The Life Manager and Other Stories

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent ! A book to return to again and again...
Review: The Life Manager and Other Stories

All seven novellas are philosophical pieces on as many kinds of love: from the Donjuanesque or Faustian ones to the political, and further on to the love of writing.

Two Berthas is a story that takes place in busy and money-oriented New York. Mr. Lawrence, a well-to-do businessman, cannot find love because he is neither rich enough, nor cynical enough for a Manhattan woman. Both his Berthas, as many other women in the past, have betrayed him because his love for them had always been financially strained. American life, business-oriented even in love, is depicted with a mildly ironical touch.

Doña Juana is about `Donjuanity' - a trait transmitted from one lover to another like the priest's hassock down the centuries. The erotic plot starts in Manhattan and moves on to an exuberant, luxurious, magical, and lascivious Huatulco in Mexico, where it unfolds itself in the new erotic environment. Mary will become Marianna "poisoned" by Guillermo's thirst for love. He, in his turn will die, but not before passing onto her the Donjuanity that he had acquired from a former deceased lover.

Sparrowulf is about the psychotic aspect of love. Shrike is an architect living in Long Island City, who has decided to spend his life by the Atlantic shore. He loves fishing and at the same time hates women. And he dearly loves the sea. Despite his egocentric disposition, he falls in love with a stranger. But his infatuation about her is consumed mostly in his imagination. Finally, his dream of love comes true when the waves bring him the corpse of the loved one. Blasted by grief, he fastens her limp body to his waist and swims out toward the open sea in a desperate attempt to consume their love on the ocean floor.

On the Road to Formio focuses on the kind of love available to the politician whose fate determines the loved one's fate - as in Marcus Tullius Cicero's case. Helen is a Romanian immigrant to the US who in opposing the brutal Communist regime has relied on Cicero's teachings. She is a professor of Roman civilization who moved to the US after the 1989 coup d'etat. She barely escaped being killed by Ceausescu's henchmen and only Ceausescu's own death stayed her execution. Once in the United States, Helen decides to go to Italy to see Formio, the tomb of the man that fascinated her and about whom she wrote several books. In Gaeta she experiences a strange adventure, and lives through magical events. She encounters two extravagant women (actually goddesses) and Tiramollini - a Cicero alter ego. The new affair brings her to the point of losing her life again. Helen understands that what has decided her life was her fascination with Cicero. His life pattern altered hers. She escapes this pattern by realizing that she had to live her own destiny.

The Loneliness of Magnificent Women works around the pattern of the Harun-al-Rashid kind of love in the Hellenistic novel 1001 Nights with its smart and beautiful women who had been punished by the gods. Paul Larson, an American journalist of New York is thirsty for fame, but rather shallow. He falls in love with a famous and demanding French actress. As all his previous loves, this one is doomed to fail. Yet there is a glimmer of hope that Paul will finally overcome his stereotypes through culture and thereby accept his limitations together with powerful Elsa.

The Life Manager is the quest for love taking place in exotic places, in a Faustian manner. Margaret, Bruno, and Jerome are lured by Baron Marini, a modern Mefistopheles, to go with him, retrieve and bring home a cat and two dogs. Marini urges them to sign "a contract "with him, allowing him to become their life manager. The characters agree to sign it one by one, waiting in exchange for life honor and fame, glory and money. Only Margaret wants Jules back, the love of her life, without whom her life is not accomplished.
To do this they cross several continents and finally fetch the creatures back to Trattoria Grand Ticcino, in the Village, in Manhattan, where the whole adventure started. The setting of the novella will evolve in 36 hours, from Friday to Sunday morning. But because the action spins around the world, practically a whole week is compressed into these 36 hours. The group is earnestly engaged in a quest of discovery, not only to seize the truth of life, but also its essential values.

Epilogue: One More Love Story is about the love of writing. The narrator's voice recounts the adventure of writing in another language. The passion to express one's selfhood overcomes insurmountable barriers. The magic of creation is overcoming all the odds.

All seven novellas are built on several levels of perception and sense, each one being addressed to different levels of audience from the lay person to the very sophisticated one. The style has transparency and clarity which make the message easier to penetrate into the reader's mind.
The highest metaphysic vibrations scintillate with the simplest human feelings.

The novellas are craftily constructed. They rely on a twist at the end, which reveals a well-kept secret and a truth. The reader discovers within the philosophical frame a pattern similar to Boccaccio's The Decameron.

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent ! A book to return to again and again...
Review: The Life Manager and Other Stories

All seven novellas are philosophical pieces on as many kinds of love: from the Donjuanesque or Faustian ones to the political, and further on to the love of writing.

Two Berthas is a story that takes place in busy and money-oriented New York. Mr. Lawrence, a well-to-do businessman, cannot find love because he is neither rich enough, nor cynical enough for a Manhattan woman. Both his Berthas, as many other women in the past, have betrayed him because his love for them had always been financially strained. American life, business-oriented even in love, is depicted with a mildly ironical touch.

Doña Juana is about 'Donjuanity' - a trait transmitted from one lover to another like the priest's hassock down the centuries. The erotic plot starts in Manhattan and moves on to an exuberant, luxurious, magical, and lascivious Huatulco in Mexico, where it unfolds itself in the new erotic environment. Mary will become Marianna "poisoned" by Guillermo's thirst for love. He, in his turn will die, but not before passing onto her the Donjuanity that he had acquired from a former deceased lover.

Sparrowulf is about the psychotic aspect of love. Shrike is an architect living in Long Island City, who has decided to spend his life by the Atlantic shore. He loves fishing and at the same time hates women. And he dearly loves the sea. Despite his egocentric disposition, he falls in love with a stranger. But his infatuation about her is consumed mostly in his imagination. Finally, his dream of love comes true when the waves bring him the corpse of the loved one. Blasted by grief, he fastens her limp body to his waist and swims out toward the open sea in a desperate attempt to consume their love on the ocean floor.

On the Road to Formio focuses on the kind of love available to the politician whose fate determines the loved one's fate - as in Marcus Tullius Cicero's case. Helen is a Romanian immigrant to the US who in opposing the brutal Communist regime has relied on Cicero's teachings. She is a professor of Roman civilization who moved to the US after the 1989 coup d'etat. She barely escaped being killed by Ceausescu's henchmen and only Ceausescu's own death stayed her execution. Once in the United States, Helen decides to go to Italy to see Formio, the tomb of the man that fascinated her and about whom she wrote several books. In Gaeta she experiences a strange adventure, and lives through magical events. She encounters two extravagant women (actually goddesses) and Tiramollini - a Cicero alter ego. The new affair brings her to the point of losing her life again. Helen understands that what has decided her life was her fascination with Cicero. His life pattern altered hers. She escapes this pattern by realizing that she had to live her own destiny.

The Loneliness of Magnificent Women works around the pattern of the Harun-al-Rashid kind of love in the Hellenistic novel 1001 Nights with its smart and beautiful women who had been punished by the gods. Paul Larson, an American journalist of New York is thirsty for fame, but rather shallow. He falls in love with a famous and demanding French actress. As all his previous loves, this one is doomed to fail. Yet there is a glimmer of hope that Paul will finally overcome his stereotypes through culture and thereby accept his limitations together with powerful Elsa.

The Life Manager is the quest for love taking place in exotic places, in a Faustian manner. Margaret, Bruno, and Jerome are lured by Baron Marini, a modern Mefistopheles, to go with him, retrieve and bring home a cat and two dogs. Marini urges them to sign "a contract "with him, allowing him to become their life manager. The characters agree to sign it one by one, waiting in exchange for life honor and fame, glory and money. Only Margaret wants Jules back, the love of her life, without whom her life is not accomplished.
To do this they cross several continents and finally fetch the creatures back to Trattoria Grand Ticcino, in the Village, in Manhattan, where the whole adventure started. The setting of the novella will evolve in 36 hours, from Friday to Sunday morning. But because the action spins around the world, practically a whole week is compressed into these 36 hours. The group is earnestly engaged in a quest of discovery, not only to seize the truth of life, but also its essential values.

Epilogue: One More Love Story is about the love of writing. The narrator's voice recounts the adventure of writing in another language. The passion to express one's selfhood overcomes insurmountable barriers. The magic of creation is overcoming all the odds.

All seven novellas are built on several levels of perception and sense, each one being addressed to different levels of audience from the lay person to the very sophisticated one. The style has transparency and clarity which make the message easier to penetrate into the reader's mind.
The highest metaphysic vibrations scintillate with the simplest human feelings.

The novellas are craftily constructed. They rely on a twist at the end, which reveals a well-kept secret and a truth. The reader discovers within the philosophical frame a pattern similar to Boccaccio's The Decameron.