This London, England’s science fiction can only be described as weird, and even that does not describe it adequately. Spanning over one thousand years and based in part on the sizable worldwide perfumery industry’s search for the perfect ingredients to put into their products, it includes mainly such efforts in Seattle, New Orleans and Paris. But it includes people who live for over a thousand years.
The missing ingredient seems to be some product of the lowly beet, mentioned repeatedly, but is elusive.
There is abundant graphic casual sex, and magical encounters, but also deep philosophical musings about the meaning of life and death, with ghosts, nymphs and gods all contributing their thoughts.
Of Buddhist teaching one character comments “They teach that much of existence amounts only to misery; that misery is caused by desire; therefore, if desire is eliminated, then misery will be eliminated… if a person forswears pleasure to avoid misery, what has he gained? A life of neither misery nor pleasure is a empty neutral existence…”
The story is so bizarre that at several points I was almost ready to give up, but then I would encounter beautiful puns and similes such as “He was as nervous as a praying mantis at an atheist’s picnic” or “Death is a mistake” or “ She was thick- thighed, broad- hipped and heavy-breasted but so slender of waist that a snail with a limp could circle her belt-line in two minutes flat.” Or there would be more deep philosophical musings.
One of the most bizarre books I have ever read, but with beautiful almost poetic language, I had trouble giving it a rating, but ended up giving it a 4/5
Thanks, Mike and Dirk.
The Passionate Reader 