But as I wrote the novel, I came to the conclusion that the struggle between the white stag and the red star was not limited to the pages of my book or a period in history. It is ongoing, even today and every one of us is forced to make a choice between the two at least once in our lives; however, it is more likely that this choice is actually broken down into an endless series of smaller choices, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them over a course of a lifetime. Regardless of how it happens, one thing is clear - when it comes to selecting between the white stag and red star, the choices you make are of monumental importance.
Francis Berger's Blog
In my novel The City of Earthly Desire I conceptualized tradition and everything it contains within the symbol of the white stag, while communist ideology was, fittingly enough, represented by the red star. I chose the two symbols for the novel because they were historically appropriate for the time and place and partly because I believe they represent a deeper archetypal truth. The white stag appears in Hungarian mythology and the red star was ubiquitous in the country when it was ruled by the communists. I personally remember encountering the red star everywhere when I visited my family as a child.
But as I wrote the novel, I came to the conclusion that the struggle between the white stag and the red star was not limited to the pages of my book or a period in history. It is ongoing, even today and every one of us is forced to make a choice between the two at least once in our lives; however, it is more likely that this choice is actually broken down into an endless series of smaller choices, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them over a course of a lifetime. Regardless of how it happens, one thing is clear - when it comes to selecting between the white stag and red star, the choices you make are of monumental importance.
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Writer. Author of
The City of Earthly Desire. Blog posts tend to be spontaneous, unpolished, first draft entries ranging from the insightful and periodically profound to the poorly-argued and occasionally disparaging. Comments are strictly moderated. Anonymous comments are never published. Personal emails: ferencberger at ho t m aild ot c om Archives
February 2019
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