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Liberté: The Days of Rage 1990-2020
Liberté is the little book with big ideas. A novella of loosely connected flash fiction (1000 words or less), interspersed with prose poetry as well as inserts from the early 20th century. in a mosaic of turbulence.
1990: Optimism. The cold war ends. The Berlin Wall falls. The European Union forms. For those in their twenties, a better world appears possible, if not probable. A new and better international future…
2020: The world spins out of control. Long-distance, computerized wars. Riots erupt around the globe. New voices are stifled. Heads of state, along with their militarized police, cling to power by suppressing their citizenry. Orwellian algorithms determine which media story is worthy. A depression-era ethos bubbles up. A society primed for pandemic refuses to see the destruction of its planet. It's beyond one person's control but a solution that requires collective action. It's not me but us.
A dizzying array of voices and outlooks:
* A twenty-something male backpacking through Europe
*The wife of a union leader forced to take on larger roles
* A Community activist learning the ropes of the Washington D.C. swamp
*A Latin American activist turned politician
* An independent journalist trying to navigate the worlds of Youtube and Twitter
* A birds-eye view of protest movements around the globe.
1990: Optimism. The cold war ends. The Berlin Wall falls. The European Union forms. For those in their twenties, a better world appears possible, if not probable. A new and better international future…
2020: The world spins out of control. Long-distance, computerized wars. Riots erupt around the globe. New voices are stifled. Heads of state, along with their militarized police, cling to power by suppressing their citizenry. Orwellian algorithms determine which media story is worthy. A depression-era ethos bubbles up. A society primed for pandemic refuses to see the destruction of its planet. It's beyond one person's control but a solution that requires collective action. It's not me but us.
A dizzying array of voices and outlooks:
* A twenty-something male backpacking through Europe
*The wife of a union leader forced to take on larger roles
* A Community activist learning the ropes of the Washington D.C. swamp
*A Latin American activist turned politician
* An independent journalist trying to navigate the worlds of Youtube and Twitter
* A birds-eye view of protest movements around the globe.
100 pages, Paperback
Published April 10, 2020
1 person is currently reading
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 7, 2020
Gary Floyd has always been a person who sees beyond the horizon -- and this time he is not sure he likes what he sees. From his days as a small town Catholic school sceptic (read: one headed to likely eternal damnation for asking too many inconvenient questions) crying out in the wilderness, to his current life as an often scathing observer of a globalized world that leaves all too many behind, Floyd has remained true to his core beliefs in a just and equitable society.
He has been maligned as a socialist, an anarchist, a heathen, and worse. Even his detractors would concede, however, that Gary Floyd has something to say, and that we ignore it at our peril. In one of his crisp vignettes, Floyd details a night in Greece, as migrants and tourists mix, with traditional boundaries being erased in the foamy wave of globalization. As he writes, "The entire world seems to wash up on Paros."
Some would see Paros as a personification of Floyd himself, though he would most likely deny it. Once a conservative, isolated island dominated by the Byzantine church, it is now a landing point for refugees fleeing poverty, for a lost generation of hedonists seeking authenticity and escape, and for their observers, like Floyd, who muse on a world that no longer exists, and wonder about what the new order of globalization means. Like Paros, Floyd has seen many changes around him, and like Paros, he has embraced that change, yet exudes a certain wistfulness for what he has left behind.
In eighth grade, at St. Mary's School in Winchester, Massachusetts, Gary Floyd was the first in his class to ask the question, "what if everything I'm being told isn't true?" In this way, he was the first of many to leave the safe shore of Catholic doctrine and set sail on a wild ride of sex, drugs, and rock and roll through his twenties. Did this bring him happiness? It's hard to say; it brought him knowledge and perspective, to be sure, but those are both different from happiness. Floyd dedicates his writings to his wife, Kathy, which leads me to believe that it was not until he found her that he also truly found his way, his north star, and his voice, which rings out so powerfully and clearly in his essays.
Nietzsche often wrote of the Greek concept of internal conflict within the soul of the ubermensch between the Appolonian and the Dionysian, or wisdom versus hedonism. This to me seems to be the central struggle which defines both Paros and Gary Floyd. Paros went from being a center of learning within the early eastern church to being a playground for those with too much money or time, or both, on their hands. In other words, it went directly from the Appolonian to the Dionysian, and lost much of its central essence along the way. Floyd, on the other hand, has personally exemplified Nietzsche's dictum that "the Appolonian gives form to the Dionysian." By that I mean that he has grown beyond being a rebel without a cause to being a gifted observer who synthesizes in his writing all that is both good and bad about the new world of globalization, along with an awareness that the cloistered world he left behind at St. Mary's still has important lessons that all of us would do well to remember.
Floyd avoids prescriptive answers; he is content to bring his insight to bear on current events, and then to let the reader draw his own conclusions. Perhaps he is like Socrates, whom the Delphic Oracle referred to as the wisest of men, to which Socrates replied that he was wise only in that he realized that he knew nothing. Such is the paradox of Gary Floyd. Much as ancient Greeks who went to consult the Oracle, however, anyone who takes the time to look for the deeper meaning behind his recounting of, say, a night in Greece, will be richly rewarded for his or her efforts.
"Servant of the Delphian Apollo
Go to the Castallian Spring
Wash in its silvery eddies,
And return cleansed to the temple.
Guard your lips from offence
To those who ask for oracles.
Let the God's answer come
Pure from all private fault".
He has been maligned as a socialist, an anarchist, a heathen, and worse. Even his detractors would concede, however, that Gary Floyd has something to say, and that we ignore it at our peril. In one of his crisp vignettes, Floyd details a night in Greece, as migrants and tourists mix, with traditional boundaries being erased in the foamy wave of globalization. As he writes, "The entire world seems to wash up on Paros."
Some would see Paros as a personification of Floyd himself, though he would most likely deny it. Once a conservative, isolated island dominated by the Byzantine church, it is now a landing point for refugees fleeing poverty, for a lost generation of hedonists seeking authenticity and escape, and for their observers, like Floyd, who muse on a world that no longer exists, and wonder about what the new order of globalization means. Like Paros, Floyd has seen many changes around him, and like Paros, he has embraced that change, yet exudes a certain wistfulness for what he has left behind.
In eighth grade, at St. Mary's School in Winchester, Massachusetts, Gary Floyd was the first in his class to ask the question, "what if everything I'm being told isn't true?" In this way, he was the first of many to leave the safe shore of Catholic doctrine and set sail on a wild ride of sex, drugs, and rock and roll through his twenties. Did this bring him happiness? It's hard to say; it brought him knowledge and perspective, to be sure, but those are both different from happiness. Floyd dedicates his writings to his wife, Kathy, which leads me to believe that it was not until he found her that he also truly found his way, his north star, and his voice, which rings out so powerfully and clearly in his essays.
Nietzsche often wrote of the Greek concept of internal conflict within the soul of the ubermensch between the Appolonian and the Dionysian, or wisdom versus hedonism. This to me seems to be the central struggle which defines both Paros and Gary Floyd. Paros went from being a center of learning within the early eastern church to being a playground for those with too much money or time, or both, on their hands. In other words, it went directly from the Appolonian to the Dionysian, and lost much of its central essence along the way. Floyd, on the other hand, has personally exemplified Nietzsche's dictum that "the Appolonian gives form to the Dionysian." By that I mean that he has grown beyond being a rebel without a cause to being a gifted observer who synthesizes in his writing all that is both good and bad about the new world of globalization, along with an awareness that the cloistered world he left behind at St. Mary's still has important lessons that all of us would do well to remember.
Floyd avoids prescriptive answers; he is content to bring his insight to bear on current events, and then to let the reader draw his own conclusions. Perhaps he is like Socrates, whom the Delphic Oracle referred to as the wisest of men, to which Socrates replied that he was wise only in that he realized that he knew nothing. Such is the paradox of Gary Floyd. Much as ancient Greeks who went to consult the Oracle, however, anyone who takes the time to look for the deeper meaning behind his recounting of, say, a night in Greece, will be richly rewarded for his or her efforts.
"Servant of the Delphian Apollo
Go to the Castallian Spring
Wash in its silvery eddies,
And return cleansed to the temple.
Guard your lips from offence
To those who ask for oracles.
Let the God's answer come
Pure from all private fault".
May 25, 2020
Some people observe the world around them, and some people really see it. This collection is written from the eye of a writer who sees... and who knows how to let us see things too. It's the age old adage, show don't tell. The people and the world of this collection feel as real as our own and the people we know in it--but yet it flings the locked doors open so that we can really see inside. A cast of characters, situations, and places that illuminates, entertains, and enriches! You have to read it!
August 7, 2020
Gary Floyd has always been a person who sees beyond the horizon -- and this time he is not sure he likes what he sees. From his days as a small town Catholic school sceptic (read: one headed to likely eternal damnation for asking too many inconvenient questions) crying out in the wilderness, to his current life as an often scathing observer of a globalized world that leaves all too many behind, Floyd has remained true to his core beliefs in a just and equitable society.
He has been maligned as a socialist, an anarchist, a heathen, and worse. Even his detractors would concede, however, that Gary Floyd has something to say, and that we ignore it at our peril. In one of his crisp vignettes, Floyd details a night in Greece, as migrants and tourists mix, with traditional boundaries being erased in the foamy wave of globalization. As he writes, "The entire world seems to wash up on Paros."
Some would see Paros as a personification of Floyd himself, though he would most likely deny it. Once a conservative, isolated island dominated by the Byzantine church, it is now a landing point for refugees fleeing poverty, for a lost generation of hedonists seeking authenticity and escape, and for their observers, like Floyd, who muse on a world that no longer exists, and wonder about what the new order of globalization means. Like Paros, Floyd has seen many changes around him, and like Paros, he has embraced that change, yet exudes a certain wistfulness for what he has left behind.
In eighth grade, at St. Mary's School in Winchester, Massachusetts, Gary Floyd was the first in his class to ask the question, "what if everything I'm being told isn't true?" In this way, he was the first of many to leave the safe shore of Catholic doctrine and set sail on a wild ride of sex, drugs, and rock and roll through his twenties. Did this bring him happiness? It's hard to say; it brought him knowledge and perspective, to be sure, but those are both different from happiness. Floyd dedicates his writings to his wife, Kathy, which leads me to believe that it was not until he found her that he also truly found his way, his north star, and his voice, which rings out so powerfully and clearly in his essays.
Nietzsche often wrote of the Greek concept of internal conflict within the soul of the ubermensch between the Appolonian and the Dionysian, or wisdom versus hedonism. This to me seems to be the central struggle which defines both Paros and Gary Floyd. Paros went from being a center of learning within the early eastern church to being a playground for those with too much money or time, or both, on their hands. In other words, it went directly from the Appolonian to the Dionysian, and lost much of its central essence along the way. Floyd, on the other hand, has personally exemplified Nietzsche's dictum that "the Appolonian gives form to the Dionysian." By that I mean that he has grown beyond being a rebel without a cause to being a gifted observer who synthesizes in his writing all that is both good and bad about the new world of globalization, along with an awareness that the cloistered world he left behind at St. Mary's still has important lessons that all of us would do well to remember.
Floyd avoids prescriptive answers; he is content to bring his insight to bear on current events, and then to let the reader draw his own conclusions. Perhaps he is like Socrates, whom the Delphic Oracle referred to as the wisest of men, to which Socrates replied that he was wise only in that he realized that he knew nothing. Such is the paradox of Gary Floyd. Much as ancient Greeks who went to consult the Oracle, however, anyone who takes the time to look for the deeper meaning behind his recounting of, say, a night in Greece, will be richly rewarded for his or her efforts.
"Servant of the Delphian Apollo
Go to the Castallian Spring
Wash in its silvery eddies,
And return cleansed to the temple.
Guard your lips from offence
To those who ask for oracles.
Let the God's answer come
Pure from all private fault".
He has been maligned as a socialist, an anarchist, a heathen, and worse. Even his detractors would concede, however, that Gary Floyd has something to say, and that we ignore it at our peril. In one of his crisp vignettes, Floyd details a night in Greece, as migrants and tourists mix, with traditional boundaries being erased in the foamy wave of globalization. As he writes, "The entire world seems to wash up on Paros."
Some would see Paros as a personification of Floyd himself, though he would most likely deny it. Once a conservative, isolated island dominated by the Byzantine church, it is now a landing point for refugees fleeing poverty, for a lost generation of hedonists seeking authenticity and escape, and for their observers, like Floyd, who muse on a world that no longer exists, and wonder about what the new order of globalization means. Like Paros, Floyd has seen many changes around him, and like Paros, he has embraced that change, yet exudes a certain wistfulness for what he has left behind.
In eighth grade, at St. Mary's School in Winchester, Massachusetts, Gary Floyd was the first in his class to ask the question, "what if everything I'm being told isn't true?" In this way, he was the first of many to leave the safe shore of Catholic doctrine and set sail on a wild ride of sex, drugs, and rock and roll through his twenties. Did this bring him happiness? It's hard to say; it brought him knowledge and perspective, to be sure, but those are both different from happiness. Floyd dedicates his writings to his wife, Kathy, which leads me to believe that it was not until he found her that he also truly found his way, his north star, and his voice, which rings out so powerfully and clearly in his essays.
Nietzsche often wrote of the Greek concept of internal conflict within the soul of the ubermensch between the Appolonian and the Dionysian, or wisdom versus hedonism. This to me seems to be the central struggle which defines both Paros and Gary Floyd. Paros went from being a center of learning within the early eastern church to being a playground for those with too much money or time, or both, on their hands. In other words, it went directly from the Appolonian to the Dionysian, and lost much of its central essence along the way. Floyd, on the other hand, has personally exemplified Nietzsche's dictum that "the Appolonian gives form to the Dionysian." By that I mean that he has grown beyond being a rebel without a cause to being a gifted observer who synthesizes in his writing all that is both good and bad about the new world of globalization, along with an awareness that the cloistered world he left behind at St. Mary's still has important lessons that all of us would do well to remember.
Floyd avoids prescriptive answers; he is content to bring his insight to bear on current events, and then to let the reader draw his own conclusions. Perhaps he is like Socrates, whom the Delphic Oracle referred to as the wisest of men, to which Socrates replied that he was wise only in that he realized that he knew nothing. Such is the paradox of Gary Floyd. Much as ancient Greeks who went to consult the Oracle, however, anyone who takes the time to look for the deeper meaning behind his recounting of, say, a night in Greece, will be richly rewarded for his or her efforts.
"Servant of the Delphian Apollo
Go to the Castallian Spring
Wash in its silvery eddies,
And return cleansed to the temple.
Guard your lips from offence
To those who ask for oracles.
Let the God's answer come
Pure from all private fault".
July 26, 2020
Just finishing up my autographed copy!! It's an excellent collection of short stories all tying together a central theme!!! It'll take you around parts of the world, and bring you right back home too!!! I highly recommend!!!
July 21, 2020
A delightful, quick and easy read. Gary’s recollections and insights are fascinating and eye opening. Clearly, Gary knows a lot about history and its impact on societies. He’s also led a colourful life with lots of amusing experiences. I enjoyed reading it.
July 9, 2020
"The day of reckoning has been delayed," says Mr. Floyd. No qualifiers: no "until," no "because." Qualifiers distract from the central reality that there has not been a day of reckoning. Oh but the signs are there.
An optimist despite the facts on the ground, Mr. Floyd tells small tales of 'flash fiction' that mix the personal matters of the heart against the impersonal oppression of money and power.
The stories span across Europe and the Americas, from social movements Mr. Floyd has witnessed to the unfolding news events we all see. And thrown in to the mix are some on point insights of twentieth century authors.
For a half century the rich and their capital have been winning the class war against the poor and their labor. (And the middle class itself hasn't had such a great time of it by the way.)
If for a while things change for the better, but only for some of us, we'll never see what hits us.
An optimist despite the facts on the ground, Mr. Floyd tells small tales of 'flash fiction' that mix the personal matters of the heart against the impersonal oppression of money and power.
The stories span across Europe and the Americas, from social movements Mr. Floyd has witnessed to the unfolding news events we all see. And thrown in to the mix are some on point insights of twentieth century authors.
For a half century the rich and their capital have been winning the class war against the poor and their labor. (And the middle class itself hasn't had such a great time of it by the way.)
If for a while things change for the better, but only for some of us, we'll never see what hits us.
July 17, 2020
My husband and I very much enjoyed Gary Floyd's book Liberté. Each flash fiction story exhibits shades of Kerouak, Camus, Michener, Springsteen, and Marx. I would recommend it to anyone.
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June 27, 2020I love the way this collection of very short pieces spans 30 years of grass roots work to take back our economy. The fight for equality and fairness is happening everywhere, and must continue. These stories help explain why we cannot give up.
June 15, 2020
I am a big fan of the short story, and Liberté is a stellar representation of my favorite form. Much like Bukowski, each story (and poem) is a complete tale that stands the test of time. Crisp, evocative, and timely.
July 12, 2020
This book covered alot of subjects and plenty of geography. It was very good. As I first started reading it I was thinking that each vignette was going quickly. But, there was a good deal to think about there. It made you think about your own views on the various subjects.
The book took you around the world, experiencing many places and cultures. The author painted a vivid picture of each area and happening along the way. And there were many interesting characters.
I see it as a book worth reading again because I would probably find more and different meanings there.
I am interested in hearing what other readers feel about the book.
The book took you around the world, experiencing many places and cultures. The author painted a vivid picture of each area and happening along the way. And there were many interesting characters.
I see it as a book worth reading again because I would probably find more and different meanings there.
I am interested in hearing what other readers feel about the book.
August 15, 2020
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
I am relatively new to the "flash fiction" genre - in essence each story is a little shorter than short stories. The first story or two seem a little disconnected with the rest of the book, but this could be that I am new to reading this genre. I loved his weaving of the changes in society, particularly unions, into real life. His threads between stories connect in interesting ways without being explicit. I can't wait for his next book.
I am relatively new to the "flash fiction" genre - in essence each story is a little shorter than short stories. The first story or two seem a little disconnected with the rest of the book, but this could be that I am new to reading this genre. I loved his weaving of the changes in society, particularly unions, into real life. His threads between stories connect in interesting ways without being explicit. I can't wait for his next book.
August 9, 2020
After the restart of baseball during covid-19 I watched the O's sink in the standings like a stone in water. I turned my attention back to reading, found LIBERTE hidden under the sports page of the Boston Globe on the table in the airport of 'that fair city'. I read LIBERTE from cover to cover on the layover and flight back to Baltimore. The book is filled with splendid, personal tales mixed with political eye-openers pitching a dose of optimism throughout. LIBERTE confirms all suspicion: corruption stings like a ground ball through the legs of Bill Buckner. Awareness is hope. This book is a grand slam.
September 8, 2020
As a society we constantly experience the growing pains of transformation, and to capture these growing pains is a rare feat. The author of this novella is able to accomplish this feat, as we see this book become more relevant in today’s society than ever.
August 7, 2020
Gary Floyd exposes the underlying (and underhanded) themes that have taken hold of American society and the political landscape and possesses optimism for a turn around. LIBERTE is a must read for anyone interested in salvaging our democracy and is a bible for the revolutionary.
February 27, 2021
Great story of the past 20 years. This book kept me reading until the end
June 15, 2024
Very smart and well written book by sharp minded author - don't miss!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews