The Island

The Island unfolds as the life story of a retired couple who, in earlier years, had lived on the mainland and are now approaching an increasingly lonely and frustrating old age. Throughout this intriguing and fascinating work, we encounter dazzling and richly puzzling metaphors, enclosed within other metaphors of ever larger scope and ever deeper and more elusive meaning. Though thematically interrelated and deliberately complementary as parts of the novel as a whole, each of the nineteen chapters of this unusual and exquisite work of literature could quite handsomely pass for a first rate short story in its own right. United by the destinies of The Island's main characters, their families, friends and neighbours, the chapters are actually smaller islands clustered into a compact mini-archipelago which in itself represents a somewhat larger island in the sea of the author's writing as a reflection of his own perception of human experience.