Last Love in Constantinople (hardcover)

In 1988 Milorad Pavic burst upon the literary scene with his critically acclaimed, international best seller, Dictionary of the Khazars. In it he asked his readers to experience his book in a new and exciting way, as he challenged their traditional concepts of the reading process. In his next two novels, Landscape Painted With Tea and The Inner Side of the Wind, he continued to challenge as he joined a modern Odyssey with a crossword puzzle, and then he told the same tale of two lovers from two perspectives -- male and female -- and asked us to read it from either front or back. His new novel, Last Love in Constantinople, does not disappoint, as Pavic once again demonstrates himself to be a master of narrative legerdemain.Fate, love, lust, and honor become increasingly entangled as the reader moves through this delicious story probing the chaotic, frenzied nature of life. Set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, this is the story of Lieutenant Opujic, a cavalry officer. The novel pits his family against the Teneckis family, as it unravels power struggles in a chaotic Europe, in fractured families, and in the human soul. Echoes of the Iliad abound as Opujic struggles to escape the shadow of a powerful father.All the elements of the great dramas are here: wars, prophecies, heroes, villains, damsels, saviors, devils, and God. But Pavic refuses to play by the usual rules as he invites us on his postmodernist journey to divine the fate of the lusty, swashbuckling hero and his loves on his journey to self-discovery from Trieste to Constantinople. The book comes complete with Tarot cards (drawn by Pavic's son, Ivan) that hold the fate not just of the characters but of the readingprocess itself. How your cards turn up will determine in what sequence the book is to be read (if you choose to do it this way), as the fates of the characters interchange, enmesh, surprise. Yet for all its magic and literary brilliance, the book creates perhaps the most realistic or postmodern of reading experiences -- for just as life can be exhilarating and unpredictable and full of surprises, so too is Last Love in Constantinople.