Conatus means "inner striving," which is taken by the author to be the essential phenomenon, and sadly the central problem, of life. "Conatus" reflects in the novel form much of the philosophy of the nineteenth century thinker Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer wrote in his magnum opus, "The World as Will and Idea," that a blind and rapacious Will to Live drives all life forward irrationally and toward no good end. Baroff asserts much the same in this novel: Conatus seems to correspond to Schopenhauer's will. But where the German philosopher looks to aesthetics for release, Baroff's protagonist, a former Catholic priest, looks somewhere else. His solution to the problem of Will is radical but logical, perhaps found in the Jain teachings of the ancient Indian Mahavira. "Conatus" is not an easy read. The motivations of the characters are often obscure and the finer philosophical points are not easy to understand. The narrative lacks realistism in that the novel's individuals are far more reflectively pensive than are real people--as with Herman Hesse, the personalities in the book are partially metaphorical. Yet the plot is tightly drawn; like a spiral, it starts out in many places, but comes together nicely by the end. Given that the book is under 200 pages, I thought that the architecture of the novel was well crafted in weaving several strands together so deftly. I found Conatus' pessimism refreshing as a kind of antithesis to the easy optimism of American culture. Baroff does not sell out, but remains true to his dismal vision to the end. I look forward to the author's development intellectually and spiritually. Near the end of the novel he gives the reader a brief, mystical vision that, perhaps, can serve as a window of hope.

For in your face surrealism, combining the mundane with the bizarre, the horrifying with the hilarious, nothing can compare with David Baroff's powerful first novel Conatus. Through his masterful and highly distinctive prose, Baroff explores the forces of madness and chaos at work in our lives. Conatus also provides a compelling examination of consciousness, fully alive and embodied in our existence. Conatus is like a fractal in progress. It assembles and deconstructs itself over and over again, according to apparently random forces that afflict the characters from out of the void. Like us, they struggle to obtain more than a passing glimpse of the order governing existence. That their attempts are essential to a human existence, despite being inevitably incomplete and incoherent, is the tension that drives this potent post-modern tale.