Arazzo d'amore

"Need I insist that the only enemy of the mature marriage is monogamy? That anything less than sexual multiplicity . . . is naive?" Thus the central theme of John Hawkes's widely acclaimed The Blood Oranges is boldly asserted by its narrator, Cyril, the archetypal "sex-singer." Likening himself to a white bull on Love's tapestry, he pursues his romantic vision in a primitive Mediterranean landscape. There, two couples mingle their loves in an "Ilyria" that brings to mind the equally timeless countryside of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.