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The Beach
John Fraser
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R576
Discovery Miles 5 760
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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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)
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Koi Pond
Jim Stephens
Paperback
R283
Discovery Miles 2 830
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