Octave the Artist

By Adam J. Elkhadem

“Octave is a story about ‘just that very struggle between what reality offers [the artist] and what he himself desires to make of it.’ . . . Wavering between extreme elation and despair, Octave pursues his artistic ambitions with a naiveté that while blinding to the motives of others, allows him to see beyond their narrow conception of art. For Octave, the work of art is a spiritual object, the product of an imagination powerful enough to penetrate the static surface of reality and create an image of what could otherwise be . . . Octave is ‘real allegory’ in the tradition of Flaubert and Courbet, and so, duty bound, I must repeat their warning to you: ‘Don’t read [this book] like children, for diversion, nor for instruction, like ambitious persons; no, read it in order to live.’”

- Patrick Zapien

Published 2022

Softcover paperback

154 pages

DESIGN:

Renata Cruz Lara