo!—a word that shows up more than once in Byuck! describing exactly how I feel about teaching freshman comp ever again), I was amazed to discover that as I wended my way through Byuck! I kept thinking of thesis questions I could encourage freshman comp students to come up with about it. Even worse, I kept imagining the thesis statements they might feasibly come up with to answer those questions. (But should they? Would they? I doubt it…)

Such as:

Thesis question #1: Although the cover declares Byuck! to be a novel, exactly what kind of novel is it? In other words, what is its genre?

Thesis statements imaginary freshman comp students might come up with:

  1. Although some say it is a novel, I say that Byuck! is satire. The dictionary defines satire as “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues” (https://www.google.com/search?q=define+satire). In this paper I will present about thirty dozen examples of humor, irony, exaggeration, and ridicule that prove that Jepson is out to expose…well…certain stupidities and vices in the context of…well…BYU. Although that doesn’t mean he’s exposing his characters’ stupidities and vices. Quite the contrary, in fact. His characters are actually likeable and flawed, not stupid or evil. Surprisingly, these are not the same.
  2. Although some say (etc), Byuck! is postmodern. The Internet offers five characteristics of postmodernism: Embrace of randomness, [rejecting] the idea of absolute meaning and instead [embracing] randomness and disorder; …Playfulness; …Fragmentation; …Metafiction; and Intertextuality (https://www.masterclass.com/articles/postmodern-literature-guide). In this paper I will show how this novel exhibits each of these five characteristics, some of them in, like, spades. It taught me a lot about postmodernism, in fact, about which I had many doubts and fears. In some ways this is a book about doubts and fears, in fact, so we could say postmodernism is what this book is a bout. I mean about.
  3. Although some say that Byuck! is satire and/or postmodern, I say that it is a love story of unusual proportions. Plain and simple. And if you need me to explain why in words of one syllable, I probably can. And probably will.

Thesis Question #2: What about the names in this book? “Plantree”? “Curses”? “Ref”? “Dave”?  “Them”?

Thesis Answers, feasibly:

  1. The names in this book are totally symbolic. The Plantrees plant trees, symbolic trees I mean, giant sequoias of ideas in the protagonist’s mind. Then the trees take root. The book could never end as it does if not for Mr. Plantree.
  2. “Curses” is totally meaningful. Just think about what curses do to people—scare them, injure them, wake them up to their worst sins. Curses does them all. Yeah.
  3. “Ref.” Well, she plays sports, which is why her family nicknamed her that. But also, Thesaurus.com gives as synonyms for referee such words as “judge,” “arbitrator,” “conciliator.” In this paper I will give examples in which Referee can be said to be acting in any of these roles and show why this is important to the intertextually satirical themes of the book.
  4. Dave? Think of all the Davids. Especially that giant naked one. The friend group does something with Michelangelo somewhere in the middle of the book, so, allusions.
  5. We live in a time of gender exploration. That the protagonist’s name is “Them” causes the reader to not be able to avoid this potentially controversial situation, even though the book is set in an institution that does a lot to try to avoid it. I am just really sure this is why his name is “Them.”

Thesis Question #3: What about all those changes in point of view? What’s that supposed to mean? Or do?

Thesis Answers, feasibly:

  1. Although some may say that shifting points of view is a characteristic of postmodernism, in this paper I will show that just as all people have many conflicting voices in their heads, so Dave and his friends have to look at all the weird BYU cultural tics from many angles in order to get a handle on them and get things under control. Which is why that song near the end, about control. Just one example of the many instances of change in point of view.
  2. Some of these shifts in point of view aren’t really changes in point of view, they’re actual stories the protagonist makes up. (This is “metatextual,” one of the characteristics of postmodernism, which ties in to this somewhat.) Sometimes these stories are in third person and sometimes they’re in first, but they’re all from the protagonist’s point of view, which is very literary, right? Because the protag is an English major. Like Garrison Keillor. Otherwise you wouldn’t believe he knew what he was doing. But I’m here to tell you in this paper that yes he does. You can tell because the stories are so cleverly tied in to the main storyline, which I will prove in this paper.
  3. That one chapter with all the memory paragraphs? That’s backstory, or understory, or dimensionality, which “dimensionality” they talk about later. Especially Peter’s non-Aware memory paragraph and Ref’s Aware non-memory paragraph. These add a lot of dimension without which the story would be a lot more flat. Watch for it.
  4. The rock opera! That has to be in there, it’s the title of the book! So of course there’s a whole bunch of sections that are in rock opera point of view! And they are hilarious. Which brings us to the next thesis question.
  5. Thesis Question #4: the rock opera! Is it for real?

Thesis answers, feasibly:

  1. Of course it’s for real. Our teacher says she knew tons of people when she was an undergraduate at BYU who wrote stuff like that. The called their version of the rock opera “The Parsley Party,” which they now denounce as piffle, but it entertained our teacher in her undergraduate days, just as it entertains the friend group in this book, though her undergraduate days were a lot earlier in time than the protagonists of this book. Still, the idea is the same, which is another reason to keep reading this book even after the potentially off-putting beginning which is off-puttingly full of BYU stereotypes from the year 2000, which were true even when our teacher was there, and how long can anyone go on with those? Yike. Nevertheless it works. That rock opera device. In this paper I will show you how.
  2. Hey, it’s something else how the rock opera echoes and reverberates all the stuff that’s happening in their real lives. Which is real and which is the rock opera? (That may look like a question, but I swear that is what I’m going to explore in this paper.).
  3. B Y U C K. Look at it slowly. (Get it? Get it!) In this paper I will show how this title, the title of the rock opera, tells you exactly how to read this book.
  4. In this paper I will show that the rock opera is a microcosm of the macrocosm of the book because it is sharply observant and cynical and it ricochets from one belief to another although it ends up surprisingly tender and sweet.

Thesis Questions #5 and #6: What about the audience? I mean, who is the audience? What I really mean is, can a reader kind of hate BYU and still keep reading this book all the way to Chapter Forty-Four and beyond?

Thesis answers, feasibly:

  1. In this paper I will show that all audiences will keep reading to the end and beyond. There is a great little speech at the end about the (not-really-)sequel, and then a few pages of said sequel, and an author bio besides, and the reader will keep turning the pages just because they enjoyed the story and all its digressions so much and they don’t want to leave it quite yet. I will show how this is a real compliment to the author. It’s what all writers really want to do and he did it.
  2. In this paper I will show that this book does not make anyone not-hate BYU. Although it certainly allows continued hate, it also sort of lets the reader forgive BYU, just as they can forgive themselves for all the late-adolescent angst they still project onto that particular site. Now if that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is.

This is me again. See what those freshman comp students could do with Byuck! ? What I must conclude is that readers will be surprised at how much they enjoy this book and will unexpectedly think positively about things they pretty much had promised themselves they would never think positively about again. Which can, ultimately, be an unexpectedly okay thing, Phyoo.