Sherif Meleka PLASTIC FLOWERS: a NOVEL Paperback Book

The novels title encapsulates the central binary opposition that the writer persistently seeks to unravelor at the very least, to disentangle. Flowers, the novels overarching metaphor, symbolize nature, while plastic signifies industry. At first glance, their coexistence appears as implausible as squaring the circle or existing in two places at once. Hence, the image of flowers recurs throughout the novel as a leitmotif. We first encounter this motif when the narrator, seated at his desk, idly runs his fingers along the rim of a teacup, now empty save for the withered brown petals settled at its bottom. Later, on the northeastern coast of the United States, he observes streets adorned with a riot of blooming flowersbuds unfurling, leaves greening, petals fluttering to carpet the ground in a vibrant mosaic of color and fragrance, heralding the arrival of a season of love and revelry. As the novel unfolds, we learn that Samiso he claimsis embarking on a business venture importing plastic flowers to the island where he resides. Like all modern commercial enterprises, this endeavor requires capital, legal contracts, and monopolistic maneuvering, once again signaling the relentless encroachment of materialist values upon the natural world. The narrator reflects on Samis scheme The strangeness of plastic flowers on a tropical island, lush with natural blooms long before it was even inhabited, continues to baffle me. This paradox recalls JeanJacques Rousseau and the Romantics of... | Sherif Meleka PLASTIC FLOWERS: a NOVEL Paperback Book