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17 lives
narrative


Cover picture: Carlos Kellá
November 2018, A5 portrait, linen, dust jacket, chapter tapes, 330 pages
Price: 19.80 EUR | Order
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What does the novel want to tell us, soon to be 330 pages long, wandering through 17 lives, with countless encounters and experiences and countless questions? “Nothing!” Claims the author.

François Maher Presley does not seek understanding, nor does he ask questions to provide answers to the reader. With an unusual power of words and narrative power, he creates identification, he abducts the reader into worlds of experience in many parts of the world and his stories always end where everything begins: When asked about the meaning of life and the search for one's own personality.

Jean David, the protagonist of the novel, has 17 lives, each of which is shaped by an encounter. He can be found in his counterparts and in the end can answer this question for himself. However, he is also aware that this answer is only one that applies to him alone. Every other person has to find his own answers to his questions, has to decide in how many lives he wants to look for them or whether one life alone is sufficient. This book can inspire, in no case does it offer a generally applicable solution.

The present work impresses with its detailed descriptions, which let people and places become pictorial and whose power one can hardly escape. Philosophical questions are translated into everyday life in an understandable way, everyday experiences are questioned and open up interesting possibilities for interpretation. Let yourself be invited to read. Experience “17 Lives” or recognize your own in some of the chapters.

The volume is bound, has 330 pages, DIN A5 high, is provided with a dust jacket and a ribbon bookmark, if only because of the necessary reading breaks.
Opinions

I now have the cover closed 17 lives
viewed and can say again that it is an expressive picture, which tells a lot. I see a man who has either just arrived or is about to go on a journey. Or, it is also possible that he pauses between the starting point and the destination. He ponders life, but he is not disappointed or frustrated because he is looking up. He is focused. The background is also reminiscent of travel, because I recognize rails and rusty steel. The rusty steel is symbolic of the passage of time, including lifetime. It's not a pretty place and he's sitting on packed suitcases. He embarks on a new life, regardless of whether he arrives or departs. Ekkehart Stark, painter
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