MICHAEL2007
"Sometimes, you might have to meet an angel, embodied for example in a lover, so that your soul is returned to its path... such a meeting is temporary, but deep and crucial."
It is almost impossible to describe this book. Therefore, I would rather mention the circumstances under which Michael2007 was created.
When The Toy was printed, when the official book launch took place, when it started to sell – a time so intense and full of worldly success … night after night, a story about love and pain at once ancient and contemporary was being created. It was everywhere; one event led to another and energies mixed. Michael2007 was coming to life.
Against the background of a passionate affair between one woman and two men, a drama reaching into and affecting the history of mankind takes place. Is there anything beyond our earthly dimension that forces us to perform our obligations regardless of the death of our physical bodies? Is it possible to live through a story in a world whose very existence we doubt? Is it possible to combine passion with faith, innocent thoughts with physical desire?
Michael2007 has little in common with The Toy. Yet maybe The Toy was essential for the creation of Michael2007. Some will ask how it is possible that I’ve come up with such a contradictory book; enthusiastic fans of The Toy will be disappointed, and some fans of Michael will despise The Toy. But aren’t the two projects just opposite sides of the same coin?
The answer may be simple. For human beings, it is still natural to be two-faced. Why else do we have God and the Devil? Why do we have Good and Bad? We fight temptation and often lie to ourselves, thinking how powerful we are. We try to follow the Light but at the same time we resist any insight into the dark corners along our path. We lie to ourselves, we lie to others, we pretend because of others, because of public opinion, and we conceal our weak points, even from ourselves. And this is something I don’t intend to do.
The Michael2007 Project
I addressed several young and outstanding Czech visual artists with 9 central poems from Michael2007. In September 2008 we held together the “Michael2007” exhibition in Prague, presenting works of art (collages, paintings, graphics, fashion, jewellery, objects, photography and music) inspired by these 9 poems. For more information, see: Projects.
Précis of the book
Compose a story on your own!
Michael2007 is a challenge to the reader’s imagination.
Michael2007, a book making its first appearance in bookstores around now, is remarkable and hard to classify. After publishing the erotic bestseller The Toy, Sylva Lauerova, a Czech writer who lives on the Seychelles, has chosen to present her readers with a subject matter at once more serious and more romantic - angels.
The first part of the book is a “User Manual” composed by the Archangel Michael for “colleagues of his species” in order to help them in their work with people here on Earth. In the second part, a story intelligible only to the chosen is narrated in the form of poetic images. It is a story of love, passion, betrayal, faith and hope.
Milena Micurova (Literary News):
Sylva Lauerova (author of the erotic bestseller The Toy) surprises by the diversity of her literary work: this time, she presents her readers with a completely different genre. In a very personal way, she narrates a story that brings together sex, passion and faith, subject matters almost impossible to combine. This is a story that challenges the reader’s imagination.
Michael2007 consists of two parts - prose and poetry. The first, prose part introduces with a heavenly nobility God’s instructions to the angels, his ambassadors sent down to Earth. The prose part as a whole is witty and does not lack detachment; with the use of quite technical terms – the “instruction manual” is entitled “User Manual for Large Winged Beings” - it gives advice and guidance to angels on their earthly pilgrimage. In the second part, prose gives way to poetry reflecting human and angelic love, and the intensity of passion in all its forms, with all the suffering and delight. The story contained in Michael can be decoded only by reading both parts of the book - the User Manual for Large Winged Beings as well as the poetry. If you ponder on things that “remain unseen”, then the story behind the verse in Michael2007 is just the thing for you.
The Czech original of the collection of poetry Michael2007 is available in all major bookstores in the Czech Republic, including NeoLUXOR, Kanzelsberger and Knihy Dobrovsky, and in all major on-line bookstores, e.g. www.kosmas.cz.
You can also order it on-line on the website of the publisher: www.vanaspen.com