The Age of Magic
A Novel
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
In this enchanting novel from the Booker Prize–winning author, a group of world-weary travelers discover the meaning of life in a mysterious Swiss mountain village.
The Age of Magic has begun. Unveil your eyes.
Eight weary filmmakers, traveling from Paris to Basel, arrive at a small Swiss hotel on the shores of a luminous lake. Above them, strewn with lights that twinkle in the darkness, looms the towering Rigi mountain. Over the course of three days and two nights, the travelers will find themselves drawn into the mystery of the mountain reflected in the lake. One by one, they will be disturbed, enlightened, and transformed, each in a different way. An intoxicating and dreamlike tale unfolds. Allow yourself to be transformed. Having shown a different way of seeing the world, Ben Okri now offers a different way of reading.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Booker Prize winner Okri (The Famished Road) explores the relationship between storytelling and human experience in this quiet work of magical realism, originally published in 2002 as In Arcadia and inspired by Nicolas Poussin's 1638 painting Et in Arcadia Ego. Colleagues Lao, Jim, Mistletoe, Propr, Jute, Riley, Husk, and Sam are filming a TV documentary about the mystical world of Arcadia, a legendary lost land reminiscent of Atlantis. The crew travels across Europe, from London to Paris and Switzerland, in search of Acadia: was it ever real or is it a product of overactive imaginations? Throughout the trip, a Quylph, a potentially malevolent supernatural being, follows them, reappearing in their dreams to coax them to find a hidden treasure. The introspective plot is largely character driven, digging into the filmmakers' psyches and relationships with each other and keeping any sense of magic ephemeral and elusive. The results are slow, pensive, and dreamlike.
