Lucid Romantic Ballad: A Lyric Essay

By Sethu A. Iyer

A man finds himself in the midst of a world which he has trouble understanding; the prevailing definitions of reality don't make much sense to him. He suddenly becomes inspired to begin speaking out his own story. That man would be me, and Lucid Romantic Ballad would be my attempt at honesty. I have run into hundreds of persons at cafes and bars who have wanted to know what my book is "about"; but I seem to stumble every time in my attempts to formulate a response. I tend to say something vague like: "It's basically me trying to sketch my worldview-the way I see reality. I talk about a lot of different subjects in the process." Big, encompassing arm gestures have usually been involved. The basic idea is: every human being ultimately has an utterly personal and unique vision of the world, and this is my effort to get to the bottom of my own. Lately, I've taken to saying that it's about girls and God; this seems to be somewhat more effective. The work begins with a reflection on how I always believed that romanticism (abbreviated to "romance") was an adolescent way of seeing the world-but how I eventually realized that this judgment was very much mistaken. In this sense, I suppose the work could be called something of a spiritual bildungsroman. The book is a lyric essay (i.e. creative nonfiction). The work is organized into 12 parts of 12 stanzas each-for a total of 144 stanzas in the entire work, each about 1.5 pages long. Every stanza is independent from but also interconnected with all of the other stanzas. Within the essay itself, I invite the reader to think of the entire work as a "constellation of fireflies." A cast of characters who recur throughout the work include: Milan Kundera, Soren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, Octavio Paz, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and William Blake. And I cover several different subjects over the course of my reflections, including: love, society, and imagination; sexuality, despair, and redemption. My name is Sethu, and I'm 26 years old. I make my living as a freelance writer who produces material for clients. I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2011. I love hanging out at cafes and bars. This is my first book-and, I hope, the start of something beautiful. ((c) 2014; all rights reserved.)"

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1507661967
• ISBN13: 9781507661963
• Release Date: March 2015
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 0.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.6" x 5.3"