Trine Erotic: book review
Trine Erotic, by Alice Andrews (ViviSphere Publishing, 2002)
Trine Erotic is not the easiest book to describe or summarize, but here’s my attempt: a romantic, philosophical novel with a postmodern narrative structure that explores the dialectic between biology and free will. To what extent are our feelings, actions and relationships determined by our genes and by evolutionary forces?
While Trine Erotic is certainly an intellectual and philosophical novel, it is also down to earth and readable. The deeper issues are explored through the experiences of well-rounded characters. The technique of stories within stories has become a kind of postmodern genre of its own. Trine Erotic, however, uses this style in a way that is quite original -to explore the role of evolution and biology in human existence, more specifically in human romantic and sexual behavior.
If someone were to write a novel with the sole purpose of trying to prove an argument such as “biology is destiny,” it would, I fear, be quite one dimensional, even dull. Fortunately, Alice Andrews leaves the question of how much biology determines our actions open-ended. More importantly, the characters in this book are are more than abstract symbols to prove a point; they are real people who have interesting thoughts, conversations and relationships.
As the title suggests, the book consists of three sections, Love Stories, Siren’s Song and Third Force. The postmodern structure comes in as we discover that each section turns out to be about the author who penned the previous one. As you might expect with such a style, there are close parallels between the characters in each section.
The characters in Trine Erotic struggle with issues such as love, attraction, fidelity, jealousy and abandonment. One of the central issues is the tendency of some women to be drawn to “alpha” type males who are attractive and charismatic but often unreliable and unwilling to commit to one woman. This is not an unfamiliar theme, but in this novel it is scrutinized from a blatantly biological (evolutionary) perspective.
The whole biology vs. free will problem comes to a head in an interesting manner in the final section. Here, Helen, who turns out to be the author of all the previous narratives, meets Ed, who is not only an attractive alpha male, but the head of a spiritual community based on the teachings of someone named Guerttiev, who seems to be a thinly disguised stand in for Gurdjieff, the esoteric philosopher who taught that “the Work” of ones life should be to authentic and “wake up.”
This esoteric view of spiritual evolution differs fundamentally from the biological kind. The aim of the mystic or magus is to transcend mere physical existence and take conscious control of the evolutionary process. Whether or not this is possible is the kind of question that is raised but not definitively answered in Trine Erotic.
As someone who is quite ambivalent about evolution and science, I did not at all mind the lack of any definite conclusions in this novel. I prefers books that make me think about such issues rather than supply oversimplified and pat answers. Trine Erotic can be read either as a fascinating study of some basic philosophical issues, or as a compelling novel about modern relationships -or both.
Note: most of my book and film reviews are posted on Amazon.com. I’m gradually moving towards posting them on my blog, with links to the Amazon product pages. You can see my Amazon reviews here.
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