journey to virginland

Journey To Virginland

Armen Melikian Two Harbors ( October 2010 ) Hardcover $23.95 ( 272pp ) 978-1-935097-51-8

In his ambitious novel Journey to Virginland: Epistle 1 author Armen Melikian serves up a searing commentary on the earth and its inhabitants through the canine eyes of “Dog,” a self-proclaimed canine, and an ethnic Armenian. Dog offers a controversial, Kafkaesque, and somehow matter-of-fact narrative of life as he knows it within the various cultures that he lives during his life. Those who like mind-bending literature and farce, coupled with social commentary and a frankness about the role of sexuality in human relationships, will find this an engrossing, brilliantly crafted read.

It’s immediately evident that Dog’s world is slightly askew in relation to the reader’s: Dog’s world calls the countries we know as Italy, Russia and Afghanistan Alpacinoland, Natashaland, and Binladenland. The US is referred to as Satanland, Pornistan, or Gehenna. Most notably, Dog refers to the region known today as Turkey as Pashaland, Caliphland, and Paradise, which reside within a larger entity, Virginland. The region with which Dog concerns himself most is this very area of Paradise–which the reader will recognize as the Fertile Crescent.

It seems that throughout his travels Dog has been unable to find a place where he (or anyone else) feels he belongs. And perhaps it’s not surprising: After all, he is not human. He is part of a dispossessed, maligned people. He identifies the vicissitudes of society with candor unwelcome to those around him. He questions god, and leadership, and religion.

Indeed, of particular interest in Dog’s story is the welfare and ultimate fate of ethnic Armenians prior to and since the Armenian Genocide (referred to by Dog here as The Holocaust.) During Dog’s examination, he treats the reader to his perception of the incredibly complicated and inexpertly told history of events that have forged today’s political, religious, and geographic reality. Indeed, Melikian’s prodigious writing talent and ability to show the world’s history in a different, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic air, creates an entertaining ride into warring religions, warring cultures, warring sexes, and the histories and raison d’etre behind each.

One not familiar with the geography and history of the world, its many wars, the creation and evolution of its major religions, and the current state of affairs will need to keep Wikipedia on-hand for reference when attempting Journey to Virginland . Melikian is an astonishing writer who teaches his reader about the world and the human condition through tragedy and humor.

Reviewed by Leia Menlove January 10, 2011

Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

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Journey to Virginland - Epistle 1

by Armen Melikian

About the book

At turns heartbreaking and diabolically funny, Journey to Virginland is a tour de force, delivered by a master storyteller. The protagonist, a loutish and uber-cerebral antihero known simply as Dog, takes on the challenge to navigate the perilous paradigm shifts of our age, determined to find his proper place under the sun. Is he doomed to failure? Or will he pull it off by heeding his own irreducible voice, given the ebb of the old certainties? Dog pursues the answer unrelentingly, through an impassioned quest for identity and meaning. He revisits his relationships with women, family, literature, and homeland, in the process illuminating his journey with commentaries on history, religion, politics, and culture that unravel our very fabric. Marked by biting satire and tappings into lushest scholarship, Dog's naked critique touches on some of the most pressing issues facing humanity: the arrogance of empire and organized religion, the persistence of bigotry, xenophobia, and social Darwinism, the double standards of sexual politics, the bankrupt rationale behind patriotism and state propaganda, and hypercapitalism and consumerism, among others. An ocean of struggles and epiphanies takes Dog to a spiritual ground zero called Virginland, where the story unfolds. It is also in Virginland that Dog unearths an ancient calendar based on a cosmic worldview. His discovery reveals the mythological underpinnings of the Zodiac, subverting the current conventional wisdom about the subject.  What emerges from the protagonist's odyssey is not only a cogent depiction of what makes us tick, but, as day follows night, a dazzling new vista for social and spiritual transformation. With its vibrant style, thematic breadth, and, ultimately, unfettered sense of humanity, Journey to Virginland establishes itself as a groundbreaking literary enterprise and a true original.

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Journey to Virginland : epistle 1

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Disturbing the Peace: Journey to Virginland, a Powerful American Novel, Pushes the Boundaries of Contemporary Literature

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 28, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With the forthcoming publication of Journey to Virginland , a new novel by American author Armen Melikian, contemporary literature gains a highly original voice and an irrepressibly spirited work that helps expand the core assumptions of the novelistic enterprise.

In an age of increasing specialization, when much of contemporary literature has in turn become a stultified field of "boutique" works which cater to their own narrow niches of readership, Journey to Virginland establishes itself as a thinking person's novel that not only enchants with a ripping yarn, but frames its storytelling within a vigorous, far-reaching critique of our time's pivotal issues.

Meet Dog: the loutish, witty, well-read, and unapologetically flawed protagonist of Journey to Virginland , our guide in an exuberant quest for clarity and among the unlikeliest antiheroes to ever penetrate the annals of contemporary literature. Dog versus God. Dog versus the world. But also, fundamentally, with and for the world, in vehement search of the spiritual keys to human self-actualization, dignity of action, and fulfillment.

A modern-day Diogenes, Dog begins his odyssey of self-discovery in a fictionalized land, the Republic of Virginland, ground zero of the novel. From here Melikian blasts open a veritable trove of eye-popping circuits and pathways into contemporary literature, interspersing his protagonist's narrative with lucid commentaries on culture, religion, history, philosophy, and the mythological underpinnings which inform them.

Throughout Dog's travels and travails, as he takes the measure of a reconfigured world order in the shadows of global capital, cultural imperialism, the ambitions of organized religion, and gender politics, what gradually yet decidedly takes shape from the critical ardor is a wondrous vision of human transformation, in the process providing fresh definition to the regenerative potential of contemporary literature.

An excerpt from Dog's ruminations:

It was not naked prejudice with which I collided every hour, wondering why I should have been the butt of destiny's whim. This by itself was a mise en scene that impresses a question mark on Nietzsche's forehead: Who is the privileged who can become a superman? Who is the one who can afford culture?

What gives, yao, to vituperate against slave morality instead of beheading the creators of the objective conditions that give rise to slave morality? And how to achieve Schopenhauer's state of painlessness when the whole gamut of social existence has conspired against you from birth to death? The choices are literally between transcendence and self-destruction, even through revolt. And as long as there are oppressors in the world of men, the fake currency of saviors will be in high demand.

With its dazzling thematic scope and sheer storytelling prowess, Journey to Virginland  is in a league with the landmark works of contemporary literature. Given its prescient vision of the shape of things to come, Melikian's novel has been compared to some of the masterpieces of contemporary literature, among them the politically explosive works of George Orwell.

In his review of Journey to Virginland , Paul McCarthy, a New York Times bestselling author and professor of literature at the University of Ulster, Ireland, has written: "In the best sense, I'm reminded of George Orwell's classics, and other authors of similar stature, though there is no true parallel possible with a novel as unique in concept and execution as Journey to Virginland."

Today much of contemporary literature is awash with formulaic works in which originality is for all intents and purposes a function of fashion, ultimately unable to deliver the transformative power which is at the heart of all great art. Melikian's work is a breathtaking exception to the trend, claiming its rightful place in the pantheon of contemporary literature.

Journey to Virginland is set for general release in late 2010. Currently limited copies of the novel, as part of a pre-publication run, are already available and can be purchased through .

About the author: Armen Melikian holds a Master's degree in International Relations from the American University, Washington, DC. He has also studied mathematics at a number of colleges including Harvard. Eschewing a career in either politics or science, he has instead devoted himself to literature since the late 1990s. Journey to Virginland is his first novel. Melikian lives with his wife in Los Angeles.

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Journey to Virginland: Epistle I Paperback – October 19, 2012

• Print length 292 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Trafford on Demand Pub
• Publication date October 19, 2012
• Dimensions 6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 1466961767
• ISBN-13 978-1466961760
• See all details

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From the author, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Trafford on Demand Pub (October 19, 2012)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 292 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1466961767
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1466961760
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.9 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.75 x 9 inches

About the author

Armen melikian.

Armen Melikian (b. 1963) holds a Master's in international relations from American University in Washington, DC. He has also studied mathematics at Harvard and elsewhere, and was admitted by the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University to pursue graduate studies in Analytic Geometry, Mathematical Physics, and Topology. However, he eventually abandoned both politics and mathematics in favor of literature and dedicated his life to writing.

In 2002, Melikian repatriated to Armenia from the United States and for two years studied the Armenian epic tradition. His written observations on the post-Soviet society were obtained by the National Security Service (formerly the KGB) triggering his effective exile from Armenia. The homes of several of his friends were violently intruded to confiscate his manuscripts. His closest friends, including his future wife, were interrogated at the headquarters of the NSS-KGB. She was threatened with prosecution for "treason" should she fail to cooperate--and threatened with assassination should she continue her newspaper column where she had recently introduced Melikian's literary work. The NSS-KGB also invaded the premises of the National Public Radio of Armenia with the intention to arrest a prominent journalist minutes before a program by him was to air on Melikian's work.

Melikian is one of those rare thinkers whose intensity of passion matches their sharp wit and intellect. His poignant observations take to task the core tenets of meta-ideologies and jockeying civilizations, helping to discard layer after layer of entrenched misinformation and dogma.

Melikian brings a fresh, prodigiously layered voice to contemporary literature. He expands the limits of the novel as an art medium, and infuses it with extraordinary urgency and relevance in terms of sociopolitical, cultural, religious, philosophical thought as well as mythological exegesis.

Melikian is the winner of 10 literary awards, including the Written Art Award and an Honorable Mention by ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year, all between 2010 and 2012.

Given its prescient vision of the shape of things to come, Melikian's writing has been compared by critics to some of the masterpieces of contemporary literature, among them the politically explosive works of George Orwell, but more often with those of James Joyce. It has also been compared to Gurdjieff's 'Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson,' and even to the book of 'Revelation.'

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Bibliographic Details

Title: Journey to Virginland - Epistle 1

Publisher: Two Harbors Press, Minneapolis

Publication Date: 2011

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

Edition: First Edition; First Printing.

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Journey To Virginland

Tuesday, march 8, 2011, the book of eli by sam moffie, contemporary literature - where traditional publishing fails, religious frauds and the bible, how to create literary fiction.