Monday, December 9, 2013

A Journey into Life

Very much in the spirit of this blog, someone with whom I have the pleasure of personal acquaintance has done something uniquely beautiful by forcing a part of his heart and mind onto paper. This person endeavored to give the world a story rich with meaning and went about his mission so to guarantee that the creative vision of his project would be preserved in full. Seeing little alternative, he went indy in the way that this blog loves. So while Flashes From the Dark normally advocates a policy of creative anonymity, I think Jean-Pierre Weill deserves our recognition. Uninhibited by the demands and expectations of the mainstream, he penned a book and self-published it. It is called The Well of Being: a children's book for adults, and I share this fact with you because the book is a PHENOMENAL work of art! (To understand the full extent of my enthusiasm, one must understand that I loathe the 'uppercasing' of words and the abuse of exclamations.) This book (available here) may well be the best thing I've ever read and manages to walk the reader down many separate and interwinding paths of thought, imagination, and feeling. It is a children's book for adults insofar as it rekindles that dislocated sort of nostalgia lodged so deeply in our brains that we question whether its not just an invention of our retrospective imaginations. Well, after reading
The Well of Being: a children's book for adults I can tell you that it is not. This book has layers upon layers and blends an intelligent and informed understanding of the world around us with a sort of life philosophy that at once marries reality's gravity and levity. Above all, the book represents a smart, playful, and imaginative journey into life. It is a deeply personal exploration that bears universal truth. Please enjoy a preview of the book in the above-embedded video.