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The Combinations unites several narrations, many gnomic and proverbial expressions, various literary frames and historical data/backgrounds. It exemplifies remarkably the possibilities of the genre and contradicts the contemporary obsession with its decline and commodification. "Louis Armand's The Combinations is a 'great novel' - long and complex. THE COMBINATIONS is a text whose 1) erudition dazzles, 2) structure humbles, 3) monotony never bores, 4) humour disarms, 5) relentlessness overwhelms, 6) storytelling captivates, 7) poignancy remains poignant, and 8) style simply never exhausts itself.

Armand's prose weaves together the City's thousand-and- one fascinating tales with a deeply personal account of one lost soul set adrift amid the early-90s' awakening from the nightmare that was the previous half-century of communist Mitteleuropa. Reinhard) of the 20th (who attempted and succeeded in turning flesh into soap). Edward) of the 16th/17th centuries (who attempted and failed to turn lead into gold), and the infamous H's (e.g. Golem City, the ship of fools boarded by the famed D's (e.g. "Golem City"), across the 20th-century and before/after. In 8 octaves, 64 chapters and 888 pages, Louis Armand's THE COMBINATIONS is an unprecedented "work of attempted fiction" that combines the beauty & intellectual exertion that is chess with the panorama of futility & chaos that is Prague (a.k.a.

Shortlisted for the 2016 Not the Booker prize.