I picked up this while roaming the shelves of my little bookshop, I knew I wanted something new and interesting to read after the whole Little Women catastrophe. So, what better to boot me up the bum than some more foreign literature?
I inadvertently bought Han Kang's novel 'The Vegetarian' at the same time. Also upcoming on my TBR pile is.... Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and Outline by Rachel Cusk.
This one is a rare gem. Pristine in its form as well as its delivery. Like poetry stretched out to form short sketches that build into a narrative that carries you forward effortlessly.
I love the simplicity of it.
It's like clear water. How you can look through fathoms and see the bottom of the lake. How you're not able to perceive the depth. You jump in, thinking you can touch the bottom and find yourself submerged.
I love finding books like this.
This book is going into the special section of my shelves that I reserve for work I continue to revisit.
It's a novel that tackles shared grief. A grief passed down. A grief explored with such painstaking precision that it makes me linger on whole pages. There's a weight and a lightness to it that is hard to explain.
It's definitely one of the best books I've read this year. I highly encourage you to pick up a copy. Even if you are just in a bookshop somewhere. Pick it up, start to read it. You'll take it home and treasure it.
The prose is crisp. It is uncluttered and you read through it impossibly quickly. That's no bad thing, I let the words wash over me. I returned to the sections I liked. My advice would be to bookmark pages you like and want to return to quickly.
And I offer great thanks to Deborah Smith for her work translating this beautiful novel.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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