Here's the story of the 'Hurricane Notebook'

Set in Wilmington, philosophical novel expects a lot from you, but offers plenty of rewards for those who wade into its maelstrom.

Philosophical fiction generally takes two forms.

There’s the “Socratic dialogue,” perfected by Plato in “The Republic” and elsewhere, when someone (generally Plato’s mentor, Socrates) guides his straight man through a number of philosophical hoops and a series of questions.

Then there’s the series of parables, as Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in “Also Sprach Zarathustra.”

“The Hurricane Notebook,” set in and around Wilmington, combines bits of the two with a more conventional novel form.

The premise: a notebook was discovered, wrapped in plastic, near a fishing pier in the vicinity of Topsail Island. The manuscript was allegedly written by one “Elizabeth M.,” a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina who was apparently stranded by a hurricane. (The dating is a little obscure, but we’re told that one section is written on “Aug. 30, a Thursday,” which could put it in 2018, the year of Hurricane Florence.)

A remarkable person, this Elizabeth M. Growing up in Greenville, N.C., where her father was a county prosecutor, she took ballet for a number of years, became a chess master and, along the way, acquired a deep knowledge of Greek and Roman writers and modern philosophers.

In her spare time, she works in a comic book shop.

The notebook came into the possession of Alexander Jech, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, who had it transcribed and edited it with a series of footnotes to the more obscure allusions.

One can see why Jech was drawn to Elizabeth. (Getting to know her, you see why she could never be a “Betty” or a “Liz.”) Like Socrates, she likes to spark arguments and snipe at unexamined premises. Underneath her armor, however, Elizabeth carries a burden of guilt.

She mourns her younger sister, Sarah, who drowned like Ophelia in the Cape Fear River. Apparently, Elizabeth blames herself for Sarah’s death. She also misses her old dance partner, Joshua, a healthy, muscular specimen, but apparently not the brightest bulb in the box.

Elizabeth suspects she is beyond redemption and searches, a little frantically, for some proof to the contrary.

Her motto, at least initially, is “gnothi seauton” (Greek for “know thyself”). But a non-philosophical literary type has to wonder how well Elizabeth lives up to that and what self-delusions she hasn’t detected. She knows Pascal, but perhaps hasn’t learned the weight of Pascal’s dictum, “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”

She notes that her two passions, ballet and chess, are based on the principle of reducing chance, or randomness, to a minimum. Yet Chaos keeps poking through the chinks and rearing its ugly head.

“The Hurricane Notebook” is published by Wisdom/Works, the imprint of philosopher-author Tom Morris. Fans of Morris’s books for the general public, however, may be in for a shock.

Neither Elizabeth nor Jech take prisoners. This is hardcore, brain-crunching philosophizing. At one point, Elizabeth even pulls out some notation from mathematical logic. Readers should be prepared to sweat.

Yet there are consolations. A sense of humor lurks beneath the surface. At one point, one of Elizabeth’s old chess partners turns Camus on his head and remarks, “One must imagine Ahab happy.”

At one point, during an argument in the comic book store, orthodox Christianity is represented by Harper, a vending machine attendant from out in the country who talks like Li’l Abner but then pulls out quotations from the German theologian Karl Barth.

Jech shows at least a passing familiarity with Wilmington. Elizabeth walks the Riverwalk, has stopped at the Causeway Cafe (since closed) and, judging from references to the Kenan Fountain, might live in the Carolina Apartments.

Elizabeth also spots signs, though, of the Feast of the Pirates, an old-time Wilmington celebration that petered out during the Great Depression. Perhaps, if she exists, Elizabeth lives in an alternate universe.

Contact Ben Steelman at 910-343-2208 or peacebsteelman@gmail.com.