This is a conceptual masterpiece: through extreme creepiness, bleakness and decadence draws the beauty of pure love. This novella is an acute and haunting reevaluation of the perennial love-death cycle. As the introduction at the back aptly suggests, it has "the unique aroma of over-ripe fruits". In a cliff-side house, a mysterious woman hosts impotent old men and allows them to sleep with naked young girls who are drugged with a heavy dose so they would not wake up for the entire night. The old men can do anything with the girls as long as there are no penetrations of any sorts, and they are provided with sleeping pills so they could dream about their past with these young beauties in arms. For the old men, these visits are as rejuvenating as humiliating, as they can exert power by freely manipulating motionless limbs when in reality they are merely being patronised. The protagonist refuses to categorise himself alongside fellow clients, and considers demonstraing his manhood by violating the rules - raping the girls, impregnating them, killing them even. Then he remembers his past, realises the girls are virgins and decides to respect the rules. The writing is so deeply sensuous it is a wonder in itself. Just as he discovers the inner romance of "pure" love by negation, this nightmarish dreamworld collapses in some quiet ways. It paves way for a suspiciously similar novella by Gabriel García Márquez, "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" (2004), which offers a sunnier resolution. Fellow Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee wrote a fantastic review on both, and reading that is totally worthwhile in itself.
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