"The Same Book" by Max Fry, summary Automatic translate

This book is a mosaic of short stories, travelogues, and diary fragments, published in 2010. The boundaries between dreams and reality are completely blurred here. The everyday seamlessly merges with magic. Miracles occur on the streets of old European cities, in cozy coffee shops, and on the edges of other people’s dreams. The characters brew coffee, communicate with spirits, and fearlessly travel through time.

The work has been republished several times as part of the book series “The Worlds of Max Fry”.

Fairy tales and everyday life

A narrator in a coffee shop explains to a tourist the bizarre rules of life in Vilnius. It turns out that the local mermaids can be baited with a serving of sushi. Once baited, the creatures willingly take up residence in the townspeople’s bathtubs, scoop up freshwater pearls from the bottom, and sing drawn-out songs all night long. Local visitors are strongly advised to ditch their alarm clocks. According to an ancient chronicle, Vilnius is dreamed of by Duke Gediminas as he sleeps under a hill. A loud noise can awaken the ruler. If the prince opens his eyes, the city and all its inhabitants could disappear forever.

Winter Vilnius appears in the story of a young girl, Yul. The heroine sincerely hates the cold and her heavy gray down jacket. Hiding from the icy wind in an alley, Yul meets the elderly Martin and his companion, Maya. The optimistic couple brews coffee outside in honor of the Icelandic sun festival. Martin accidentally burns Yul’s down jacket with a match. Maya joyfully gives her her bright green sheepskin coat. Yul warms up, and her life quickly changes for the better.

The summer heat overcomes translator Teresa. She runs through the narrow city streets for cool coffee. In the courtyard, Teresa encounters three neighbors, all heavy drinkers. The men are celebrating a housewarming party and brewing a strange drink on an old stool. They offer to give Teresa snow-white doves for their upcoming wedding. Teresa shares with them some good Kenyan coffee from her stash. Soon, she sees a flock of colorful birds in the pale blue sky: black, red, yellow, and blue.

Dreams and reality

Faina’s story begins with the regular purchase of wooden birds. She secretly gives these souvenirs to her indifferent neighbors. Faina remembers her father baking Easter cakes after his wife’s death. The tired father accidentally mixed up the sugar and salt. His fragile world nearly collapsed because of this absurd, everyday mistake. His quick-witted daughter quickly saved the situation. She suggested cutting up the baked goods and turning the salted dough into excellent beer croutons.

A lonely girl, Yanina, suffers from a recurring nightmare. A brutal maniac kills her repeatedly at a trolleybus stop. One early morning, she screams loudly in her sleep. Patrol officers Tanya and Algirdas knock on the door. They drink hot coffee with Yanina in the cramped kitchen, trying to calm her down. Falling asleep again, Yanina is instantly transported back to her familiar nightmare. She is astonished to see the same officers confidently arrest the killer right at the bus stop.

Young Arthur studies industrial design against the strict wishes of his father, J.K. Brinkin. Tired of arguing, his father challenges his son to a roll of the dice. A double instantly seals Arthur’s fate: the eccentric millionaire pays for his long studies in London. That evening, Brinkin sets off a spectacular fireworks display in the backyard. Amid the sound of multicolored explosions, he changes into filthy rags. The millionaire sneaks out of his own home and decides to start anew under the name Jingle-Co in a backwater bar near the Mexican border.

Every year, a little girl named Ida is brought to the old photographer Uncle Yasha. As a child, live parrots actually flew into the studio during shoots. As an adult, Ida becomes irritated by the photographer’s stock phrase: "A bird is about to fly out." Many years later, she accidentally returns to the familiar studio. Uncle Yasha again utters the old magic words. Those same brightly colored birds magically appear from the lens of the vintage camera.

Wanderings and Memory

The boy regularly visits the Old Lady in her chilly apartment. They assemble a huge jigsaw puzzle on the faded blue carpet. The Lady tells her guest about her distant school days. She promises to give a real pair of skates to a faithful listener. The boy enjoys listening to these leisurely stories, despite the complete absence of frost in their southern city.

Timothy disappears from his own home. His wife, Nora, and children, Gina and Matthew, grieve the loss and try to move on. The impressionable Matthew collects newspaper clippings about people disappearing without a trace. Meanwhile, Timothy awakens in a completely different reality. It turns out that his long, happy family life was just an incredibly detailed dream. He discusses this strange dream with his true love, Liselotte. She quotes him the words of a famous philosopher: "Life and dreams are pages of the same book."

At a summer outdoor café, a man convinces Nina of the constant presence of miracles. A white unicorn and an emperor penguin leisurely pass by the café’s window. Nina, annoyed, misses this fantastical spectacle. She frantically searches her large bag for her ringing cell phone.

A young mother, Rita, comforts her crying daughter, Yanka. The girl is deeply upset; the mothers of the other children work as brave taxi drivers and famous opera singers. Rita, under a solemn oath, tells her daughter a huge secret. She sincerely confesses her alien origins. Life on Earth is merely a long exploratory mission, after which they will surely return home.

The hero hitchhikes to the distant Black Sea with the red-haired Lara. Spending the night in an old Odessa apartment, he experiences a powerful attack of amnesia. He imagines himself a local drunk suffering from a severe hangover. A romantic trip with Lara seems like nothing more than an alcoholic’s dying delirium. By sheer force of will, he finds his favorite brand of tobacco, "Sweet Plum," in his backpack. The hero consciously chooses the identity of a wanderer, bringing familiar reality back into its proper place.

Amorous Misha meets the beautiful Nadya. She disappears without a trace from her locked sixth-floor apartment. The young man waits days for her call, but the miracle never happens. Fifty years later, an elderly Misha is a successful owner of an antique shop. A former circus trapeze artist, Rada, comes to see him. She confesses that in her youth, she used a false name, Nadya. The trapeze artist deftly escaped through an open window and down a steep wall. Rada left the young man, clearly realizing the utter failure of their fleeting holiday romance.

Cities and Moods

Travelogues meticulously capture the fleeting features of European cities. In sunny Barcelona, the bells of the Sagrada Familia resound. In Paris, an insistent, chatty waiter overwhelms guests with huge portions of hot couscous. In Rome, street musicians masterfully play rock ballads. An ancient city instantly transforms into a lively, understanding conversationalist. In Krakow, they brew excellent, strong espresso, and the melody of an invisible street trumpeter floats over the ancient red roofs.

The diary entries cover the period from April to July 2006 in detail. The texts meticulously capture the changing seasons, the bitter aromas of coffee, and the scents of blossoming trees. The author describes solitary walks through the sleeping city at night. The short notes vividly convey the sincere joy of everyday trifles: a hot, fresh loaf of bread, a blooming yellow dandelion, and the uneven chalk marks on the walls of brick buildings.

In the final essays, the author reflects deeply on literature, the nature of memory, and the inexorable passage of time. The texts of Jorge Luis Borges are often cited as a veritable documentary instruction manual for the workings of the universe. Time is metaphorically likened to a hard, cold stone. Man cleverly slips this stone to the voracious ancient deity Cronus. This cunning deception allows one to gain a few precious moments for a truly conscious life. Existence itself is accepted as an eternal, paradoxical, and beautiful process.