Published: 1 March 2012
Hardback, B Format
129x198mm, 224 pages
ISBN: 9781847084996
£14.99
Melisande! What Are Dreams?
Other Editions
Overview
An inspiring novel; a philosophical love story; a moving ode to a woman, as joyful and celebratory as it is elegiac. The narrator of Melisande! What Are Dreams? is a man in his forties, a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy known as Hoo. He has been given the nickname by Mellie, the woman he addresses in this book while exploring his memories of their years together and apart. The two of them have known each other since high school in New York in the 1950s - and perhaps, Hoo thinks, much longer than that. Only as the novel unfolds do his reasons for writing to her, and the full nature of their relationship, become clear. Melisande! What Are Dreams? is an extended reflection on love; on reality and dream; on how our choices in youth continue to pursue us long afterwards. It combines sceptical intelligence with a deep mystical sense of things. Its words fall quietly, one by one, like raindrops on water.
About the author
Hillel Halkin is a writer, critic, and well-known translator whose journalism and essays from Israel have regularly appeared in publications like Commentary and The New Republic for over thirty years. His first book, Letters To An American Jewish Friend, the recipient of a National Jewish Book Award, caused spirited controversy. His much-acclaimed Across The Sabbath River: In Search Of A Lost Tribe of Israel, received the 2002 Lucy Dawidowicz Prize for the writing of history. A Strange Death: a story discovered in Palestine was published by Public Affairs (US) and Weidenfeld & Nicolson (UK) in 2005, and AB Yehoshua called it ' a personal adventure into the past whose skilled, gripping prose moves back and forth between the documentary and the imaginative...An artful treatment of history worthy of the highest praise.'More about the author
Reviews
‘Melisande! What Are Dreams? is lovely, erudite, romantic and careful. The vagabond, the scholar and the woman are echoing and reflecting in my mind still, poetic, subtle and passionate about the things that have always mattered. This is a long drink of cool water to anyone who likes an intelligent novel.’ Louisa Young, author of MY DEAR I WANTED TO TELL YOU
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Reviews
‘To be transported to New York of the 1950s; to be absorbed in an elegy of beautiful prose; to unearth a startlingly fresh novel from a colossus of Hebrew literature; and, most of all, to gain a sharp insight into humanity itself; read this book.’ Jake Wallis Simons
