Tender, nostalgic, romantic, funny, absurd, magically real, speculative, ironic, nightmarish, entertaining and elegantly renderedā¦these stories span a century of Manās consciousness.
Once, a man might be a Gatsby chasing his girl half-way around the world, the captain of a football World Cup winning side, a raging Picasso bull in a mythical maze refusing to yield lover or art till his last mortality-defiant egotistic gasp. Straightforward enough choices, dreams, behaviour.
Suddenly he is man interrupted, underwhelmed, overworked, ridiculed, young, rock-solid or unreliable family man, father, husband, friend; his freedom evaporates: heās globe-trotting inbox-fatigued nonsense-hearing corporate, military civil-serving quiet ministry of Everyman. Heās so exasperated he might just run away and prop up a bar, or contemplate mild treachery just to get by, and heās put-upon, as he zigzags across #TimesUp, political correctness, game theory, ohā¦ andā¦ the women in his life.
Now here he stands staring down the barrel of the 21st Century ā heās superman, heās transhuman, heās disassembling, heās nearly done for
ā¦or is he?