"She considered her life: each aspect rested on another, was undercut by its arbitrary predecessor in a deconstructive chain leading back to the blank canvas, to defenseless impulse and unjustifiable whim. She felt seduced by despair, felt a void opening before her; what was this void? The apparition of suicide, the specter of her own death? No, it was the nothingness stretching forever beneath the seemingly concrete aspects of her existence, the eternal blank canvas upon which she had enacted her life (and to which she would eventually return)..." - from The Sirens The interconnected lives and trials of five characters - an Artist, a Seeker, a Seductress, a Dreamer, and an Academic - comprise a novel within this novel, while their author’s struggle to achieve his lofty artistic vision forms the framing drama in this unconventional and experimental story of ambition, inspiration, and obsession. The novel’s unnamed narrator has failed: the promise of his youth has been spent and ruined, and he fears that he will never achieve the great work of which he - and others - imagined him capable. It is only through a chance encounter with a strange and beautiful woman - a woman who seems to know more about him and his troubles than she should - that he feels himself newly inspired, capable of the ambitious work he once envisioned. But who is this muse, and towards what is she leading him? And what will he discover, when the quest for true expression lures him ever deeper into his own scarred and fractured mind? Written by Stavros Stavros Cover design by Tom Maven

The Sirens

Literature & Fiction

Stavros, Stavros

Literary

Artless Dodges, Inc.

"Yes, sentimentality: that phenomenon by which the emotional need of the viewer takes precedent over the reality of the object; sentimentality: the excessive and inappropriate infusion of meaning, the incorrect alignment of form and content; sentimentality: a child's perception, the stain of immaturity, sister to stereotype, father of prejudice, the soul of dramatic irony! What happiness: to surrender the child's frantic and broad assertions about the world for the nuance and subtlety of true understanding! What joy: to abandon these delusions, to marry form with content, to live without sentimentality!" - from The Sentimentalist The author begins by offering a definition: sentimentality, he says, is “the excessive and inappropriate infusion of meaning, the incorrect alignment of form and content.” Viewed in this way, sentimentality is an existential quagmire: how is one to know the “true” significance of others’ words, gestures, and actions? How is one to know the “true” significance of one’s own? Through the stories that follow the author stays close-cropped to this dilemma, highlighting the misunderstandings that occur between boyfriends and girlfriends, lovers, peers, colleagues, parents and children, and exploring the ways in which these fundamental misunderstandings can be rooted in or result in fundamental misunderstandings about ourselves. Written by Stavros Stavros Cover design by Tom Maven

The Sentimentalist

Artless Dodges, Incorporated

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Books by Stavros, Stavros

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stavros, Stavros. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Sirens

The Sentimentalist