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TALES: parables, fables, visionary snippets
Short, mystically-inspired tales written over several decades and presented with a thematic color illustration for each.
* Here's the link to Preview and Buy the book:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/max-reif/tal...
* Here's the AUTHOR'S PREFACE—best description so far, I think: "I admire authors who write novel after novel and never run dry. Most of my own recent narrative efforts have been are not imagined from whole cloth, but written from actual pivotal experiences, which I’ve clothed in words to allow a reader to vicariously live each one.
A few decades ago, however, I incessantly penned short tales set in realms that were in some way 'fantastic.' That was the only way I knew to write prose about the shining spiritual realms I was given glimpses of back then. Such 'places' could only be rendered by extended metaphor.
In the late ‘80s, a thick binder of these, titled The Sojourn of the Soul, came into being. Friends said it was my best work. One took on the role of agent and sent the whole thing to Parabola magazine. One of the stories, 'The Dreamer,' appeared in a large new-age magazine called Magical Blend.
Two and a half decades downstream, I find many of those pieces amateurish. However, several of them still feel like keepers. To those, I add here the very few examples of this genre that have flown forth from my pen in recent years.
As a young man, I was deeply inspired by the magical parables of Hermann Hesse, and to some degree, those of Jorge Luis Borges. Some folks might see me as self-indulgent, publishing these tales. However, they continue to bring me joy. Reading them, I continue to feel, 'This says something!'"
And so, here they are.
Max Reif
July 11, 2018
Walnut Creek, CA
* Here's the link to Preview and Buy the book:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/max-reif/tal...
* Here's the AUTHOR'S PREFACE—best description so far, I think: "I admire authors who write novel after novel and never run dry. Most of my own recent narrative efforts have been are not imagined from whole cloth, but written from actual pivotal experiences, which I’ve clothed in words to allow a reader to vicariously live each one.
A few decades ago, however, I incessantly penned short tales set in realms that were in some way 'fantastic.' That was the only way I knew to write prose about the shining spiritual realms I was given glimpses of back then. Such 'places' could only be rendered by extended metaphor.
In the late ‘80s, a thick binder of these, titled The Sojourn of the Soul, came into being. Friends said it was my best work. One took on the role of agent and sent the whole thing to Parabola magazine. One of the stories, 'The Dreamer,' appeared in a large new-age magazine called Magical Blend.
Two and a half decades downstream, I find many of those pieces amateurish. However, several of them still feel like keepers. To those, I add here the very few examples of this genre that have flown forth from my pen in recent years.
As a young man, I was deeply inspired by the magical parables of Hermann Hesse, and to some degree, those of Jorge Luis Borges. Some folks might see me as self-indulgent, publishing these tales. However, they continue to bring me joy. Reading them, I continue to feel, 'This says something!'"
And so, here they are.
Max Reif
July 11, 2018
Walnut Creek, CA
82 pages, Paperback
Published September 20, 2018
2 people want to read
About the author
Max Reif
6 books7 followersHere are the basics: born on Riverside Drive in Manhattan, family moved to St. Louis in '51 and I grew up there, mostly in University City, a suburb. Left home at 18 to attend Northwestern University. But it was the '60s. Plus I had "stuff" from my childhood, and it's possible also that my parents adored me too much. PLENTY TO WRITE ABOUT!
Anyway, I got on the psychedelic roulette wheel, and, well, I didn't do very well. But in 1971 I had a spiritual awakening in relation to a man named Meher Baba. The rest is history. No, actually, it's been a hard slog since then, too, with some incredible periods of inspiration here and there!
The complexities of all this are the subject of my just-published book, Toward an Interior Sun:Awakening by a Master and the DIfficult Journey to Discipleship
The publisher of the book is The Mindful Word, an online journal for which I've written some 70 pieces in the past few years: these stories, and also poems, essays, book reviews, humor. Here is the link to my White Pony Express, I work 30 hours a week as a "Music and Story Guy and Companion To Young Friends" in a preschool aftercare program.
If I think of anything else you need to know, I'll add it!
Anyway, I got on the psychedelic roulette wheel, and, well, I didn't do very well. But in 1971 I had a spiritual awakening in relation to a man named Meher Baba. The rest is history. No, actually, it's been a hard slog since then, too, with some incredible periods of inspiration here and there!
The complexities of all this are the subject of my just-published book, Toward an Interior Sun:Awakening by a Master and the DIfficult Journey to Discipleship
The publisher of the book is The Mindful Word, an online journal for which I've written some 70 pieces in the past few years: these stories, and also poems, essays, book reviews, humor. Here is the link to my White Pony Express, I work 30 hours a week as a "Music and Story Guy and Companion To Young Friends" in a preschool aftercare program.
If I think of anything else you need to know, I'll add it!
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October 3, 2018(This is the Afterword from the book itself)
I’m tempted to share with you a glimpse of how each of these stories arose. The writing of each remains a significant inner event in my life.
“The Dreamer,” perhaps the most widely disseminated tale in this collection, arose from a tense moment in the early ‘80s. I was on a trip via Greyhound, to see my estranged wife in New Jersey.
During a 1 ½ hour stop in Pittsburgh, I took a walk downtown and stopped at a lunch counter for a snack and coffee. Feeling disconnected, I got out my notebook and scrawled, “There was a man who could do nothing but write.”
To a degree, this line described my own situation: I had no voice there in Pittsburg, except via this notebook. I was struggling then to find a voice in my life in general. Forty-five minutes later, getting back on the bus with a meaningful story that had not existed before, I felt empowered!
The story “Meruscha” was a deliberate attempt to confront my own emotional discomfort about helplessness, The writing led to some real flights of lyricism.
“The Ballad of a Warm Café” spontaneously poured onto notebook pages after I’d returned home from a week at Meher Spiritual Center, a 500-acre, woodland retreat in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I was so drenched in spiritual joy, clearly generated by Meher Baba, to whom the Center is dedicated, that I had to write, to convey the essence of this “Wondrous Love.”
“The Bird” is an imaginative expression of a childhood trauma and a resultant “swaddling in shame” that lasted until I was 28. The loving “healer” figure in the story who helps restore the main character to wholeness is modeled after Richard Alpert, better known as Ram Dass, who had fortuitously helped me through these matters in my life.
Each of the other stories, too, has an exceptional tale of origin. However, the test is reading them! I hope you received some of the unique atmosphere and force built into each tale—I think by something beyond my little ego. A few are cautionary tales, but most are excursions into the beauty and inspiration on the other side of our misgivings and fears.
I’m tempted to share with you a glimpse of how each of these stories arose. The writing of each remains a significant inner event in my life.
“The Dreamer,” perhaps the most widely disseminated tale in this collection, arose from a tense moment in the early ‘80s. I was on a trip via Greyhound, to see my estranged wife in New Jersey.
During a 1 ½ hour stop in Pittsburgh, I took a walk downtown and stopped at a lunch counter for a snack and coffee. Feeling disconnected, I got out my notebook and scrawled, “There was a man who could do nothing but write.”
To a degree, this line described my own situation: I had no voice there in Pittsburg, except via this notebook. I was struggling then to find a voice in my life in general. Forty-five minutes later, getting back on the bus with a meaningful story that had not existed before, I felt empowered!
The story “Meruscha” was a deliberate attempt to confront my own emotional discomfort about helplessness, The writing led to some real flights of lyricism.
“The Ballad of a Warm Café” spontaneously poured onto notebook pages after I’d returned home from a week at Meher Spiritual Center, a 500-acre, woodland retreat in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I was so drenched in spiritual joy, clearly generated by Meher Baba, to whom the Center is dedicated, that I had to write, to convey the essence of this “Wondrous Love.”
“The Bird” is an imaginative expression of a childhood trauma and a resultant “swaddling in shame” that lasted until I was 28. The loving “healer” figure in the story who helps restore the main character to wholeness is modeled after Richard Alpert, better known as Ram Dass, who had fortuitously helped me through these matters in my life.
Each of the other stories, too, has an exceptional tale of origin. However, the test is reading them! I hope you received some of the unique atmosphere and force built into each tale—I think by something beyond my little ego. A few are cautionary tales, but most are excursions into the beauty and inspiration on the other side of our misgivings and fears.
Displaying 1 of 1 review