My Heart After Esther: A Mystic's Philosophy of Love

My Heart After Esther could be considered a philosophy of love in the skin of a romance novel, or a romance novel in the skin of a philosophy of love, but it is ultimately a story about love and philosophy in a way that romances the two. In this work of literary meta-fiction based mostly in Puerto Rico, two stories are interwoven into one. The first story is about the fictional translator of the second story, Gustav Z. Itohahn, and his love for the fictional author and his work he is translating, the mysterious pseudo philosopher Jorge Manuel Belmarez. Itohahn’s life is turned inside out when Belmarez asks for his assistance in translating a novel he has written, which he claims will introduce a new philosophy of love. But Belmarez dies before they can complete the project, and Itohahn, now enthralled in the mystique of Belmarez and his philosophy of love, life, and literature, takes it upon himself to see the publication through. In the second story, we read Itohahn’s presentation of Belmarez’s story of love, which dares to challenge every idea of love and marriage from the vow “till death do we part” to the old courtly-love edict that “marriage is no proper defense against love.” As Itohahn’s tour of the second story comes to an end, he tries his best to not only answer the impossible question of Being, but to answer that question by answering the most intimate question ever asked about Being: the question of being in love. Following in the tradition of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, Mr. Aki’s My Heart After Esther is a new take on philosophical fiction. It is not only a story about love, but it is a story that engages the most intimate questions raised regarding existence, identity, politics, religion, literature, poetry, music, and even fashion. It may somehow find itself in the memory of its readers as more than an experiment in story-telling, but truly an experiment in challenging our deepest ideas and beliefs.