The Gospel of the Rauschmonstrum by Nick LaTorre

Once there, everyone is fascinated by the strange story of his origin and by his 'lightness,' which they consider a unique gift. On the way, he is met by an old woman and then by one of King Torlindao's guards who brings him to the royal court. He gives himself a name made up of the first syllable of the names of his 'mothers' (Pe-Re-La), puts on a pair of boots that will anchor him to the ground, and sets off for a city that he sees on the horizon. One day he finds the fireplace abandoned.

“The enigmatic protagonist, Perelà, is literally a man made of smoke, formed over thirty-three years in the chimney of a fireplace tended by three old women, Pena, Rete, and Lama, the three weirds sisters of Shakespeare of course, hence the triple goddess of all European cultures. We could summarize this opera as follows, along with Wikipedia. And we can wonder how much the present Gospel owes to this opera and the novel behind. Now, what is the real nature of this monster? The first reference we can think of is Perelà, Uomo di Fumo (Perelà, Man of Smoke), an opera composed by Pascal Dusapin whose Italian libretto Dusapin himself wrote, based on the novel, Il Codice Perelà by the Italian writer, Aldo Palazzeschi and which had its world premiere on February 24, 2003, at the Opéra Bastille in Paris (France not Texas), conducted by James Conlon. In other words, this monster is smoking us up and out of our minds. This is pure mischief and the author is enjoying it when you accuse him of being a mischievous and shadowy character, so much so that his Rauschmonstrum is nothing but dark smoke that can take any form it wants.

The Gospel of the Rauschmonstrum by Nick LaTorre