« A woman arrives in Athens in the height of summer to teach a writing course. Once there, she becomes the audience to a chain of narratives as the people she meets tell her one after another the stories of their lives.
Beginning with the neighbouring passenger on the flight out and his tales of fast boats and failed marriages, the storytellers talks of their loves and ambitions and pains, their anxieties, their perceptions and daily lives. In the stifling heat and the noise of the city, the sequence of noises begins to weave a complex human tapestry, the experience of loss, the nature of family life, the difficulty of intimacy and the mystery of creativity itself. »
Around the table this evening: Sonja, Georg, Sandra and Andrew discuss:
- the front cover and the title ‘Online’
- the type of book: autobiograpy? novel? collection of stories?
- the organizing principle and structrure
- the central character and whether we can empathize with her
- the individual voices we hear
- the insightful comments and sharp observations about life
- the creative writing class
- childhood memories and metaphors
- the rich descriptive style
The informal discussion is punctuated by pieces of music relating to the book:
- L’amour est un oiseau rebelle, from Bizet’s Carmen
- Overture from Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen
- Quatuor pour la fin du temps, Messiaen
- Oniro Demeno (Greece)
