this haunting suspenseful tale of love and vengeance by the author of the international bestseller silk surges with the hypnotic power of the ocean sea in ocean sea alessandro baricco presents a hypnotizing postmodern fable of human maladypsychological existential eroticand the sea as a means of deliverance at the almayer inn a remote shoreline hotel an artist dips his brush in a cup of ocean water to paint a portrait of the sea a scientist pens love letters to a woman he has yet to meet an adulteress searches for relief from her proclivity to fall in love and a sixteenyearold girl seeks a cure from a mysterious condition which science has failed to remedy when these people meet their fates begin to interact as if by design enter a mighty tempest and a ghostly mariner with a thirst for vengeance and the inn becomes a place where destiny and desire battle for the upper hand playful provocative and ultimately profound ocean sea is a novel of striking originality and wisdom