One Note Symphonies [Paperback]

Sean Brijbasi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2001

Ranging from the reflective to the refractive, stories that capture the alchemy of everyday life... a sinister trumpet, Napoleon as a bicycle, a naked woman&

Product Details

• Paperback: 101 pages
• Publisher: Writers Club Press (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595176364
• ISBN-13: 978-0595176366
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,533,195 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Where's The Mute Button For This Symphony?, February 8, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: One Note Symphonies (Paperback)

From the minute I picked this piece of trash up, I wished my hands would have fallen off! What a waste of time! I tried to contact the "author" of this drek to demand my money back, to no avail! Sean, stick to coloring books and leave the printed page to the true professionals like Chi-Chi!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Differently Delicious!!, September 5, 2001

By 

Vivek Tejuja "vivekian" (mumbai, maharashtra, india) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Note Symphonies (Paperback)

...on many levels this book is weird, yet fulfilling describing loneliness, love, hidden passions, flaunting emotions, creating a mirage at times and then again leaving the reader baffled asking for more...

the stories in this debut are simply amazing! starting with "diary of a composor" to the very last "the etymology of the swedish quen" the stories travel back and forth sometimes in time and at others on a higher evolved self-level. while reading this book, way too many thoughts crossed my mind...some happy and some sad...but they were so connecting to what I was reading...

reading this book was like painting a plain canvas with so many varied colours - sometimes of a heartbroken lover, some of a failed marriage, others of napolean's achievements, then forwarding to brushings with elephant pieces...

one last thing: Do not under any circumstances fail to read this book!!

4.0 out of 5 stars a myriad of notes, June 1, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: One Note Symphonies (Paperback)

I read a lot of books, not all of them good. One-Note Symphonies is very good. I can't even say that it could be better because in its form, it is perfect. The form is Brijbasi's completely unique creation, which makes it impossible to compare to existing texts. Not that he invented the concept of vignettes; it is the way he strings them together with loosely woven ideas that makes it his.

Leitmotifs of a blue balloon, a bicycle, crayons, and a woman's ass make several appearances but appear to be arbitrary. If you are the type of reader who insists on making connections (as I usually am), there is are several possible correlations. Mylene in an early chapter and Madeline in the end appear to be the same person. Whether the first is completely different from the second or the same woman viewed from different perspectives is up to the reader. The fanciful array of objects making random appearances is accompanied by a few tenets concurrently, the first being that beauty is ephemeral and only briefly available for our viewing pleasure:

"The truth and beauty of things can only be grasped in moments . . .
Let me rephrase: the truth and beauty of things only show themselves
in moments . . . We can never really capture the original moments;
only a kind of mutation of the moments, and it adds a melancholy to
them and perhaps makes them seem more beautiful than they really were."

I could wax philosophical over the genuine nature of beauty and whether or not it exists only in mimesis, but I won't. Ambiguity is one of the most enjoyable aspects of One-Note Symphonies.

Sean Brijbasi can put his beauty where his word-processor is. Not only does he make the assertion but then writes, "At an abandoned intersection, Martin stops the car and gets out. He hops into the air, then down, then up again with a butterfly's innocent disdain for gravity, and floats away into the night. Everything is wet; drops of rain appear to be falling light, each carrying inside its opalescent body, tiny pieces of the moon and the stars." Keeping in ironic character, he also notes, "There is a nightmarish quality to pain. A deep purple vintage. Hellish and beautiful like nightmares are beautiful. Beautiful like hell is beautiful." Examples like this of exquisitely delicate writing are reason alone to read the book.
There is also the observation that ostensibly unrelated acts affect each other in ways we will never know or be able to predict. Since random events have consequences of which we are never aware, certain absurd effects possibly exist of which we are completely oblivious. The random effect birds impose on musical composition is more than amusing.

It is a complex book. It challenges the way we think about daily unevents and wears them on the wrong feet. The wry wit and rueful melancholy of this book make it completely original and unlike anything else available. Live dangerously. Read it.

6/1/2004
elle