“You and I are like two rivers running for the same ocean, when we meet, we are lost forever”.
In this novel, a long journey through confusion towards clarity is described. As it moves through both time and space, it takes you from Parisian suburbs and Copenhagen hipster town, through eighties Istanbul, pre-war Aleppo, and bohemian Cairo, to old Bucharest, and up into the timeless hidden valleys of the Himalaya… and further
Among the dramatically different characters, we meet: a French speaking lovesick philosopher, a wealthy gay esoteric Egyptian, a clear-eyed boy orphaned by a drone, a sharp Turkish-Italian gallerist, a charming pot smoking painter, and a beautiful but lost Parisian girl.
While often getting caught in the tangle of their stories, all of them are looking for some kind of freedom. As the story unfolds, the intricate layers of personal bonds that exist between the many characters are slowly revealed.
This book is about the human being as a product of these stories. I think that longing for love, unity or oneness, is the driving force of all the stories we live.
But ultimately, the characters are forced to look behind the words, beyond logic and intellect. What they perceive there might destroy them, unless they unfold a new vision.
So, look closer. A varied group of smaller characters weave a subtle but powerful web of wisdom: an old secretive Sufi woman, a fabled Himalayan hermit, a Christian mystic, and a discredited female philosophy teacher.
Like Two Rivers challenges the narrow ideas of distinct cultures, organized belief, fixed nationality, ethnicity categories, class, cast, and the cult of personal identity.
It points to our connectedness to each other, to life, the planet, and the universe. It arrives at the possibility of an all-embracing sense of limitless existence and universal consciousness. The story moves from the personal I, towards an understanding of that which is universal.
That which cannot easily be put in words.
“Like Two Rivers is a story that kaleidoscopes through you.
Tender, bright and colourful.
From a penetrating gaze to glimpses of characters so recognizable it is a plethora of sensation and emotion. With all its sweetness and pain, an extraordinary experience – both intimate and humbling in its moments of eloquence.
A song so familiar, it resonates.”
Martin Mc Inally
Like Two Rivers, a novel
About the book:
A philosophical adventure with multiple storylines crisscrossing back and forth from the 1960s to the late 2000s—the rich narrative follows the paths created by the longings of a diverse band of multicultural seekers, immigrants, rebels, artists, and misfits as they pursue the elusive golden promises of their own imaginings. This insatiable longing takes the reader from the high Himalayas of India to Cairo, through Istanbul on to Aleppo, Bucharest, Copenhagen, and Paris and back again. The search for answers causes the distinct strands of the achronological narrative to gradually intertwine or unravel, revealing unexpected insights, new riddles, or even deeper confusion. The central question is: If life has meaning, where is it to be found?
The story resembles a symphony, starting with a simple piano, then the addition of layered sound as more instruments come in, becoming an orchestral piece that reaches a long and exhilarating crescendo, ending with the fragile but clear tone of a violin as we—the reader-witness—return to the beginning, to innocence through a process of catharsis.
In Like Two Rivers, the unusual lives of the protagonists are portrayed in intimate detail, as they create, derail, and entangle their lives erratically across continents and through different times. The atmospheric settings are key entities acting as timeless companions of the perpetual seeker moving through ancient towns, along holy rivers, over bridges and up mountains. A wistful sense of irreversible loss pervades the story as homes, loved ones and countries are lost to linger as haunting memories.
Watching from the shadows, a handful of obscure yet pivotal sages, seers, mystics, and hermits from disparate traditions gently nudge and advise those with the ability to listen. At times, even a stray dog becomes a guide.