An Illusion of Sun

De: John Fraser

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

An Illusion of Sun is the first of John Fraser’s 19 novels (18 published, one forthcoming). ‘I wanted to do a novel that smelled of fascism (I hope not a fascist novel!) –’ Fraser says ‘– the slaughterhouse, the canals, the fruit – every kind of South and Central European fascism, from Franco to Tiso and Dolfuss, its impregnation of other discourses, from “democracy” to “socialism”. It was intended to show how that virus had penetrated the bourgeoisie, its philosophy and its theorists, the ornamental style itself the modesty veil thrown over.’ The novel is located in a Slavonic Venice, a city in a state of decline. Perrina attempts to salvage her decaying palazzo both from the depradations of time and the ambiguous bureaucrats who seem to have designs on her as well as on the mansion. Torgano establishes a difficult and masochistic relation with Perrina, her concerns – and the city itself. A liberation seems to lie in leaving her and the city, but will this resolve anything? About the author: John Fraser is the author of 18 works of literary and speculative fiction. He has lived in Rome since 1980. Previously he worked in England and Canada. The distinguished poet, novelist and Booker Prize nominee John Fuller has written of Fraser’s fiction: ‘One of the most extraordinary publishing events of the past few years has been the rapid, indeed insistent, appearance of the novels of John Fraser. There are few parallels in literary history to this almost simultaneous and largely belated appearance of a mature œuvre, sprung like Athena from Zeus’s forehead; and the novels in themselves are extraordinary. I can think of nothing much like them in fiction. Fraser maintains a masterfully ironic distance from the extreme conditions in which his characters find themselves. There are strikingly beautiful descriptions, veiled allusions to rooted traditions, unlikely events half-glimpsed, abrupted narratives, surreal but somehow apposite social customs. ‘Fraser’s work is conceived on a heroic scale in terms both of its ideas and its situational metaphors. If he were to be filmed, it would need the combined talents of a Bunuel, a Gilliam, a Cameron. Like Thomas Pynchon, whom in some ways he resembles, Fraser is a deep and serious fantasist, wildly inventive. The reader rides as on a switchback or luge of impetuous attention, with effects flashing by at virtuoso speeds. The characters seem to be unwitting agents of chaos, however much wise reflection the author bestows upon them. They move with shrugging self-assurance through circumstances as richly-detailed and as without reliable compass-points as a Chinese scroll.’