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Available in Hardback, Paperback and Kindle from Amazon.
Illyrian Fugue by Scott Krieger is an extensively researched alternative history fiction. Written in short sections without chapters, the literary narrative takes us through a war-torn pre-Darwinian and Napoleonic Europe with some magical realism also thrown into the mix. Its style and unreliable narrator leaves this novel open to interpretation which could lead to dynamic group discussion.
This isn’t a light read, as you might expect a book that has taken 15 years to research and create is densely packed with ideas that are in turn lyrically, theatrically and bluntly written. The Illyrian Fugue demands concentration and one slip can leave you going back through the pages to reorient yourself. The author succeeds in creating a fractured and dissociative perspective from our main character, always keeping the reader off balance and unsure of where they are going next, or whether they’re really there at all. I think that the abstract nature of the mind of our main character helps to make the themes within the novel abstract also, and so the reader can reflect on their own stance of war, politics, communication and human nature outside of the book. The author’s intent to create a narrative as far outside himself as he can in order to “play out the psychodramas and understand the story without having to live it” has created an environment that would allow any reader stepping into this world to do the same.
I think that Illyrian Fugue may be enjoyed by anyone looking for a dense literary work to explore and dissect, with plenty of unique qualities offered.
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Illyrian Fugue Synopsis
Available in Hardback, Paperback and Kindle from Amazon.
A 15 year endeavor, Illyrian Fugue is a literary novel meticulously researched from source material to incorporate voices and attitudes from Napoleonic, pre-Darwinian Europe.
Ultimately, it's the author's desire to understand himself that caused him to project himself as far away as possible, so he could play out the psychodramas and understand the story without having to live it. Illyrian Fugue was written out of necessity, looking for balance and trying to understand the legacy of war with a grandfather who served in World War II, a father who served in Vietnam, and what it means to be an American today.
Illyrian Fugue is a powerful exploration of the cost of war, the price of heroism, and ultimately of survival, how to continue after having lost everything. The story is told dissociatively, in fragments. It's ordered, but like a fugue so things are where they need to be musically, like life, like memory, like thought. The narrator is unreliable.... or is he? There are phantasmagoric and even horrific elements couched in a setting riddled with pirates, wolves, hidden treasure, the bottomless pit, the guillotine, real historical figures like the madman Junot; the ruthless information broker and king maker, Fouche; and Napoleon, who never appears in the flesh but whose presence looms over the entire epoch, all told from the fractured point of view of someone who is tumbling through a dissociative episode.
This is a lush, beautiful novel told in fragments that culminate into a story of healing and hope.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781546558972 |
| Publication date: |
10th May 2022 |
| Author: |
Scott Krieger |
| Publisher: |
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Primary Genre |
Literary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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