When I started publishing books with the Bock Saga at its centre, I was hit by two tsunamis simultaneously. There was one tsunami of praise and one of criticism. They both hit me by surprise. I learned that the Bock Saga, that claims to be a ‘matter of fact’ story, invokes strong emotions with people. It is of course nicer to be praised than criticized, but it anyway meant the books were read and felt with passion. Can an author ask for more?
The criticism is mostly about not being factually accurate enough, or even to be totally besides the truth. Someone said to me that he expected more political statements in the Bock Saga book. That wondered me, but I took it as a compliment, because I spend a lot of time with Michel and Kevin to wash out personal opinions and speculations and limit ourselves strictly to the story that Ior Bock heard from his mother and auntie.
To not be fully correct is a logic result of writing a fantasy, like in Temporarily Insane. Some people complained they were in the book (they were not, there are only fantasy characters). Others complained they were not in it.
The book ‘The End of Paradise” falls in the genre of fantasy. What else to expect than untrue facts?
Enough now of what people think of my work. Let me tell you how I got to write about the Bock Saga, how I got stuck in it, and what my aim with each work was.
In 2015, after my father died, I thought it was time for me, as the only survivor in my family of my generation to write down the story of my life. It is a tradition in my family to do so. I have read the life stories of many generations before me. They were different times for them, being aristocratic colonial traders at the pinnacle of power, or slaves in concentration camps in WW2.
I lived a different life, that of being an outcast of society, a hippie, a punk, a freak or whatever name could be given to me and my ‘lost generation’. I thought my only audience for my writings would be my son and maybe his children, if he would have any.
I never wrote a book before and thought of an easy way to write one. I started to make a list of anecdotes of interesting things that had happened. Then I remembered that strange story of the Bock Saga. It was much more interesting and important than my own story. I approached Michel several times with the idea to write it down. He was very reluctant, but finally conceded when his defences were low when he fell 8 meters from a scaffolding and broke his foot, which glued him to his couch for half a year.
I thought it was important to preserve the Bock Saga for future generations. It was the only creation story and detailed history of mankind that had more credibility than any fairy tale or religious story. The first generation of Bock Saga afficionado’s, who heard the story directly from Ior Bock, was ageing. They would soon die out and might suffer dementia before that. There was not much time left to do it. I worked five years long with Michel and Kevin, who had an enormous wealth of facts in their heads but had trouble to organise it all in a comprehensive story. After five years of hard labour “The Bock Saga, an Introduction” was ready for publication.
In between the telling of the Bock Saga in Kevin’s tipi, I heard many stories of adventures they had in the years that they had travelled the world and had listened to Ior’s stories. I investigated the numerous scandals that were told by the hysteric Finnish press, mainly the Sanoma media group, who’s leader took it as a personal quest to defame Ior and his Saga. (Wasn’t Finland populated by very cool, calm, and collected people?) I put all kinds of non-Bock Saga related anecdotes of that time and places in the mix and invented the characters that experienced the adventures and endured the scandals and came up with the book ‘Temporarily Insane’. There are not many books around that tell of this exceptional counterculture in Goa in this particular time frame. The book is factual not correct but intends to capture the atmosphere of the time.
I wrote the book ‘Cliff Barber and the Flower of Life’ because during the tipi sessions it came up that Cliff discovered a mathematical pattern dripping with meaning within the Bock Saga and especially its first language on the planet, the Root. Not only did he theorise these sounds and meanings into a comprehensive system, but he expressed them in extremely beautiful and colourful drawings. The only criticism on this book came from myself. I thought some of the drawings deserved a better quality scan. All pictures were taken by a professional camera, but out of hand in the Greek sun. At the time it couldn’t be done better.
The book “The End of Paradise” is an experiment. I always felt that the sceneries of the Bock Saga would make great stages for actual people to have their adventures. The Bock Saga does not speak of individual people in the Paradise time, nor the Altlandis time. I invented them in this fantasy book. I tried to be correct in a Bock Saga way, but fantasised where the Bock Saga is not specific. It is meant as an example what could be done with the Saga, with the aim of more easily spreading the ideas of the Saga and enjoying them. In this respect the book has been a failure; very little of them are sold. But to preserve my ego: Most people who read it liked it and wanted more stories of this kind. But I still hope other, maybe better authors will take my example and write fantasy stories within the world of the Bock Saga.
The fifth book is called ‘The Squatters Gang’. It is again of another genre; the “magic realism’, as my editor assured me. Laws of nature are broken all the time. And although it is the most autobiographic of the series, nothing that my characters endure in this story truly happened. Again, I just tried to picture as real as possible the atmosphere of that time. I am still contemplating if I will publish it or just keep it for my son to read.
So here we have five books with the Bock Saga at its center. They are each of a different genre. I hoped, from a tactical point of view, that at least one of them would catch the attention of the mainstream public. The publicity around them really caught on but did not lead to book sales. I will now stop the publicity on the social media and newspapers. I do not want to stretch any further the friendship with my old friends, who spend their lives studying and digging for the treasures of the Lemminkäinen temple and never liked the glitzy publicity I made. They were probably right after all.
It is time to think over my strategy and tactics. I might just help the new generation a little bit with the excavations, or I will do some more paintings on the Bock Saga themes like this one. Or I’ll do some youtube and signal channels, or I just retreat from it all and be happy with the contributions I made in preserving the Bock Saga, which is until now:
The story that everyone is waiting for
But no one wants to listen to.