Inside the World

Al Lehman is a bourgeois Everyman, whose true nature is mysterious, radically unformed, incomplete, and frustrated, even as the quotidian circumstances of his life are drearily grounded in a fixed temporal reality. In this episodic novel, comic and philosophical, written in the late 70s in Cohen's highly idiosyncratic and extraordinarily poetic language, different aspects of Lehman's quest to exist in the scope of finitude, in the belly of a universe that does not fully nourish him, but is the source of all nourishment, are brilliantly distilled.

INSIDE THE WORLD: AS AL LEHMAN is a companion novel to WOMEN, AND TOM GERVASI, whose central figure could be Lehman's wish-fulfilling dream projection: a Don Juan who exists in a world of limitless physical and emotional gratification. Taken together, the two novels comprise a kind of comedic Either/Or in which are explored a wide range of the merits and dismerits of the real and ideal.

Al Lehman este un Everyman burghez, a carui adevarata natura este misterioasa, radical neformata, incompleta si frustrata, chiar daca circumstantele cotidiene ale vietii sale sunt intemeiate drastic intr-o realitate temporala fixa. In acest roman episodic, comic si filosofic, scris la sfarsitul anilor '70 in limbajul extrem de idiosincratic si extraordinar de poetic al lui Cohen, diferite aspecte ale cautarii lui Lehman de a exista in sfera finitudinii, in pantecele unui univers care nu il hraneste pe deplin, ci este sursa oricarei hraniri, sunt distilate in mod stralucit. INTERIORUL LUMII: AS AL LEHMAN este un roman insotitor pentru FEMEI SI TOM GERVASI, a carui figura centrala ar putea fi proiectia visului lui Lehman care implineste dorintele: un Don Juan care exista intr-o lume a satisfactie fizica si emotionala nelimitata.