True Stories

<p class=ql-align-justify><strong>TRUE STORIES</strong> - three stories of modern life by John Fraser.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong><em>True Stories</em></strong> poses the question: What is modern life? Struggling with bureaucracy getting on and off lists? The protagonist Kochi and his young - then much older - friends engage with love philosophy ... the murder of a lover by the mother of a socialite the centre of the hero's attention: and her reprisal. We follow them their adventures the search for the Great Principle embodied by a fragile ancient who dosses down and dies on his first night in Kochi's dwelling.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Think says the Master but no life seems lived by Thinking. There are wildfires concealed well-shafts a flight by sea: happenstance determined histories. Eventually in a declining night-club the protagonist finds clues a divan to sleep on even work. All human knowledge is examined by Kochi and his new partner the dancer Jahan. Knowledge at last? Maybe ... The hero Kochi leaves by night seeking a new adventure.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong><em>Clap Your Hands</em></strong> traces the search for a relationship taking us from a truncated marriage to Russia passing through Trabzon in Turkey - the hero caged and dispatched like an exotic bird and ending in refuge on the Danube's mouth.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p><strong><em>Smoke</em></strong> addresses the end of life - the narrator's recalling his youth and his first objectives the goals to be reached the satisfaction to be enjoyed - entrusted to him by a sailor in a bar. The ends of life seem trivial when you reach them - like the end of life itself. His end of life is bitter though sometimes he remembers sweetness ... It's lived with the dissatisfied the clueless and the cheats ... and sadness prevails.</p>