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Lady Philosophy visits Boethius in prison.

By contrast, Manolo’s Fashion Muse wears a Chanel suit.

In an unenlightened and disconsolate early 6th century, philosopher Boethius, at an age considered past his prime (though hardly by today’s standards) is sorrowfully awaiting his bitter fate in a prison, when he is visited by Lady Philosophy. She offers him consolation and wisdom in his time of need, which Boethius dutifully immortalizes in his opus Consolatio Philosophiae.

Many centuries later, in the City of Madrid, in the not too distant past, a young shoemaker’s apprentice is bestowed a similar visit from a vision of grace and wisdom–but this time, it is Lady Fashion who offers consolation to the young bohemian Manolo–our beloved shoeblogger. Her wisdom is more laconic than Boethius’s visitor, as she shows him a perfect pair of shoes and leaves the Manolo with these simple yet enigmatic words: ‘We shall always have the shoes.’

What follows is a tour de force like no other–for although it is solidly grounded in that best and most elegant of philosophical tradition of the Socratic inquiry, Manolo’s opus is at the same time breezy, funny, unpretentious, and eminently readable. The Manolo is trying to both grasp the meaning of Lady Fashion’s words and to find that elusive perfect pair of shoes. His quest is peppered with the occasional accounts of Manolo’s pitiable childhood, the description of the boisterous, mustachioed senor Mercurio, Manolo’s first employer, and others of the sort, but also the metaphysical musings on that very serious topic that we all love dearly, the Shoes. Revelations spring out of Manolo’s variegated and amusing prose like rare resplendent orchid flowers from the luxuriant tropical vegetation, for example:

To not physically own the shoes but to possess them, this was the metaphysical paradox, one that required much contemplation.

or:

Well-made work boots, well maintained, pleased the Manolo much more than the expensive shoes poorly kept. And thus to see the workingman striding down the street, his toolkit in hand, his boots perhaps dusty but otherwise well cared for, said much to the Manolo about the dignity of that individual.

or:

‘Perhaps,’ the Manolo said tentatively, ‘one may say that happiness may be found even in most humble pair of the shoes.’

If your friends or boyfriend or husband give you grief over the hundred pairs of shoes you own, or make fun of your passion, pity them, for they do not understand. Better still, give them The Consolation of the Shoes, for only then will they perhaps have a chance to grasp a fraction of the depth of your passion. And also, thank the Manolo for so gracefully capturing the noble endeavor of shoe-osophy.