Another Body

8 hrs. 34 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Milorad Pavić

Narrator Vladimir Lesnykh

Description

Milorad Pavić is a Serbian writer whose critics call him the first author of the 21st century. His novel “The Other Body” is filled with elements of magical realism.

A phone call: it’s the voice of the dead husband of Elizabeth Swift, and he is also the narrator. Perhaps he is solving the mystery of another body and gaining immortality. Answers are hidden in 18th-century Venice. Anna and her lover Zachariah discover the house’s owner dead after some mysterious ritual—with a poem, a stone ring that changes color, and the tears of the Virgin Mary. But the death comes from poison, not magic. The heroes decide to repeat this ritual, but first Anna, for the first time, gives in to passion with Zachariah against the backdrop of the carnival.

Some answers are to be found in Hungary too. During a confession, a monk named Gabriel learns the name of his killer and receives a stone ring. He succumbs to temptation in the embrace of Axinia, who whispers poetry during their intimacy. Trying to avoid fate, the monk uses “contrivances of purification,” but fate pursues him, leading him along the predetermined path.

The novel “The Other Body” has elements similar to works by Dan Brown—“The Da Vinci Code” and “Inferno,” Mikhail Bulgakov—“The Master and Margarita,” and José Saramago—“Blindness,” ("Memories of the Monastery").