Bicycles of the Gods: A Divine Comedy

Spoiler Warning

Review by Wally Swist

Early in reading Michael Simms’ new novel, Bicycles of the Gods: A Divine Comedy, I heard a tone so distinct that I realized I hadn’t heard in years—that being one of true satire. Reminiscent of Miguel de Cervantes’ sweeping picaresque adventure Don Quixote, Joseph Heller’s bawdy joyride of a book portraying the Pons asinorum of the atomic age, Catch-22, and most specifically the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, especially his character Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Michael Simms has produced a lollapalooza of a novel regarding the apocalypse in his Bicycles of the Gods.

Arriving in the wake of shootings in America, the strongarm of ultra-conservatism being flexed, and the intrinsic issue of women’s rights in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the publication of Simms’s novel couldn’t be timelier.

In regard to political evangelism in America, Simms is clearer. His novel is a satire, and this genre self-propels itself in pulling down the antediluvian beliefs no longer operative or optimal and instituting a new system of beliefs, albeit based on the old, that serve with felicity. Simms creates a satirical drama weaving the reincarnations of Jesus, Saint Michael, and Shiva as twelve-year-old boys. They are not white but dark-skinned. They are not manly but Godly or angelic.

Although Bicycles of the Gods doesn’t draw on the Gnostic Gospels per se, it does serve as a kind of addenda to them in arc and tone. “The Old Man,” as God is referred to, and Lucifer, his brother, resemble congressmen in tailored suits and well-shined shoes. In response to God and Lucifer teaming up to destroy the world once every ten thousand years, a cast of characters assembles to save The City of Angels and the rest of the world.

Colorful characters emerge in Simms’s writing, such as the Mexican clairvoyant Maria Nazarene (Mary, the mother of Jesus), the Six Sisters of the Pistons (a motorcycle contingent of elderly nuns), and two inventions of this novelist who remain perhaps the most memorable, the homeless poet, Stefan Jozsef, and the social worker who falls in love with him, Christina O’Malley. But the main players are the three pubescent boys, Jesse (Jesus), Mikey (Saint Michael), and Xavi (Shiva), who are precocious but deified, immortal but prone to human characteristics, wise but fallible, superannuated but divine.

Why is a satire regarding the apocalypse described as neo-gnostic? Simply because Jesus, or the lesser divinity to that of God the Father, truly does become the emissary of the supreme being who delivers esoteric knowledge (gnosis) and is enabled to do so by his redemption in the human spirit—not only as per definition of Gnosticism but also in Jesus’ second coming, as portrayed in Bicycles of the Gods. Why is this work a resurrection of the great American novel? It is because Michael Simms has lived his own dream in writing a book that blends the imaginative force of three boys riding souped-up bicycles that they can call up in an instant, and who in a spirit similar to Miguel de Cervantes are quixotic in their peripatetic meanderings around The City of Angeles and the realm of the patriarchs, God and Lucifer. In their attempt to carry out the orders from the Empyrean, or Hell, as it may be: Mikey is always the intercessor, while kind Jesse loves people too much to destroy them, and imperturbable Xavi, the destroyer, is more than willing to level one city after another with the flinch of a face muscle or a flick of his wrist, sending a minor earthquake through the streets of The City of Angels despite the protests of Jesse and Mikey.

The homeless poet Stefan Jozsef and his kelpie, named Dharma, may be the true heroes of the book. Stefan spent two years unfairly imprisoned in Leavenworth for helping a fellow soldier with an alibi for murder while in Afghanistan, and has been homeless for a couple of years. However, it is through his eyes that we view American society keenly, nearly non-judgmentally, and almost stoically through his wanderings with Dharma and their routines to pick up food where and whenever they can, from soup kitchens to McDonalds’ waste barrels. It is also through Stefan’s vision, mind, and soul that his poems emerge, such as this prayer, which becomes one of Jesse’s favorites:

Our Father who art in flowers
In the corner of the birds/ in the heart
Of compassion/ in charity
In patience and forgiveness
Our Father who art in me
Rid me of evil/ of violence
Rid me of pain/ of heartache
And disappointment/ But still
When such difficulties are necessary
Give me strength and courage
To say Thank you Father
For this lesson

Not unlike Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ, Simms portrays Jesus, in the character of Jesse, as being human as well as divine, and provides us with a scene in which Jesse recoils against “The Old Guy” for having had him crucified two thousand years ago. As unrelenting as this may be, God, and his brother, Lucifer, make Jesse pay the price of his rebelliousness by having him crucified yet again during this Second Coming. However, what neither one of them expect is that because he has atoned once again for humans and humanity, he is able to overthrow Lucifer’s power and release all the souls lost in hell. This may at first seem a stretch, but it is Michael Simms at his best, allowing us to see a new vision for all those who live in the world.

Bicycles of the Gods is not without its righteously caustic categorizations in a cosmological arrangement of souls in levels of both heaven and hell, reminiscent and worthy of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Richard Nixon and Donald Trump are placed in relationship to each other and their crimes, which makes the reader question what has become of the heart of America, as in this dialogue between Luke and Lucifer:

“ …The rules have been far too lenient.  You know that Richard Nixon was sent back to earth after completing the program in Purgatory and look what a disaster he caused.

True, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as Donald Trump whom you let escape from Hell.  What is he, a rogue demon of some kind?  You really need to keep a tighter leash on your employees.”

What is apocalyptic about Bicycles of the Gods? The confrontation of the migrants led by The Six Sisters of the Pistons and other martyrs with the police and their batons, the likes of the Proud Boys, and members of the KKK at the battle at Otay Bridge. Simms doesn’t let the reader off easily in a book that can be described as enjoyable as any of Vonnegut’s major novels. The leitmotif repeated again and again is that anything worth having is at a price, and we need to recognize that in our lives and our actions. Marta, who lost a hand in Afghanistan, comes away with a broken arm from the conflict; Birdie, a character described as one of the best women in the world, loses her life; Stefan and Christina are knocked unconscious. However, the confrontation of the immigrants is televised for the whole world to see and makes a difference for everyone everywhere. The apocalypse is avoided due to Jesse’s crucifixion, and Xavi decides to stand behind Jesse and not destroy the world.

What is apocalyptic is Jesse leading the souls out of hell. What is apocalyptic is Jesus’ Second Coming. What is part of that apocalyptic vision is Stefan becoming the director of a halfway house for souls who are not ready to follow Jesus into the light. Bicycles of the Gods is certainly not without its ascending arcs as well as its leitmotif portraying the spiritual maxim. To paraphrase the medical intuitive Caroline Myss, that “if what’s in the box is worth having, then the price is worth paying.” Michael Simms may have written as many happy endings in Bicycles of the Gods as Julian Fellowes has penned in Downton Abbey: A New Era Begins.

We, as Americans, can’t accept blatant murder in our streets, schools, and shopping areas, but concomitantly aren’t able to prevent slaughter due to a minority conservative party entrenched in warfare for the sake of money and power. However, Michael Simms’s great American novel offers lessons and not just escapism. It substantiates the dream that all people are created equal, whatever the color or creed, that hope is not only eternal but also that the Second Coming can offset any Apocalypse—if we are willing to pay a price that is worthy of our freedom and an integrally righteous way of living our lives.

It is apt to end with a passage reminiscent of the protests of the 1960s to portray the true spirit of this book and how much of that spirit soars:

the state troopers and national guardsmen who were backed up by the Proud Boys, the KKK members, The Bugaloo Bois—rowdies and racists all. And still the crowd marched toward them. And behind them, 30,000 migrants marching toward their freedom. Aretha raised her voice:

Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.