Guilt eBook Stephen R Pastore
Download As PDF : Guilt eBook Stephen R Pastore 
Guilt follows the lineage of three families through the ages, from prehistoric times through World War II illustrating along the way the inherent flaws of being human, the quest for perfection and the compulsion to do evil. Revenge, murder and sexual exploitation abound in a world constantly on the brink of chaos amid the loves and passions of characters torn between self-interest and selfless devotion. Guilt resonates with insight into the human condition, the heights of self-sacrifice to the depths of depravity, and, above all, a relentless quest for the truth of human emotions. Vividly written, Guilt will take its rightful place among the classics of the twenty-first century.
Guilt eBook Stephen R Pastore
Critics describing a new novel will sometimes resort to a particularly seductive formula: "If Judith Krantz had written Ulysses . . ." or "Half Georgette Heyer, half H.P. Lovecraft," or "If you enjoyed A Dog of Flanders, you'll just purr over The Cat's Pajamas." This is a seductive formula because it's easy to use (too easy, most of the time) and because it can quickly convey something of the range and complexity of a new book without going into a lot of detail.But such shortcuts also remind us that novels, like most literature, build on earlier books as much as they do on life or on a writer's personal traumas. Indeed, one loose definition of modernism might be writing that is actually rewriting.
Guilt provokes such thoughts because it is a long novel that will remind readers of a good many other novels. This isn't meant as criticism but as an indication of the story's richness and architectonic intricacy. Before everything else, Stephen R. Pastore's GUILT is a book about a sin and redemption and the culpability of generations. Try to imagine a blend of a Grand Guignol thriller, historical fiction, occasional farce, existential mystery and passionate love story; then double it. If that's too hard to do, let me put it another way: If you love A.S. Byatt's Possession, García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, the short stories of Borges, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Arturo Pérez-Reverte's The Club Dumas or Paul Auster's "New York" trilogy, not to mention Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame and William Hjortsberg's Falling Angel, then you will love GUILT.
"I was raised among books," writes Daniel Sempere, "making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day." Young Marco is an orphan in a Catholic orphanage. Isabelle is a lovely young woman whose mother is "unhinged like an old screen door." The Duke becomes a biological warfare specialist experimenting on political prisoners. Julian Corona is the bastard son of a murderer who is the "hero" of this story. All of these characters meet in Mussolini's Italy.
As the reader tries to figure out the links between modern Italian/ European history, two passionate and forbidden love affairs and an enigmatic lawyer, Stephen Pastore periodically lessens the tension of his dark melodrama by introducing humorous interludes or eccentric secondary characters. There is Nikolai the Czarist servant, Sonya, the loving prostitute, even an appearance of a mysterious preacher in the Middle Eastern desert who might be Jesus.
"For the life of God, I hereby swear that I have never lain with an underage woman, and not for lack of inclination or opportunities. Bear in mind that what you see today is but a shadow of my former self, but there was a time when I cut as dashing a figure as they come. Yet even then, just to be on the safe side, or if I sensed that a girl might be overly flighty, I would not proceed without seeing some form of identification or, failing that, a written paternal authorization. One has to maintain certain moral standards."
Pastore -- at least in the fine English of Thomas Hardy -- can also create a subtle metaphor: Describing a dying professor, he writes, "When we are born you know there is an after-birth we don't hear much about. The women, they know because they must deal with it, this sack of blood and water and other material we never want to think of because the baby is so beautiful and this other is quite horrid. The after-birth is the baby's opposite. Now listen to me and do not question. This is no discussion of a poem where there is no answer, only banter and good talk. In the after-birth is an eel. It slips off the table and into the drain below in the floor. Oh, I know you will say, `What if there is no drain?' I tell you, it finds one and it has the cunning to do it. As the baby grows, the eel grows as well and it feeds on what is left behind, not the feces or the physical refuse of our lives but our memories. That is why, dear friend, son, that we do not remember our birth or when we were very young. It is the hunger of the eel. It has eaten our memories. As we mature, it follows us always under the ground, in the water, for everywhere there is water beneath us even in the Sahara, that cursed, arid place; look deep enough and there is the water and in the water, the eel.
And so, in a sense, Julian does go for it, plunging deeper and deeper into the enigma of life and his accursed circumstances, and along the way risking the lives and happiness of all those he loves. It grows ever more apparent that much that has seemed random or mad or unlucky -- the encounter with his lover's lovers, the missing jewelry, the paradoxes posed by the Cardinal, sudden disappearances, the blighting of so many lives -- may be part of a larger insidious plan, that there are wheels within wheels.
I'd like to say more about this superbly entertaining book but don't dare to hint any more about its plot twists. Suffice it to say that -- and here's yet another critical formula -- anyone who enjoys novels that are scary, erotic, touching, tragic and thrilling should rush right out to the nearest bookstore and pick up Guilt. Really, you should.
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Guilt eBook Stephen R Pastore Reviews
What a waste of time. Wish I could get back the time I spent reading this book. Not what I would qualify as literature.
Critics describing a new novel will sometimes resort to a particularly seductive formula "If Judith Krantz had written Ulysses . . ." or "Half Georgette Heyer, half H.P. Lovecraft," or "If you enjoyed A Dog of Flanders, you'll just purr over The Cat's Pajamas." This is a seductive formula because it's easy to use (too easy, most of the time) and because it can quickly convey something of the range and complexity of a new book without going into a lot of detail.
But such shortcuts also remind us that novels, like most literature, build on earlier books as much as they do on life or on a writer's personal traumas. Indeed, one loose definition of modernism might be writing that is actually rewriting.
Guilt provokes such thoughts because it is a long novel that will remind readers of a good many other novels. This isn't meant as criticism but as an indication of the story's richness and architectonic intricacy. Before everything else, Stephen R. Pastore's GUILT is a book about a sin and redemption and the culpability of generations. Try to imagine a blend of a Grand Guignol thriller, historical fiction, occasional farce, existential mystery and passionate love story; then double it. If that's too hard to do, let me put it another way If you love A.S. Byatt's Possession, García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, the short stories of Borges, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Arturo Pérez-Reverte's The Club Dumas or Paul Auster's "New York" trilogy, not to mention Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame and William Hjortsberg's Falling Angel, then you will love GUILT.
"I was raised among books," writes Daniel Sempere, "making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day." Young Marco is an orphan in a Catholic orphanage. Isabelle is a lovely young woman whose mother is "unhinged like an old screen door." The Duke becomes a biological warfare specialist experimenting on political prisoners. Julian Corona is the bastard son of a murderer who is the "hero" of this story. All of these characters meet in Mussolini's Italy.
As the reader tries to figure out the links between modern Italian/ European history, two passionate and forbidden love affairs and an enigmatic lawyer, Stephen Pastore periodically lessens the tension of his dark melodrama by introducing humorous interludes or eccentric secondary characters. There is Nikolai the Czarist servant, Sonya, the loving prostitute, even an appearance of a mysterious preacher in the Middle Eastern desert who might be Jesus.
"For the life of God, I hereby swear that I have never lain with an underage woman, and not for lack of inclination or opportunities. Bear in mind that what you see today is but a shadow of my former self, but there was a time when I cut as dashing a figure as they come. Yet even then, just to be on the safe side, or if I sensed that a girl might be overly flighty, I would not proceed without seeing some form of identification or, failing that, a written paternal authorization. One has to maintain certain moral standards."
Pastore -- at least in the fine English of Thomas Hardy -- can also create a subtle metaphor Describing a dying professor, he writes, "When we are born you know there is an after-birth we don't hear much about. The women, they know because they must deal with it, this sack of blood and water and other material we never want to think of because the baby is so beautiful and this other is quite horrid. The after-birth is the baby's opposite. Now listen to me and do not question. This is no discussion of a poem where there is no answer, only banter and good talk. In the after-birth is an eel. It slips off the table and into the drain below in the floor. Oh, I know you will say, `What if there is no drain?' I tell you, it finds one and it has the cunning to do it. As the baby grows, the eel grows as well and it feeds on what is left behind, not the feces or the physical refuse of our lives but our memories. That is why, dear friend, son, that we do not remember our birth or when we were very young. It is the hunger of the eel. It has eaten our memories. As we mature, it follows us always under the ground, in the water, for everywhere there is water beneath us even in the Sahara, that cursed, arid place; look deep enough and there is the water and in the water, the eel.
And so, in a sense, Julian does go for it, plunging deeper and deeper into the enigma of life and his accursed circumstances, and along the way risking the lives and happiness of all those he loves. It grows ever more apparent that much that has seemed random or mad or unlucky -- the encounter with his lover's lovers, the missing jewelry, the paradoxes posed by the Cardinal, sudden disappearances, the blighting of so many lives -- may be part of a larger insidious plan, that there are wheels within wheels.
I'd like to say more about this superbly entertaining book but don't dare to hint any more about its plot twists. Suffice it to say that -- and here's yet another critical formula -- anyone who enjoys novels that are scary, erotic, touching, tragic and thrilling should rush right out to the nearest bookstore and pick up Guilt. Really, you should.
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