Review: A Story of Hope, Loneliness, and Survival
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 13, 2013
A beautifully written story of one man in the post-Apocalyptic world. It’s a dystopian tale set in the desolate world after a nuclear catastrophe that killed all the living.  Sam One miraculously survived but is now faced with the future that has not a glimmer of hope in it. At least that’s what Sam One believes until he has a surprising encounter and an even more surprising find – both end up in unexpected twists in the plot.“The Old Man and the Flower” can also be read as an allegory, a psychological sketch of what a person who lives through a devastating natural or man-made disaster, a war or another dramatic and life-altering event, might feel. People who have experienced such events often divide their life into the “before” and “after,” and that psychological division is conveyed by Vardan Partamyan through the two Sams: pre-Apocalyptic and Apocalyptic. The two Sams struggle to co-exist within one person, Sam One, indicating to the readers the duality and the contradictions of human nature.The story is filled with realistic details, such as Sam’s daily regimen of exercise and movement that helps him find a purpose in life that, under the circumstances, cannot have any purpose.  Each day, Sam walks for miles, and he always walks towards the west. As I read the story, I wondered whether that direction towards the west, the direction  of the setting sun, where a day ends and the world gets immersed into darkness, was symbolic of the end of the world and the end of Sam. But the story takes a few surprising turns and (you decide whether the pun was intended or not)  changes directions quite a few times, providing for a fascinating reading experience.