Ernesto R Valdes

The Twin Violins Ernesto R Valdes

The Twin Violins is a collection of vividly imaginative short stories that alternate between music and the dramatic circumstances of contemporary society. Set mainly in New York, a city abounding in peddlers, street performers and common criminals, the stories also swing to the waters of the Rio de la Plata, the Caribbean Sea and the Hiroshima of the atomic bomb. The result is an array of variegated texts with a background in which elements of quantum physics symbolize the unstable, shifting destiny of today's men and women. In addition, the stories reinforce an idea common to Plato, the Bible, the mystics, Descartes, and Calderón de la Barca: we live in an ephemeral world of appearances. Written in clear, simple, vibrant prose, The Twin Violins is an engaging book, as the story "Mileva, Adult in Understanding," demonstrates with its very implausibility.