SamSara 
asked by melmanz on September 26, 2006 5:37 PM
ISBN 0977607623 - Trade Paperback - 362 pages.
In SamSara, you might stumble upon a typo or a misspelled word here or there, but you stand a far greater chance of reclaiming a misplaced piece of your soul. A lost-in-life tractor salesman plopped smack dab in the center of Florence, Italy seems a bit odd, but even more bizarre, he’s the only man in a group of eighteen women psychologists attending a seminar concerning the feminine aspect of the psyche. In other words, primitive man meets goddess.
Samsara begins with a brief introduction by a Wise Old Man concerning the origins of this novel’s manuscript. Then, in the first section, In the Beginning, in diary form, the protagonist, Malcolm Clay, introduces the psychological and social heritage from which he is trying to escape. The next scene, Leaving the Nest, and… well, if drinking coffee with dirt farmers from twice filtered grounds and shagging parts for broken down cotton pickers and grain combines to sipping cappuccinos and eating brioche and budini di riso for breakfast in the center of Firenze isn’t leaving the nest, then what is? Then comes, All Fools day, Plus a Few More. In this section, Malcolm leaves the heart of Florence and once again, ventures out into unknown territory, Southern France, all alone, without the help of the eighteen women psychologists to rescue him from the terror of his very own existence. After three days of growing closer to his daemon, as close as he cares to at this point in his journey, he sets off for Paris by train – where he hopes to catch a flight to Dublin and be rescued from his ‘condition’ by a beautiful Irish lass whom he’d met five months earlier for an entire ten minutes in a coffee shop back in California. In the finale, To Be or Not to Be, Malcolm pursues the Irish woman, but the crafty lass flees and leads him on a chase, forcing Malcolm back upon himself, forcing him to look within, and away from, what for most of his life, he had attempted to satisfy in the ephemeral.
Chasing Leprechauns, rainbows, and pots of gold, attempting to unify the masculine and feminine and the dream world of Malcolm Clay with his waking reality… in the most unconventional way, our author somehow manages to disillusion one of false, antiquated beliefs and at the same time marries matter and spirit. With his third novel, SamSara, Mel Mathews certainly does prove to be a master of his trade.
In SamSara, you might stumble upon a typo or a misspelled word here or there, but you stand a far greater chance of reclaiming a misplaced piece of your soul. A lost-in-life tractor salesman plopped smack dab in the center of Florence, Italy seems a bit odd, but even more bizarre, he’s the only man in a group of eighteen women psychologists attending a seminar concerning the feminine aspect of the psyche. In other words, primitive man meets goddess.
Samsara begins with a brief introduction by a Wise Old Man concerning the origins of this novel’s manuscript. Then, in the first section, In the Beginning, in diary form, the protagonist, Malcolm Clay, introduces the psychological and social heritage from which he is trying to escape. The next scene, Leaving the Nest, and… well, if drinking coffee with dirt farmers from twice filtered grounds and shagging parts for broken down cotton pickers and grain combines to sipping cappuccinos and eating brioche and budini di riso for breakfast in the center of Firenze isn’t leaving the nest, then what is? Then comes, All Fools day, Plus a Few More. In this section, Malcolm leaves the heart of Florence and once again, ventures out into unknown territory, Southern France, all alone, without the help of the eighteen women psychologists to rescue him from the terror of his very own existence. After three days of growing closer to his daemon, as close as he cares to at this point in his journey, he sets off for Paris by train – where he hopes to catch a flight to Dublin and be rescued from his ‘condition’ by a beautiful Irish lass whom he’d met five months earlier for an entire ten minutes in a coffee shop back in California. In the finale, To Be or Not to Be, Malcolm pursues the Irish woman, but the crafty lass flees and leads him on a chase, forcing Malcolm back upon himself, forcing him to look within, and away from, what for most of his life, he had attempted to satisfy in the ephemeral.
Chasing Leprechauns, rainbows, and pots of gold, attempting to unify the masculine and feminine and the dream world of Malcolm Clay with his waking reality… in the most unconventional way, our author somehow manages to disillusion one of false, antiquated beliefs and at the same time marries matter and spirit. With his third novel, SamSara, Mel Mathews certainly does prove to be a master of his trade.