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See details on Amazon. | T. L. Hulsey's first eBook publication of short stories models loosely on Goethe's West-östlicher Diwan, a diverse collection that sought to bring together the Near East and the West. However, the author sets out a far more ambitious scheme, a reconciliation not just between himself and his own mortality, but between humankind's aspirations and its ultimate purpose – and this over the course of six millennia, from 3,000 B.C. to sometime in the next century. The 12 stories possess the compactness of poetry, and in about 100 pages manage a feat of diversity, not only in style but in content as well. There is the Irish heroic style in Zuleika, a peculiar Biblical style in Reflection, a Faulknerian humor in Paradise, a mephistophelian frenzy in Parables, and the futuristic in Cupbearer. There are tales of a talking dog (Ill Humor), of the revivifying dead (Love), of the inner life of a murderer (Parsees), and more. All are compact with subtle literary references, from Edgar Allan Poe's William Wilson to Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. |