Stefan Orts

A Christmas Carol: Of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come removes the dust off Dickens's masterpiece and goes beyond post-modern literature. Old Robert Marley is facing his own Christmas demons, and is given no choice at all. It'll take the form of unwanted journeys through his past, present and future. A simple life, and a second chance. No matter what, things only crystallize if we let them. Through the wits and memories of Robert Marley, the journey revisits the classic novella in a new frame, modern and as down-to-earth as a ghost story allows it. Question is: do you believe in ghost stories? Bitter Robert Marley hates pretty much everything and everyone, and focuses all his attention on his assets and on making more, affectionate with every dime of his own. Yet, the journey into his Christmases past, present and yet to come will remind him that he wasn't always such a greedy and grumpy fellow. There was hope, and love, and beauty inside of him. As he travels through the landmarks of his existence and through the lives of his contemporaries, he will be forced to re-open his heart and let in the flow of emotions and expectations that go along with it. Plunge with Marley in a re-visitation of his early memories, a flutter of lively and magical milestones, from his childhood Christmas parties to the years spent alongside Lily, the love of his life. Conscience and consciousness intertwine as he sinks deeper in the swirl of un-Dickens-like phantoms. From initial terror to growing earnestness, Marley embraces this experience as his own chance to look upon things in a different way. Windows open on new perspectives and offer him a surge of human warmth to cradle his elderly years.

Pour Joey est un premier roman. C'est la voix de Victor qui se souvient en quelque sorte. De leurs premi res heures, de leur histoire, et d'un dernier train. Des buttes Chaumont au Quartier Latin, de l'Op ra la Place d'Italie. Et puis Londres, Highbury, Camden Town. Parce qu'on ne choisit pas toujours ses murs, qu'on les voit s' lever sans fin autour de soi. On apprend vivre au coeur de leur histoire. Victor aurait donn sa vie pour Joey. Sa vie et sa libert . Et sans doute aurait-elle fait de m me pour garder ses illusions encore un peu. Il les a d truites, une une. Des mois et des ann es jouer le r le qu'elle lui avait confi , sans le savoir elle-m me. Jusqu' l' puisement, l'esprit et le coeur qui explosent. Victor est crivain, un peu solitaire, un peu sauvage. Les livres, les auteurs, les artistes fa onnent son monde lui. Fascin par Rushdie, James, Hemingway, il cherche sans fin un sens ses propres errements. Une vie qui attend, sans artifices. Et puis Joey, cet amour-l . Fragile et sublime, elle lui offre sa vie et ses souffrances, au bout de ses forces, jusqu'au bord du pr cipice. Victor s'y est totalement perdu. Emport par une rencontre ind cente. Puis une autre. Coupable, sans doute. Le silence est lourd, la musique a cess . Il ne reste qu'une histoire raconter, quelques mots pour se souvenir sans trop d former. Au fond, c'est l'histoire qui choisit. Joey vit sans Victor pr sent, loin d'ici. Elle continue son chemin. Peut- tre seule. Peut- tre pas. Mais il reste leurs ann es, leurs instants partag s. Il reste un go t amer, la certitude d'avoir eu tort. Et puis une ou deux photos ab m es par le temps. Mais cela n'a pas vraiment d'importance. Cela n'en a plus.

Splinters is a collection of short stories that find their momentum in our intricate lives. The past that becomes vivid one more time, the eyes that settle on the fragments of who we are. Ephemeral, fragile in essence, all the pieces and all the mishaps that end up building our humanity. It's a trail of time, a trail of us, a few notes that send us back a few years or simply echo again and again in our minds. The meaning of simple things, memorable frames of what we keep trying to build: strength, attachments, a print over whoever comes and goes our way. The gentle flow of jazzy music, the competitive self that pushes us forward. Intense. Whatever works after all. The transmission of the little things we know. Those we know for sure. The loves we left behind, the people they have become. A tiny bit through us, like a pen stroke that won't come off. Pending characters are looking back on their lives with nostalgia, sometimes regret, and sometimes a sense of accomplishment. What is left of all that when the end is near? Or simply when the time to move on is at hand? Pictures flashing by onboard an express train, a couple living their story through the glimpse of an eye. The frailty of instantaneity and its ceaseless echoing into the following years, like deafening drums in the distance. It's all about the traces that we leave behind, the bonds that link us to everyone around. The landmarks of a lifetime, pages being turned. Meeting again the love of our youth, hearing the crowd cheer in the arena. Memories and emotions surface from an old picture, a return to Italy or an rundown tennis court on the side of the road. They inevitably bring us back to the kid we used to be, the games we used to play, and the friends and connections we used to make so easily. Before it got serious, before it got definitive.Here the senses are put to the test, sensuality reigns over reason. Poets and writers and painters stretch along these short stories, and remind us of our beauty, of feeling things for real and what it takes to let them be, be they luminous or dark. Yes, it's about our humanity, the power of our subjective visions over the landscapes and the lives that fly by. Sensitive and beautiful.