Y, a novel: poetry, love, nature (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798185662793)

What if the world's most ancient song is still being sung? What if its melody and rhythm still reverberate across every continent?

Y is a love story that unfolds with astonishing ease and clarity. The captivating plot brings together romance, poetry, and a nature adventure. Y is a novel of superlatives: the world's oldest song, the vastest reaches of the universe, and the single most astonishing gene shared by butterflies and humans. Based on extensive research, the novel reveals a world you never imagined existed, carrying you through 450 pages and 100 chapters with cinematic precision and the momentum of a blockbuster. Y reaches from the U.S. national anthem to the most mysterious of all subjects: human consciousness. Every line is a poem.

The story begins with a founding figure of neuroscience on his deathbed and unfolds shortly before July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the United States. It travels from the Mississippi to the Nile and the Indus, and into the mythic world of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Elea Zoé, the author, is herself part of the story. She is a mysterious figure with only one wish: to share this story while remaining unknown, for reasons revealed within the novel's plot.

Prologue

Only a couple of minutes longer, the old man thought.

Then the heart monitor beside his bed lost the signal and began sounding an alarm-but he was still there, fully conscious, counting his own faint heartbeats: 21, 22, 23...

I must remain alert, he urged himself, like the soldiers who survived when I was a student.

In 1940, he had only recently enrolled in medical school when he heard that wounded soldiers at the front had a much better chance of survival if they remained conscious.

A surgeon, he recalled, had reported this from the front lines of the most devastating war the world had ever seen.

Once the soldiers lost consciousness, even ordinary wounds often proved fatal.

His professors told him bluntly that this made no sense. There was simply no reason why remaining conscious should help the body fight infection.

He wanted proof, not opinion. Soon, he devised an experiment to determine whether the surgeon was right.

The answer was yes. Every detail was true... and within a fortnight, the young man knew not only that it worked, but also why. ...

You'll also love Y: if you are interested in Odysseus and the song of Sirens, the Hymn to Nikkal, Ugarit and Bronze Age music, the origins of melody and rhythm, ancient Greek music, Vedic poetry, the Rig Veda, the dawn goddess Ushas, the Ashvins, Viśvāmitra and his hymn to the rivers, the Hymn to Unity, the Isha Upanishad, the Song of Songs, King Solomon, ancient Egyptian love poetry, Akhenaten, the civilizations of the Nile, the Indus, the Mediterranean, and the ancient Near East, and the hidden connections between Indo-European and Afroasiatic languages.

Y draws on Sappho, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Archilochus, Horace, Mihai Eminescu's Luceafărul, the Romanian ballad Miorița, Gottfried Keller, Vivaldi, Brahms, Scott Joplin, Louis Armstrong, jazz, the history of "Happy Birthday," and "The Star-Spangled Banner." It follows songs and stories across India, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Romania, Europe, Africa, and the United States.

You may also enjoy this book if you are drawn to mythology and the origins of the U.S. national anthem. The cultural journey of Y touches on Amerigo and Simonetta Vespucci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Constantin Brâncuși, Umberto Boccioni, Gottfried Semper, Sigfried Giedion, architecture, sculpture, Renaissance art, modernism, and the ways human beings have represented movement, beauty, memory, and time. All of this is woven into a strong plot unfolding among three main characters.