Rudolph Bader

The Prison of Perspective Rudolph Bader

A chance encounter, a road accident, an air crash, a hold-up at a bank: How do such events connect people? How do people see the situations from their different perspectives? Three narrative strands follow the lives of three individuals - Peter, Cathy and Ivan - through the second half of the 20th century, from post-war austerity and mediocrity in the 1950s and 1960s to the fast-moving life-style of the present decade, whereby the plot is embedded in real events of the period. The three biographies intersect at crucial points, which reveals their internal landscapes and the different ways of understanding reality. Things are not always what they seem, and we do not always know the whole truth. Playing with various time-levels, this novel of the mind deals primarily with potential fallacies of perception, sexual awakening, emotional exploitation and the proximity of death. How do we store the memorable events in our lives? And how do we cope with these memories as we grow older?