Motalygo says this book burst out of him like a tornado. He'd been fascinated for some time with a bead game, a distant echo of Hermann Hesse’s book The Glass Bead Game, and tried several times to explain his enthusiasm for the game to his sister, with little success. He decided to write her a letter, a primer of sorts where he could compose a few coherent notes to explain the concept of the bead game. This 135-page book is the result.
A talented writer, Motalygo invented his own unique polyphonic form of narration. Motalygo's narrator is an intellectual, a polyglot, a stand-up comedian, a mathematician, a linguist, a programmer, a poet, an interpreter, a kitchen worker and a teacher, and the imagined voices of many other characters chime in throughout the book: a friend, a passerby, his mother, his daughter, his nieces, the reader(s), an astounded actuary, a condescending woman, someone who is sick and tired, a misogynist, people at a party, etc. This chorus of differing opinions, belly-laughter funny, is a very sensitive tool, providing a reaction to the story while it is being told. Voices filled with irony or admiration, ridicule or condescension and every emotion in between create a multilayered structure for a sturdy edifice of content.
The book is a collection of abound 100 short stories, or "babbles," as the author calls them. The stories are reflections on eternal topics that have forever fascinated the human race--love, truth, beauty, values and the drama, comedy and tragedy of life--all related in a light tone. While the tone of the narrative--the author calls it "blabbering"--is light and bubbly, whimsical and chatty, the content is deep, pithy and substantial. Eternal topics are expressed in a contemporary idiom and evoke tears through laughter and laughter through tears. The result is a unique, hilariously entertaining and very profound book.
A dozen poems by the author are appended to the book as well as an essay about Motalygo’s poetry by writer Asya Pekurovskaya.
