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Hard Places consists of three novellas, Red Snow, The Rock and The
Sea. They concern human struggles with Nature and human natures.
Red Snow involves efforts to have the better of chance by gaming,
and the forms of self-discipline this requires. The Rock shows the
eternal certainties of art crumbling into inexplicable absences and
shady deals. The Sea evokes our longing for sumbersion in nature
when we wish to coneal our misdeeds and rejections.
A novel set during a critical point in Soviet history, whose
protagonists are young Soviet intellectuals, bright but not
brilliant, confronting a future threatened with war and stagnation,
but still with the impetus of post-Stalinist regeneration. It is
not a chronicle of that period's debates between neo-Bolsheviks,
Leninists, social and liberal democrats, Trotskyists, Westernisers
and traditionalists. It depicts a more modest but more frequently
encountered search for commitment, for a meaningful political and
social life, in a vast country where light and darkness flicker and
alternate unpredictably. Although it may be categorised as
political fantasy, the real fantasy lies in the collapse of the
aspirations which drove all the protagonists at the time.
John Fraser's Medusa is a stunning fable for our times, in which
the stories of Medusa, the Gorgon and the French ship Medusa are
intertwined to create a Pilgrim's Progress for the 21st century.
'Medusa is a trip, a bending of the legends. It is a symphonic
poem, where at the end, we even hear a few notes of a hymn to joy.
The fragments of myth, legend and belief drift round like harmonies
that seek resolution. But this mode is post-modern, post-Christian;
it is about the end - yet there is no end: it is story. The
resulting tale is an apocryphal blast and a literary tour de force
that uncannily captures the zeitgeist.' (Jean-Paul Bouler) 'In
Fraser's fiction the reader rides as on a switchback or luge of
impetuous attention, with effects flashing by at virtuoso speeds.
The characters seem to be unwitting agents of chaos, however much
wise reflection Fraser bestows upon them; they move with shrugging
self-assurance through circumstances as richly detailed and as
without reliable compass-points as a Chinese scroll.' (John Fuller)
The theme of the three stories that make up John Fraser's brilliant
new literary tour de force 'Animal Tales' is sacrifice. Sacrifice
for others, for those close to one, or as a once-religious,
generalised act. The context is a nature 'personalised' in the form
of its animals - animals as the screen on which humans project
their aspirations and their failures. In the first tale, the female
protagonist suffers a series of disappointments - in her art, her
civilisation, and the violation of her body. There remains for her
only the self-denial and cleansing of consumption by an animal. In
'The White Room', the hero betrays trusts and friendships,
culminating in the seduction of his friend's wife. The gift of an
animal seems to unload the guilt and treachery on to the beast
itself. The Guardians are the fantastic terra cotta animals that
guard Chinese tombs. A powerful boss tries to salve his soul
through a deal with nature. Only the lifeless guardian statues hide
the void, however. The living animals are let down - along with the
humans themselves.
In Runners John Fraser delivers, in his unique, distinct voice, the
story of a kind of redemption - even a kind of utopia - or as much
of a utopia as we can possibly expect, given what we know about
most of our political leaders ... An unelected leader buys the
office of deputy mayor. Although this 'boss' is a monster, he also
has a rare, enlightened side. Where other leaders cling to power,
he runs - but instead of running for office, he runs from office;
he and his friends become the Runners - the running dogs. Runners
is a contemporary remake of Machiavelli's Prince with a nod to
Gramsci's 'Modern Prince', the revolutionary party. It is a tale of
complicity between leaders, the nature of political friendships and
loyalties, the contradictions between leaders and electors, between
democratic rhetoric and practice, the leadership and the base - the
urban and feathered - the volatility, adaptability and motivations
of leaders, and of the pursuit of justice in the personal,
incongruous instance; the machismo of political culture. 'In
Fraser's fiction the reader rides as on a switchback or luge of
impetuous attention, with effects flashing by at virtuoso speeds.
The characters seem to be unwitting agents of chaos, however much
wise reflection Fraser bestows upon them; they move with shrugging
self-assurance through circumstances as richly detailed and as
without reliable compass-points as a Chinese scroll.' (John Fuller)
Two novellas by John Fraser, Blue Light and Starting Over, conclude
a quadrilogy whose previous volumes comprised The Red Tank, Runners
and Medusa. We may like to imagine what the end of the world is
like - it's not dissimilar to our own end. Blue Light shows what
it's like, the running down, the onset of rigor mortis - and the
new life sprouting, notwithstanding. Living for ever may not be too
bad - but do you really want it? When the world has ended, how
attractive is rebirth, or resurrection? Starting Over may mean you
have to piece a whole new world together - just using the ruins of
the past. The poet John Fuller writes: 'In Fraser's fiction the
reader rides as on a switchback or luge of impetuous attention,
with effects flashing by at virtuoso speeds. The characters seem to
be unwitting agents of chaos, however much wise reflection Fraser
bestows upon them; they move with shrugging self-assurance through
circumstances as richly detailed and as without reliable
compass-points as a Chinese scroll.'
The latest tour de force in speculative fiction from John Fraser.
The 'Military Roads' of this book, which consists of three tales
running consecutively, are, first, the adventures of a narrator
following the fortunes of a leader of a revolution in a distant
country: second, a journey starting in the 'military road' which in
Soviet times and before, ran from Moscow to the Caucasus: and
finally, a mission undertaken from Italy, through North Africa,
with the aim of recruiting a private army of bodyguards for a
global tycoon. The narrator's amorous adventures, and his struggles
to survive these radical shifts of place, commitment and
perspective, conclude with a sweet-and-sour relationship with his
boss's partner, and a precarious acceptance of traditional
religious practices. The military roads, it is supposed, will
continue to be travelled, with results which never achieve a
lasting resolution, but provide temporary satisfaction for some, at
least, of the protagonists.
"The Red Tank" is a contemporary literary novel by a dazzlingly
inventive writer looking anew at the human project in the
globalized 21st century as though from a Martian point of view,
through myths, fables, utopias, and dystopias of modern and future
life.
A novel about political commitment and liberation, set around the
year 1968 and reflecting the high season of Guevara in Bolivia and
attempts to insert a revolutionary 'foco' in places where objective
conditions were politically ripe, but where the subjective element,
and the most rudimentary organisation, were absent. The would-be,
self-transforming saviour pays with his life (and that of his
comrades) in a situation where rectitude is on his side but the
situation quite beyond his reach. Instead of violence, this
political fable presents organisation, as against movimentismo, as
a possible vehicle for the chiliastic transformation.
A selection of short stories and poems together with the novella
'Black Masks'.
An Illusion of Sun is the first of John Fraser's 14 novels (12
published, two forthcoming). 'I wanted to do a novel that smelled
of fascism (I hope not a fascist novel ) -' Fraser says '- the
slaughterhouse, the canals, the fruit - every kind of South and
Central European fascism, from Franco to Tiso and Dolfuss, its
impregnation of other discourses, from "democracy" to "socialism."
It was intended to show how that virus had penetrated the
bourgeoisie, its philosophy and its theorists, the ornamental style
itself the modesty veil thrown over.' The novel is located in a
Slavonic Venice, a city in a state of decline. Perrina attempts to
salvage her decaying palazzo both from the depradations of time and
the ambiguous bureaucrats who seem to have designs on her as well
as on the mansion. Torgano establishes a difficult and masochistic
relation with Perrina, her concerns - and the city itself. A
liberation seems to lie in leaving her and the city, but will this
resolve anything? Of Fraser's unique writing, the distinguished
poet John Fuller has commented: 'In Fraser's fiction the reader
rides as on a switchback or luge of impetuous attention, with
effects flashing by at virtuoso speeds. The characters seem to be
unwitting agents of chaos, however much wise reflection Fraser
bestows upon them; they move with shrugging self-assurance through
circumstances as richly detailed and as without reliable
compass-points as a Chinese scroll.'
John Fraser's last work of fiction, Hard Places, was a series of
novellas concerning physical and moral dilemmas, left unresolved at
the expense of the protagonist. This sequel, Soft Landing, is the
opposite - a novel of quest and adventure, in which scruple is
overcome, and demanding or impossible situations have outcomes
favourable to the hero. The trail takes us from urban violence to
Eldorado, the regime of a bikers' club, and the secret finds of a
prospectors' camp. The last section shows all puzzles solved, and
the protagonists' return home with gifts. In keeping with the
tale's sour vision of a crumbling present, the landing though soft,
is not pleasant.
In John Fraser's latest novel, Down from the Stars, an assistant to
a distinguished astrophysicist, is tormented by the fate of the
Soviet space dog, Laika, incinerated above the earth. Losing the
confidence of his master, and losing his girlfriend, he is
increasingly drawn into local political life. Having an affinity
with the arts, he becomes responsible for the policy of art
tourism, which, with organised crime, is the speciality of the
place. After many adventures and disasters, and growing complicity
with criminality, a new boss forces him and his associates to
leave. Destitute, and disillusioned with science and art, he makes
an approach to nature, visiting an African wildlife lodge. He is
joined by an associate, a former dancer. Together, he decides, they
will rise again, and resume their destinies as 'stars.'
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