My Heart After Esther: A Mystic's Philosophy of Love

Book excerpt: My Heart After Esther could be considered a philosophy of love in the skin of a romance novel, or a romance novel in the skin of a philosophy of love, but it is ultimately a story about love and philosophy in a way that romances the two. In this work of literary meta-fiction, two stories are interwoven into one. The first story is about the translator of the second story, Gustav Z. Itohahn and his love for the author and his work he is translating, the mysterious pseudo philosopher Jorge Manuel Belmarez. In the second story, we read Itohahn's presentation of Belmarez's story of love, which dares to challenge every idea of love and marriage from the vow "till death do we part" to the old courtly-love edict that "marriage is no proper defense against love." This new take on philosophical fiction may somehow find itself in the memory of its readers as more than an experiment in story-telling, but truly an experiment in challenging our deepest ideas and beliefs.