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Genre - Magic Realism
Rating - G
More details about the book
Connect with John Mellor on his
Website http://7-books.net/
This page 99
thing threw me rather. I read a few examples and they all seemed to stress the
importance of every page making the reader want to move onto the next. I don’t
quite see it like that with The Seven Gifts, probably because it is a
contemplative story rather than an action one: I actually want to slow readers
down, so they dwell on each page, which I have filled with often quite complex
ideas that are not immediately apparent. If they speed-read they will only pick
up surface reflections, and miss much of the book’s real content. In the paper
book I even use a slightly cursive font to discourage speed-reading. In truth,
rather than persuading readers to turn over the page to see what happens next I
would prefer they turn back to clarify what is happening now.
One reviewer @
Goodreads commented on this: “I really liked the style and setup of this book.
It gave a little piece at a time that urged the reader on. Made me think that I
would have a better understanding of the world after I was done reading it. I
enjoyed taking it slow reading one "gift chapter" every couple of
days. Not intentionally, but it made me think of each story separately allowing
it to sink in fully”.
Page 99 of the
ebook introduces the philosopher who features in the story of the fifth gift -
The Philosopher’s Stone. The first line is the end of this sentence: ‘His
world was full of winking lights and buzzers, spewing forth rationalised
explanations that the half-baked intellectuals confused with truth.’
And the page
ends with him talking about oak trees: ‘He sometimes wondered whether perhaps
they knew it all; that all knowledge, in some strange way that men could never
understand, was encapsulated in those strong flowing branches, the odd,
crenellated leaves; drawn up in the sap from the Earth herself. For surely the
Earth must possess knowledge to make the greatest of all thinkers seem mere
schoolboys;’
The previous page
starts thus:
‘One lovely
spring day a philosopher was strolling through the woods, pondering on the
questions of the time. And they were confusing times in the land of the Snow
Queen, especially for an old, traditional philosopher like him. For seventy years
now he had lived in that kingdom, most of his time spent on the only quest that
need ever concern a true
philosopher -
the interminable struggle to understand the purpose of his own existence. Why
he should live. Why he should live here. Where this curious thing called human
life came from; and where it was going to.’
In between he
lies down in the woods in the sunshine and ‘ponders on the questions of the
time’. A little later, he meets his stone.
I am not sure I
want to say more than that.
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