THE INFINITY WITHIN

In Land’s novel, a young man tries to access his spirituality with guidance from a teacher.

Uncanny events punctuate Gabe’s life: At 6 years old, his hand passes through a toy train he holds; a couple of years later, he floats in a vast abyss after his bedroom walls “[peel] back like layers of paper.” As the years pass, otherworldly events keep happening. Touching a heavy wooden bedframe with one finger, Gabe watches the bed easily slide over, and he walks away unscathed from the collision of his Mustang Mach II with an oncoming pickup truck. In a California coffee shop, searching for meaning in his life, Gabe encounters an older man, Elias, and feels “a hum of presence.” In subsequent meetings held in outdoor locations, such as parks, forest clearings, riverbanks, and meadows, Elias guides Gabe to an understanding of life as a game that we play many times. They consider figures who believed in themselves and overcame doubt, including Jesus, the Buddha, Mother Teresa, Wim Hof, and Elon Musk. After all the dialogues, the hardest work begins: Gabe has learned the rules, but must relinquish the fear and resistance that keep him from achieving full spiritual mastery. Gabe and Elias are the only two characters in this book, and little happens in each chapter aside from conversations. The characters don’t exactly sound like real people as they constantly grapple with elevated concepts such as the soul, god, and karma, but this seems intentional. Rather than inhabiting personalities, they embody roles: pupil and mentor. More conflict might have been beneficial to the story, however, as Gabe is exceptional from the start. Land’s vivid descriptions of nature add engaging flourishes, helping to ground readers between the volleys of intense dialogue; a park where Gabe meets Elias is a “mosaic of tall trees, swatches of green grass, and gravel paths that crunched underfoot.” The text may lead readers to other thinkers (a resource guide is available at the end) while also offering inspiration of its own; the author repeats the new ideas and rules Gabe learns in easy-to-understand, bullet-pointed lists.

An intriguing and informative dialogue that persuasively makes the case that we’re infinite beings.