Wisdom

Two novellas by John Fraser, described by the Whitbread Award winning poet John Fuller, as 'the most original novelist of our time'.

Stardust examines the adventures of the journalist, Hadar. At sea, he and the odious Pietro, a banker cum sailor, are marooned by the shipboard scientists whose expedition has lost contact with land. Hadar's lover, Doctor Chin, is the principal in an experiment into the conversion of humans into marine creatures. The mission is desperate, the participants self-destructive in their wish to make world-saving discoveries. The story explores two connected themes - Hadar's many, unsuccessful relationships under the shadow of Pietro, banks and cashiers, and his memories of following the experiment of a fusion reactor - the attempt to build a star on earth.

Wisdom is something many people seek, though what it is remains uncertain. Raul, a common man, is pledged to seek wisdom, though his life is one of happenstance, rebounding from archaeological expeditions to politics, a grooming for leadership which seems more like a prison, interrogation without purpose but with threats, and finally transformation as a literary and sexual subject. Along his haphazard way, he finds himself in extreme situations where the meaning of 'wisdom' should become more evident. Life and wisdom seem incompatible - but in the end, with an old associate, he continues his quest - in control, but in a landscape of increasing hardship, and isolation.