Illusions of the Heart

Download or read book Illusions of the Heart written by Paul Breer and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2009-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illusions of the Heart contains two short stories, each revolving around the theme of internet romance. In Residues of Love two women explore the farthest reaches of intimacy in the privacy of an online chat room. Je T' Adore tells the story of a man who falls hopelessly in love with a woman who wants nothing to do sexually with the opposite sex. Both tales can be read on a variety of levels. For the philosophically inclined they raise the age-old issue of appearance versus reality, an issue explored a century ago by Pirandello in his Six Characters in Search of an Author. For readers of a sociological bent, the two stories speak to the way we increasingly relate to each other in a fragmented world where community ties are replaced by the anonymity of computer screens and keyboards. Still others will read the stories as straight-forward tales of romance, both tragic and comic. Given their explicit nature, the erotic scenes may offend readers still clinging to Victorian sensibilities. For those less faint of heart, they can be seen as a voluptuous exploration of love-making in a setting (the internet) where conventional restraints yield to the primacy of desire. In this respect the stories properly belong to that literary tradition, primarily French, where erotica is raised to the level of fine art.