Michal Ajvaz's new novel Cities
The narrator of the book promises the wife of his old friend Štěpán that he will try to find the mysterious purple flash drive in Stockholm, which, through a strange game of chance, has plunged Štěpán into a state of mental torment, and which is also the only thing in the world that can soothe his despair. The flash drive is no longer in Stockholm, the narrator follows its trail and his search eventually turns into a journey around the world: From Sweden, it takes him to Norway and then to the Netherlands, Ireland, France, the east and west coasts of the United States, Japan and Poland.
On his journey he meets many people and gets to know their fates, listens to the story of the changing statue and the edible mosaic, about the parts from the mystery machine, about the birth of a novel from a single sentence in a book bought in a market in Seoul and a musical composition, which was created to accompany the shadow dance on the wall, about the tragic end of a French oceanologist, about the literary work of an eccentric Bavarian mayor, about Blue Pegasus' journey west, about religion, that was born on the Internet...
