Više ih umire od tuge
The story is told through the eyes of narrator Kenneth Trachtenberg, a 35-year-old assistant professor of Russian literature, born in Paris, but now living in the Midwest of the USA.
Kenneth comes to town to be close to his uncle Benn Crader, a world-renowned botanist and "plant visionary", who teaches at the local university. Benn is a genius scientist, obsessed with plants and traveling (from Brazil to Somalia), but personally insecure, unable to maintain a stable emotional life after divorcing his first wife. He lives from affair to affair, chasing "bliss" that always turns into "breakdown". The central plot revolves around Benn's impulsive marriage to Mathilda Layamon, the widow of a wealthy businessman and the daughter of an influential city governor. Mathilda is an ambitious, materially secure woman who sees Benna as a trophy - an intellectual who will raise her status - but her selfishness and manipulations quickly lead to conflict. Benn, accustomed to freedom and scientific obsessions, becomes trapped in a marriage full of sexual tension, deception and family intrigue (including her father, a politician with a dark past). Kenneth, as an observer and advisor, tries to help his uncle, but he himself struggles with his own problems: platonic love for his friend Dita, who succumbs to the pressures of beauty and undergoes unsuccessful plastic surgery to become more attractive.
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