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L'amour commence en hiver
« Je voulais seulement me plonger dans son regard vert, écouter le son cadencé de sa voix, comme si ses mots étaient les notes que j'avais toujours cherché à entendre, celles que je n'avais jamais jouées, les sons mêmes de la vie. »
Dans l'étui de son violoncelle, Bruno conserve un talisman : une moufle, celle que portait une enfant morte il y a vingt ans. Dans sa poche, Hannah a glissé un fruit cueilli sur l'arbre aux oiseaux, qu'aimait son frère Jonathan.
Jusqu'à ce que leurs chemins se croisent, ils ignorent tout du mystérieux enchaînement qui les conduit l'un vers l'autre. Comment se reconnaître ? Il faut croire encore aux miracles.
Simon Van Booy, né à Londres en 1975, fait partie de ces écrivains rares qui réenchantent le monde. Salué par le New York Times et le Los Angeles Times, il est l'auteur de romans, de récits et d'essais, déjà traduits en treize langues. L'amour commence en hiver, récompensé par le Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, est son premier texte à paraître en France.
Dans l'étui de son violoncelle, Bruno conserve un talisman : une moufle, celle que portait une enfant morte il y a vingt ans. Dans sa poche, Hannah a glissé un fruit cueilli sur l'arbre aux oiseaux, qu'aimait son frère Jonathan.
Jusqu'à ce que leurs chemins se croisent, ils ignorent tout du mystérieux enchaînement qui les conduit l'un vers l'autre. Comment se reconnaître ? Il faut croire encore aux miracles.
Simon Van Booy, né à Londres en 1975, fait partie de ces écrivains rares qui réenchantent le monde. Salué par le New York Times et le Los Angeles Times, il est l'auteur de romans, de récits et d'essais, déjà traduits en treize langues. L'amour commence en hiver, récompensé par le Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, est son premier texte à paraître en France.
108 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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2565 people want to read
About the author
Simon Van Booy
61 books1,082 followersSimon Van Booy is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than a dozen books for adults and children, including The Illusion of Separateness and The Presence of Absence. Simon is the editor of three volumes of philosophy and has written for The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, and the BBC. His books have been translated into many languages and optioned for film. Raised in rural North Wales, he currently lives in New York where he is also a book editor and a volunteer E.M.T. crew chief.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 216 reviews
January 15, 2023
Five stories of varying setting and length, united by poetic writing about characters experiencing loss or gaps in their lives and for whom seemingly chance encounters prove significant and lead to love, of various kinds.
“Love between strangers takes only a few seconds and can last a whole life..”
They are profound and melancholic, but uplifting too.
Love Begins in Winter, 5*
“I wait in the shadows. My cello is already on stage… The strings vibrate when the bow is near, as though anticipating their lover.”
Bruno and Hannah live separate, solitary lives. Their pasts are shadowed by a dramatic childhood bereavement.
“Grief is a country where it rains and rains but nothing grows. The dead live somewhere else.”
He carries pebbles in his pockets and she has acorns in hers. They’re not visitation stones (I don’t think he’s Jewish), but they have similar import, and acorns always remind me of the proverb, “Great oaks from little acorns grow”.
Image: Acorn and pebbles (Source)
“It was inevitable that we meet. Like rivers, we have been flowing on a course for one another.”
It’s not fate, nor is it an accident, but “coincidences mean you’re on the right path”.
They have always been together, always loved each other, long before they knew the other existed. Words and explanations are superfluous. This idea is the central vein of all five stories.
“Music is what language once aspired to be. Music allows us to face God on our own terms because it reaches beyond life.”
Grief never disappears, but it can coexist with joy:
“The shadows remained. Gifts from the fallen, not lessening our happiness but guiding it, deepening it, and filling us with the passion we would need to sustain our love in the coming days. A gentle reminder that what we have is already lost.”
This story is in the same key as Nicole Krausse’s The History of Love: this a chamber piece and hers a symphony.
“Music is only a mystery to people who want it explained. Music and love are the same.”
Both stories have the inevitability of fate that isn’t fate and the circularity of time, but also the name Bruno, associating a brother with birds/Bird, and the significance of pebbles. See my review HERE.
Image: The hands of a cellist. Detail from Sir James Hope Grant by Sir Francis Grant (Source)
Tiger, Tiger, 2*
A toddler is humiliated for biting a boy she loves, so blood and love - and shame - are associated in her mind. As an adult, she tries to exorcise some ghosts by editing the journals of a family friend who was a paediatrician who wrote “The Silence After Childhood”, including the ideas:
“It is true the people we meet shape us. But the people we don’t meet shape us also, often more because we have imagined them so vividly… Every adult yearns for some stranger, but it is really childhood we miss. We are yearning for that which has been stolen from us by what we have become.”
The Missing Statues, 4*
Tenderly, vividly told, without quite slipping into sentimentality, but it is somewhat predictable. Nevertheless, I liked the contrast between the quiet hope of religion amid classical beauty and the desperate hope in luck amid the glitz of a casino.
A diplomat, sitting on a bench in Rome, starts quietly sobbing:
“An old room in his heart had opened because of something he’d seen.”
A young priest sits near him in comfortable silence, and gradually the diplomat tells him about an impoverished little boy and his mum in Vegas, waiting for the ne'er-do-well new boyfriend to emerge.
“The hollow metal rush of coins played through speakers. Drunk gamblers looked at their hands as ghost coins rushed between their fingers. Their lives would change if only they could hit the jackpot.”
A gondolier from a nearby hotel takes pity on them.
Image: Hooked on slots (Source)
The Coming and Going of Strangers, 4*
The kindness of strangers causes ripples in the Irish sea, on three occasions.
“Walter wheeled his hot, ticking motorbike up and down the muddy lane, breathing with the rhythm of a small, determined engine. Fists of breath hovered and then opened over each taken-step… In the far distance, Sunday parked over the village like an old mute who hid is face in the hanging thick of clouds.”
Walter is a teenage Irish Romany, though his family stopped travelling when his father had an accident and needed a wheelchair. Walter develops a passionate crush on a mysterious girl. He doesn’t even know her name, but he takes a gift to her home and peeks in the window. It’s too innocent to be stalking, but it’s not far off:
“His gaze like a net reached over her.”
She’s holding a half-eaten apple and “the white flesh glistened.”
But it is innocent, pure, unspoken.
Years later, we see a future.
“Every song is a shadow to the memory it follows around.”
The City of Windy Trees, 4*
Protagonists who seem to be on the autistic spectrum have become common, though I’ve read very few of them. It’s probably tricky to write in a way that is sensitive and realistic, without objectifying or mocking them. Van Booy manages it with George Frack, in his thirties, but seeming much older, and still scarred by his warring parents:
“Children at school ripped to pieces by their parents’ lack of love, shells of their former selves - and George burning with shame, wanting only to have his parents by themselves in the park on dull afternoons at the duck pond.”
His last serious relationship was with a stray cat.
“Like an understudy watching from the wings. George lived always on the verge of his greatest performance.”
Everything changes when he gets a letter, with a photo:
“Every photograph is a lie… a splinter from the tree of what happened.”
He’s poleaxed for days, but then takes decisive, daring, and uncharacteristic action. He wonders if he’s becoming the person he always wanted to be.
Image: “Standing Waves” sculpture by Adèle Essle Zeiss and Liva Isakson Lundin that creates music from wind. It’s in the windy city of Stockholm. (Source)
Extras
• Bakeries and baked goods are often mentioned, especially in the first story. One character in a later story is obsessed with loafers (footwear). I feel there must be some deep significance that I missed. The birds that fly across the pages are less enigmatic.
• I read this because of Dolors’ review and her comment that likened this to Billy O'Callaghan’s writing. Van Booy and O'Callaghan have five-starred something by the other.
• The first copy I ordered was covered in a previous reader’s annotations. They might have been interesting, but I didn’t want my reading skewed by someone else’s thoughts, so I sent it back. The subject line of the email confirming the return was suitably poignant and ambiguous:
Image: “Your return of love begins in winter”
• The replacement copy had additional material about the author and how he finds and writes stories.
“Love between strangers takes only a few seconds and can last a whole life..”
They are profound and melancholic, but uplifting too.
Love Begins in Winter, 5*
“I wait in the shadows. My cello is already on stage… The strings vibrate when the bow is near, as though anticipating their lover.”
Bruno and Hannah live separate, solitary lives. Their pasts are shadowed by a dramatic childhood bereavement.
“Grief is a country where it rains and rains but nothing grows. The dead live somewhere else.”
He carries pebbles in his pockets and she has acorns in hers. They’re not visitation stones (I don’t think he’s Jewish), but they have similar import, and acorns always remind me of the proverb, “Great oaks from little acorns grow”.
Image: Acorn and pebbles (Source)
“It was inevitable that we meet. Like rivers, we have been flowing on a course for one another.”
It’s not fate, nor is it an accident, but “coincidences mean you’re on the right path”.
They have always been together, always loved each other, long before they knew the other existed. Words and explanations are superfluous. This idea is the central vein of all five stories.
“Music is what language once aspired to be. Music allows us to face God on our own terms because it reaches beyond life.”
Grief never disappears, but it can coexist with joy:
“The shadows remained. Gifts from the fallen, not lessening our happiness but guiding it, deepening it, and filling us with the passion we would need to sustain our love in the coming days. A gentle reminder that what we have is already lost.”
This story is in the same key as Nicole Krausse’s The History of Love: this a chamber piece and hers a symphony.
“Music is only a mystery to people who want it explained. Music and love are the same.”
Both stories have the inevitability of fate that isn’t fate and the circularity of time, but also the name Bruno, associating a brother with birds/Bird, and the significance of pebbles. See my review HERE.
Image: The hands of a cellist. Detail from Sir James Hope Grant by Sir Francis Grant (Source)
Tiger, Tiger, 2*
A toddler is humiliated for biting a boy she loves, so blood and love - and shame - are associated in her mind. As an adult, she tries to exorcise some ghosts by editing the journals of a family friend who was a paediatrician who wrote “The Silence After Childhood”, including the ideas:
“It is true the people we meet shape us. But the people we don’t meet shape us also, often more because we have imagined them so vividly… Every adult yearns for some stranger, but it is really childhood we miss. We are yearning for that which has been stolen from us by what we have become.”
The Missing Statues, 4*
Tenderly, vividly told, without quite slipping into sentimentality, but it is somewhat predictable. Nevertheless, I liked the contrast between the quiet hope of religion amid classical beauty and the desperate hope in luck amid the glitz of a casino.
A diplomat, sitting on a bench in Rome, starts quietly sobbing:
“An old room in his heart had opened because of something he’d seen.”
A young priest sits near him in comfortable silence, and gradually the diplomat tells him about an impoverished little boy and his mum in Vegas, waiting for the ne'er-do-well new boyfriend to emerge.
“The hollow metal rush of coins played through speakers. Drunk gamblers looked at their hands as ghost coins rushed between their fingers. Their lives would change if only they could hit the jackpot.”
A gondolier from a nearby hotel takes pity on them.
Image: Hooked on slots (Source)
The Coming and Going of Strangers, 4*
The kindness of strangers causes ripples in the Irish sea, on three occasions.
“Walter wheeled his hot, ticking motorbike up and down the muddy lane, breathing with the rhythm of a small, determined engine. Fists of breath hovered and then opened over each taken-step… In the far distance, Sunday parked over the village like an old mute who hid is face in the hanging thick of clouds.”
Walter is a teenage Irish Romany, though his family stopped travelling when his father had an accident and needed a wheelchair. Walter develops a passionate crush on a mysterious girl. He doesn’t even know her name, but he takes a gift to her home and peeks in the window. It’s too innocent to be stalking, but it’s not far off:
“His gaze like a net reached over her.”
She’s holding a half-eaten apple and “the white flesh glistened.”
But it is innocent, pure, unspoken.
Years later, we see a future.
“Every song is a shadow to the memory it follows around.”
The City of Windy Trees, 4*
Protagonists who seem to be on the autistic spectrum have become common, though I’ve read very few of them. It’s probably tricky to write in a way that is sensitive and realistic, without objectifying or mocking them. Van Booy manages it with George Frack, in his thirties, but seeming much older, and still scarred by his warring parents:
“Children at school ripped to pieces by their parents’ lack of love, shells of their former selves - and George burning with shame, wanting only to have his parents by themselves in the park on dull afternoons at the duck pond.”
His last serious relationship was with a stray cat.
“Like an understudy watching from the wings. George lived always on the verge of his greatest performance.”
Everything changes when he gets a letter, with a photo:
“Every photograph is a lie… a splinter from the tree of what happened.”
He’s poleaxed for days, but then takes decisive, daring, and uncharacteristic action. He wonders if he’s becoming the person he always wanted to be.
Image: “Standing Waves” sculpture by Adèle Essle Zeiss and Liva Isakson Lundin that creates music from wind. It’s in the windy city of Stockholm. (Source)
Extras
• Bakeries and baked goods are often mentioned, especially in the first story. One character in a later story is obsessed with loafers (footwear). I feel there must be some deep significance that I missed. The birds that fly across the pages are less enigmatic.
• I read this because of Dolors’ review and her comment that likened this to Billy O'Callaghan’s writing. Van Booy and O'Callaghan have five-starred something by the other.
• The first copy I ordered was covered in a previous reader’s annotations. They might have been interesting, but I didn’t want my reading skewed by someone else’s thoughts, so I sent it back. The subject line of the email confirming the return was suitably poignant and ambiguous:
Image: “Your return of love begins in winter”
• The replacement copy had additional material about the author and how he finds and writes stories.
October 26, 2022
Five stories that invoke the indescribable essence of falling in love. The kind of love that is evanescent, that flickers timidly like the flame of a candle that is about to blow out, but also the kind of love that will haunt a person for a lifetime.
Fleeting moments of chance encounters define Van Booy’s stories:
An eccentric cellist bumps into a woman who carries the weight of the world in the form of three stones in her pocket.
A stranger who brings together an estranged mother and her lost son.
An Irish gypsy who jumps off a cliff to save the future of his children.
A woman who falls in love with the long gone words written on a secret diary.
A man who travels to Sweden to meet his six-years old daughter.
The stories unfold without haste, taking hold of the reader’s pulse that beats at the rhythm of contrasting imagery; sensual and menacing; Van Booy’s control and merging of emotions is simply masterful. His prose is as delicate as it is devastating.
And a frosted kiss on a window speaks of the silent promises that Van Booy’s characters make to each other. The kind of oath that seals a connection beyond earthly boundaries, that of true love quenching grief, fear and loneliness. The kind of love that we all dream of experiencing, real, powerful and transformative.
Fleeting moments of chance encounters define Van Booy’s stories:
An eccentric cellist bumps into a woman who carries the weight of the world in the form of three stones in her pocket.
A stranger who brings together an estranged mother and her lost son.
An Irish gypsy who jumps off a cliff to save the future of his children.
A woman who falls in love with the long gone words written on a secret diary.
A man who travels to Sweden to meet his six-years old daughter.
The stories unfold without haste, taking hold of the reader’s pulse that beats at the rhythm of contrasting imagery; sensual and menacing; Van Booy’s control and merging of emotions is simply masterful. His prose is as delicate as it is devastating.
And a frosted kiss on a window speaks of the silent promises that Van Booy’s characters make to each other. The kind of oath that seals a connection beyond earthly boundaries, that of true love quenching grief, fear and loneliness. The kind of love that we all dream of experiencing, real, powerful and transformative.
December 26, 2017
Another lovely collection of love-themed stories--earnest, gentle, graceful, and profound. It manages to pull this off without resorting to cliche or cheap lachrymose theatrics. (And yes, I love the word "lachrymose" and have been waiting for some excuse to weave it into a review!). I'm really warming to this author and look forward to more.
January 22, 2025
3.5 Stars
Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories is Van Booy's second collection of short stories. There is an underlying feeling of melancholy and longing in each of these stories, while reminding me that there is possibility in every circumstance. Connecting these disparate stories are encounters with strangers that trigger memories or create future connections, and they are stories of love in all of its forms.
"Love Begins in Winter" - A young man is haunted by the loss of a childhood friend. A young woman is haunted by the death of her young brother. A chance encounter between the two changes both of their lives.
"My old geography professor once told his class how the music, paintings, sculptures, and books of the world are mirrors in which people see versions of themselves."
""The most important notes in music are the ones that wait until sound has entered the ear before revealing their true nature. They are the spaces between the sounds that blow through the heart, knocking things over."
"Perhaps he had been waiting all along for someone to knock him down and allow him to drop the weight he'd so faithfully carried."
"Language is like looking at a map of somewhere. Love is living there and surviving on the land."
"My father once told me that coincidences mean you're on the right path."
3 Stars because it feels as if Van Booy is trying too hard to cram too many philosophical thoughts into a small vehicle which detracted from the beauty of the actual story.
"Tiger, Tiger" - A young woman pediatrician becomes entranced with a child psychologist's early work which leads her on a journey from a childhood memory. There is a lot of philosophizing here, and it never comes together for me.
"You can't put a price on the rituals of love, because you never know what will happen next."
2 Stars
"The Missing Statues" - A missing statue in St. Peter's Square in Rome brings up a memory for an American diplomat which brings him to tears. He is comforted by a young Polish priest. Van Booy tells a parallel story of young Max, a 4 year-old and his mother who are abandoned in Las Vegas by Molly's gambler boyfriend. The kindness of a gondolier from the Venetian Hotel and Casino spark a striking realization in Molly.
"I've always believed that the future is hung with keys that unlock our true feelings about some past event"
4 Stars
"The Coming and Going of Strangers" - Multiple lives are touched in varying ways by strangers, and the ripples continue to affect others. The story begins with lovesick Walter mooning over a girl, tells us of his parents' courtship and early days of marriage, Uncle Ivan the Gold medalist, and a peek at Walter's future.
"life was the fleeting beauty of opposites . . . human existence was the result of conflict, of physical and spiritual forces trapped within a dying vessel."
"She didn't feel old. Although her feet ached sometimes. Her enthusiasm for life had turned to appreciation for life. And she could feel life getting quieter. Her life getting quieter, like the end of a party where only a few people remain at long messy tables, staring at their glasses, at the absent chairs, and at each other."
"there was only one piece of advice Jane wanted to pass on to her girls. . . . Laughter."
"despite the accumulation of experience, one must always be ready to begin again, until it's someone else's turn to begin without us, and we are completely free from the pain of love, from the pain of attachment--the price we pay to be involved."
"the very best and the very worst of life will come from their ability to love strangers."
4 Stars
"The Windy City" - A letter from someone he briefly met in the past is a catalyst for George to make a major change in the way he has been living.
"I regret things I haven't done--rather than things I have"
"Love between strangers takes only a few minutes and can last a whole life."
"Then he thinks about the idea of a museum: the physical record of things; the history of miracles; the miracle of nature and the miracle of hope and perseverance, arranged in such a way as to never be forgotten, or lost, or simply mistaken for everyday things with no particular significance."
4 Stars
There is truth in all of these statements and beauty in Van Booy's words. These stories show the promise that Van Booy grows into with The Illusion of Separateness and Night Came with Many Stars.
Publication 2009
Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories is Van Booy's second collection of short stories. There is an underlying feeling of melancholy and longing in each of these stories, while reminding me that there is possibility in every circumstance. Connecting these disparate stories are encounters with strangers that trigger memories or create future connections, and they are stories of love in all of its forms.
"Love Begins in Winter" - A young man is haunted by the loss of a childhood friend. A young woman is haunted by the death of her young brother. A chance encounter between the two changes both of their lives.
"My old geography professor once told his class how the music, paintings, sculptures, and books of the world are mirrors in which people see versions of themselves."
""The most important notes in music are the ones that wait until sound has entered the ear before revealing their true nature. They are the spaces between the sounds that blow through the heart, knocking things over."
"Perhaps he had been waiting all along for someone to knock him down and allow him to drop the weight he'd so faithfully carried."
"Language is like looking at a map of somewhere. Love is living there and surviving on the land."
"My father once told me that coincidences mean you're on the right path."
3 Stars because it feels as if Van Booy is trying too hard to cram too many philosophical thoughts into a small vehicle which detracted from the beauty of the actual story.
"Tiger, Tiger" - A young woman pediatrician becomes entranced with a child psychologist's early work which leads her on a journey from a childhood memory. There is a lot of philosophizing here, and it never comes together for me.
"You can't put a price on the rituals of love, because you never know what will happen next."
2 Stars
"The Missing Statues" - A missing statue in St. Peter's Square in Rome brings up a memory for an American diplomat which brings him to tears. He is comforted by a young Polish priest. Van Booy tells a parallel story of young Max, a 4 year-old and his mother who are abandoned in Las Vegas by Molly's gambler boyfriend. The kindness of a gondolier from the Venetian Hotel and Casino spark a striking realization in Molly.
"I've always believed that the future is hung with keys that unlock our true feelings about some past event"
4 Stars
"The Coming and Going of Strangers" - Multiple lives are touched in varying ways by strangers, and the ripples continue to affect others. The story begins with lovesick Walter mooning over a girl, tells us of his parents' courtship and early days of marriage, Uncle Ivan the Gold medalist, and a peek at Walter's future.
"life was the fleeting beauty of opposites . . . human existence was the result of conflict, of physical and spiritual forces trapped within a dying vessel."
"She didn't feel old. Although her feet ached sometimes. Her enthusiasm for life had turned to appreciation for life. And she could feel life getting quieter. Her life getting quieter, like the end of a party where only a few people remain at long messy tables, staring at their glasses, at the absent chairs, and at each other."
"there was only one piece of advice Jane wanted to pass on to her girls. . . . Laughter."
"despite the accumulation of experience, one must always be ready to begin again, until it's someone else's turn to begin without us, and we are completely free from the pain of love, from the pain of attachment--the price we pay to be involved."
"the very best and the very worst of life will come from their ability to love strangers."
4 Stars
"The Windy City" - A letter from someone he briefly met in the past is a catalyst for George to make a major change in the way he has been living.
"I regret things I haven't done--rather than things I have"
"Love between strangers takes only a few minutes and can last a whole life."
"Then he thinks about the idea of a museum: the physical record of things; the history of miracles; the miracle of nature and the miracle of hope and perseverance, arranged in such a way as to never be forgotten, or lost, or simply mistaken for everyday things with no particular significance."
4 Stars
There is truth in all of these statements and beauty in Van Booy's words. These stories show the promise that Van Booy grows into with The Illusion of Separateness and Night Came with Many Stars.
Publication 2009
June 15, 2025
A little too much stream of consciousness for me. I should mention that this volume only contained the title story. Not sure where the other 4 stories went.
October 20, 2018
Some of the most beautiful short stories I've read in a long time. This collection is not very long but each of the five stories packs an emotional wallop and has definitely stuck in my mind more than a week after finishing the book. As you can tell from the title, each of these stories has to do with love--and each approaches the subject from a different angle. I've never read anything that Simon Van Booy has written but I'm definitely going to find his other book now. If you like short stories, I'd encourage you to read this book. It will make you look at love--and those you love--in a whole new light.
December 2, 2022
I love a well-crafted and well-written short story, and this book has five stellar examples. Not a stinker in the bunch! Van Booy's writing is subtle, imaginative and, in the first story, cinematic. I kept thinking "where did he dream up these tales!". I could see and feel these, and each ends full of possibilities that get the mind spinning out to what happens next for these people.
I also love discovering authors and books through GR friends' reviews. I hope to read more of Simon Van Booy; his writing suits my current mood. Recommendations are welcome!
Why I'm reading this: I recently saw review of this book by friend Dolors and was immediately intrigued. Started it this afternoon and so far, I love the writing.
I also love discovering authors and books through GR friends' reviews. I hope to read more of Simon Van Booy; his writing suits my current mood. Recommendations are welcome!
Why I'm reading this: I recently saw review of this book by friend Dolors and was immediately intrigued. Started it this afternoon and so far, I love the writing.
May 26, 2023
There may be other writers of prose active today who are the equal of Simon Van Booy but I’ve yet to encounter them. And in this set of shorter stories, he accomplishes almost as much as most would achieve in a full length novel. At 100 pages, the leading story “Love Begins in Winter” might be considered a novelette; a story of people at mid-life who are working through complex issues of grief, loss, displacement, it’s a layered, deeply expressive work that took me as long to read as many a novel. Over and again, I found myself going back and re-reading whole chapters to fully capture its essence, as successive aspects of the characters and their inter-relationships were revealed.
Each of the other stories also introduces new delights. Van Booy is not easy to quote meaningfully out of context: his stories work only as complete pieces. But I wanted to especially celebrate, in “The Coming and Going of Strangers” his masterful depiction of a young man in the throes of first love:
Walter longed for something to happen — a fire, a flood, some biblical catastrophe that would afford him an opportunity to rush in and rescue her …..
A gentle but powerful feeling took Walter, and the boy immediately understood the obsession of the portrait artists he’d read about in his uncle’s books; the troubadour poets and their sad buckled horses; the despairing souls who rowed silently in dusk in a heavy sea; the wanderers, the lost, those dying blooms who’d fallen away.
Walter’s young mind reeled at the power of his first feeling of love. He would have walked to America if she has promised to meet him there …..
And then Walter thought of something else. Could it be that first love was the only true love? And that after those first fires had been doused or burned out, men and women chose whom they would love based on worldly needs, and then re-enacted the feelings and rituals of that first pure experience — nursed the flames that once burned of their own accord ….
With his mind churning experience into understanding like milk into butter, Walter thought of Adam and Eve, the inevitable fall — their mouths stuffed with apple; their lips dripping with the sweet juice of it; the knowledge that life was the fleeting beauty of opposites, that human experience was the result of conflict, of physical and spiritual forces trapped within a dying vessel.
Each story is set in a very different place — Las Vegas, a small town in France, Québec City, Stockholm, etc. and the characters vary widely. But each story, in its own way is a love story and a story of self-discovery.
Brilliant!
Each of the other stories also introduces new delights. Van Booy is not easy to quote meaningfully out of context: his stories work only as complete pieces. But I wanted to especially celebrate, in “The Coming and Going of Strangers” his masterful depiction of a young man in the throes of first love:
Walter longed for something to happen — a fire, a flood, some biblical catastrophe that would afford him an opportunity to rush in and rescue her …..
A gentle but powerful feeling took Walter, and the boy immediately understood the obsession of the portrait artists he’d read about in his uncle’s books; the troubadour poets and their sad buckled horses; the despairing souls who rowed silently in dusk in a heavy sea; the wanderers, the lost, those dying blooms who’d fallen away.
Walter’s young mind reeled at the power of his first feeling of love. He would have walked to America if she has promised to meet him there …..
And then Walter thought of something else. Could it be that first love was the only true love? And that after those first fires had been doused or burned out, men and women chose whom they would love based on worldly needs, and then re-enacted the feelings and rituals of that first pure experience — nursed the flames that once burned of their own accord ….
With his mind churning experience into understanding like milk into butter, Walter thought of Adam and Eve, the inevitable fall — their mouths stuffed with apple; their lips dripping with the sweet juice of it; the knowledge that life was the fleeting beauty of opposites, that human experience was the result of conflict, of physical and spiritual forces trapped within a dying vessel.
Each story is set in a very different place — Las Vegas, a small town in France, Québec City, Stockholm, etc. and the characters vary widely. But each story, in its own way is a love story and a story of self-discovery.
Brilliant!
October 17, 2020
Language is like looking at a map of somewhere. Love is living there and surviving on the land.
How could two people know each other so intimately without ever having told the old stories? You get to an age where the stories don’t matter anymore, and the stories once told so passionately become a tide that never quite reaches the point of being said. And there is no such thing as fate, but there are no accidents either.
I didn’t fall in love with Bruno then. I had always loved him and we were always together.
Love is like life but starts before and continues after— we arrive and depart in the middle.
How could two people know each other so intimately without ever having told the old stories? You get to an age where the stories don’t matter anymore, and the stories once told so passionately become a tide that never quite reaches the point of being said. And there is no such thing as fate, but there are no accidents either.
I didn’t fall in love with Bruno then. I had always loved him and we were always together.
Love is like life but starts before and continues after— we arrive and depart in the middle.
September 7, 2014
The love stories that do not insult your intelligence.
Sometimes off-tangent but brilliantly and artistically focused to their intention: to show how love can creep into our consciousness even when we are doing menial things like walking on a deserted wet pavements on a rainy day. These stories are magical. I do not mean mushy or you should be on your teens or 20's or 30's to be enthralled by these stories. It is more of the way Van Booy captured the scenes (whether it is winter or summer or in a rundown apartment or park with children playing) and the emotions that those scene trigger. We all have love or in love or will soon be falling in love so everyone can relate to this. To be honest, I became extra-emotional the last few days posting a message capped with "I love you..." on Facebook dedicated to my wife who cooked me a viand for an office fundraising activity last Friday. If a book can make you extra-loving to your spouse, it deserves to get at least a four-star rating, right?
And oh, the wonderful chest-thumping, heart-skipping, brain-splitting, sighs-and-sighs because they are simply beautiful. They are lines that are not only lovely but thought-provoking:
"The most important notes in music are the ones that wait until sound has entered the ear before revealing their true nature. They are the spaces between the sounds that blow through the heart, knocking things over.
We process the sound but I just did not think it this way. Beautiful, isn't it?
"All parks are beautiful when quiet and you see things like a book forgotten on a beach read by the wind."
I liked the image of the book on a beach with its pages flapping back and forth as if being read and this time, by the wind. Beyond words.
"How could two people know each other so intimately without ever having told the old stories? You get to an age where the stories don't matter anymore, and the stories once told so passionately become a tide that never quite reaches the point of being said. And there is no such thing as fate but there are no accidents either."
Imagine holding the wrinkly hand of your spouse who have been the most wonderful person you have met in your life. After all these years, you are still together and the love that you feel is like the first time that you laid eyes on each other. Powerful.
"No beauty without decay. Every moment is the paradox of now and never."
You who still have a pretty or a handsome face, time will come that it will fade. Enjoy it while it lasts. Just saying.
There are also quotable quotes in the About the Author section that I really enjoyed but they are thoughts of the author about writing and they are in the brink of being self-patronizing or presumptuous. However, one thing is for sure. I am an Van Booy fan now and will not have a second thought reading another book by him.
Well done, Simon Van Booy!
Sometimes off-tangent but brilliantly and artistically focused to their intention: to show how love can creep into our consciousness even when we are doing menial things like walking on a deserted wet pavements on a rainy day. These stories are magical. I do not mean mushy or you should be on your teens or 20's or 30's to be enthralled by these stories. It is more of the way Van Booy captured the scenes (whether it is winter or summer or in a rundown apartment or park with children playing) and the emotions that those scene trigger. We all have love or in love or will soon be falling in love so everyone can relate to this. To be honest, I became extra-emotional the last few days posting a message capped with "I love you..." on Facebook dedicated to my wife who cooked me a viand for an office fundraising activity last Friday. If a book can make you extra-loving to your spouse, it deserves to get at least a four-star rating, right?
And oh, the wonderful chest-thumping, heart-skipping, brain-splitting, sighs-and-sighs because they are simply beautiful. They are lines that are not only lovely but thought-provoking:
"The most important notes in music are the ones that wait until sound has entered the ear before revealing their true nature. They are the spaces between the sounds that blow through the heart, knocking things over.
We process the sound but I just did not think it this way. Beautiful, isn't it?
"All parks are beautiful when quiet and you see things like a book forgotten on a beach read by the wind."
I liked the image of the book on a beach with its pages flapping back and forth as if being read and this time, by the wind. Beyond words.
"How could two people know each other so intimately without ever having told the old stories? You get to an age where the stories don't matter anymore, and the stories once told so passionately become a tide that never quite reaches the point of being said. And there is no such thing as fate but there are no accidents either."
Imagine holding the wrinkly hand of your spouse who have been the most wonderful person you have met in your life. After all these years, you are still together and the love that you feel is like the first time that you laid eyes on each other. Powerful.
"No beauty without decay. Every moment is the paradox of now and never."
You who still have a pretty or a handsome face, time will come that it will fade. Enjoy it while it lasts. Just saying.
There are also quotable quotes in the About the Author section that I really enjoyed but they are thoughts of the author about writing and they are in the brink of being self-patronizing or presumptuous. However, one thing is for sure. I am an Van Booy fan now and will not have a second thought reading another book by him.
Well done, Simon Van Booy!
February 29, 2024
Do you believe in love?
Whether it be in the form of two strangers who meet but have always known one another;
a woman trying to make sense of her past and present;
an abandoned mother and son befriended outside a Vegas casino;
an Irish boy longing for his secret love;
a man forgotten by life who suddenly is revived by a new role thrust upon him.
I will admit to being a little cynical when it comes to love-- at least in the traditional form. I generally avoid (and often make fun of) "chick flicks," "chick lit," and whatever else Disney or Hollywood spews out touting the "happily ever after" theme.
But Simon Van Booy makes me believe in love. In part because his stories, and their endings, aren't always sensible or neat. Nor do they end stereotypically.
But the man's words...
I think I could believe in love based on his words alone.
In one story, a letter is described:
The handwriting was full of loops, as if each letter were a cup held fast upon the page by the heaviness of each small intention.
This book wasn't published in Van Booy's handwriting ... but it might as well have been. For each of his small intentions, in each and every word, pulled me onto the page ... and then deeper, into the story itself.
Why didn't I discover him sooner...?
Whether it be in the form of two strangers who meet but have always known one another;
a woman trying to make sense of her past and present;
an abandoned mother and son befriended outside a Vegas casino;
an Irish boy longing for his secret love;
a man forgotten by life who suddenly is revived by a new role thrust upon him.
I will admit to being a little cynical when it comes to love-- at least in the traditional form. I generally avoid (and often make fun of) "chick flicks," "chick lit," and whatever else Disney or Hollywood spews out touting the "happily ever after" theme.
But Simon Van Booy makes me believe in love. In part because his stories, and their endings, aren't always sensible or neat. Nor do they end stereotypically.
But the man's words...
I think I could believe in love based on his words alone.
In one story, a letter is described:
The handwriting was full of loops, as if each letter were a cup held fast upon the page by the heaviness of each small intention.
This book wasn't published in Van Booy's handwriting ... but it might as well have been. For each of his small intentions, in each and every word, pulled me onto the page ... and then deeper, into the story itself.
Why didn't I discover him sooner...?
March 25, 2018
Wonderful.
These stories are written in Van Booy's signature abstract style and touch on different perspectives and versions of love. But they are authentic and not sappy love stories. There is a thread of loneliness and a sense of longing woven throughout these pieces. The author's words paint beautiful pictures and bear testament to his acute power of observation about human nature, each story capturing a slice of life as it unfolds via the characters' or narrator's thoughts.
There is the moody love story between French cellist Bruno and Welsh shopkeeper Hannah who have experienced great personal loss; the odd and obscure 'Tiger Tiger' story with journal entries; the kindness of a stranger towards an abandoned mother and son in 'The Missing Statues'; the love and friendship between an Irish Gypsy and Canadian orphan in 'The Coming and Going Of Strangers'; the final story ends the collection with a sense of hope in 'The City Of Windy Trees' when a desolate man is presented with an unexpected and amazing gift.
The prose is beautiful and I found myself re-reading certain passages from each story.
These stories are written in Van Booy's signature abstract style and touch on different perspectives and versions of love. But they are authentic and not sappy love stories. There is a thread of loneliness and a sense of longing woven throughout these pieces. The author's words paint beautiful pictures and bear testament to his acute power of observation about human nature, each story capturing a slice of life as it unfolds via the characters' or narrator's thoughts.
There is the moody love story between French cellist Bruno and Welsh shopkeeper Hannah who have experienced great personal loss; the odd and obscure 'Tiger Tiger' story with journal entries; the kindness of a stranger towards an abandoned mother and son in 'The Missing Statues'; the love and friendship between an Irish Gypsy and Canadian orphan in 'The Coming and Going Of Strangers'; the final story ends the collection with a sense of hope in 'The City Of Windy Trees' when a desolate man is presented with an unexpected and amazing gift.
The prose is beautiful and I found myself re-reading certain passages from each story.
November 15, 2018
Maybe here and there I found a line I thought was trying a little hard in one way or another. And maybe I want to grab Van Booy by the lapels and smack him around a little for being three years younger than myself and writing the way he does. But all is easily forgiven after reading this collection of five stories.
His writing was simply beautiful: in its eloquent use of metaphor, its well-timed detail and efficiency, and its excellent portrayal of the old "show don't tell" preferred method of writing where it counted. The stories were steeped in emotion without having to wave at the reader and shout "Hey, this is DEEP here! Are you FEELING this?"
I haven't cared much for short stories for quite a while now. For the most part, I was likely just reading the wrong short stories. I might not give each of these stories five stars, but the best ones make up for what I felt the one or two less enjoyable stories might lack.
His writing was simply beautiful: in its eloquent use of metaphor, its well-timed detail and efficiency, and its excellent portrayal of the old "show don't tell" preferred method of writing where it counted. The stories were steeped in emotion without having to wave at the reader and shout "Hey, this is DEEP here! Are you FEELING this?"
I haven't cared much for short stories for quite a while now. For the most part, I was likely just reading the wrong short stories. I might not give each of these stories five stars, but the best ones make up for what I felt the one or two less enjoyable stories might lack.
January 7, 2022
Love Begins in Winter -- 10⭐
Tiger, Tiger -- 3.5⭐
The Missing Statues -- 3.5⭐
The Coming and Going of Strangers -- 3⭐
The City of Windy Trees --5⭐
Prva naslovna priča je jedna od najlepših koje sam ikada pročitala. Volela bih da je neko ekranizuje zato što bi film mogao da bude novi božićni klasik (da, ovih dana sam shvatila koliko je zapravo šačica kvalitetnih prazničnih filmova koji nikada ne bi bili pušteni na Divi, koje bismo želeli da pogledamo više puta i koji ne vređaju inteligenciju).
U ovoj zbirci ima toliko ljubavi, topline, utehe i života.
“If there is such a thing as marriage, it takes place long before the ceremony: in a car on the way to the airport; or as a gray bedroom fills with dawn, one lover watching the other; or as two strangers stand together in the rain with no bus in sight, arms weighed down with shopping bags. You don’t know then. But later you realize—that was the moment. And always without words.”
Tiger, Tiger -- 3.5⭐
The Missing Statues -- 3.5⭐
The Coming and Going of Strangers -- 3⭐
The City of Windy Trees --5⭐
Prva naslovna priča je jedna od najlepših koje sam ikada pročitala. Volela bih da je neko ekranizuje zato što bi film mogao da bude novi božićni klasik (da, ovih dana sam shvatila koliko je zapravo šačica kvalitetnih prazničnih filmova koji nikada ne bi bili pušteni na Divi, koje bismo želeli da pogledamo više puta i koji ne vređaju inteligenciju).
U ovoj zbirci ima toliko ljubavi, topline, utehe i života.
“If there is such a thing as marriage, it takes place long before the ceremony: in a car on the way to the airport; or as a gray bedroom fills with dawn, one lover watching the other; or as two strangers stand together in the rain with no bus in sight, arms weighed down with shopping bags. You don’t know then. But later you realize—that was the moment. And always without words.”
Read
January 14, 2025DNF after the first 2 stories.
This was a hard one to give up on because the author’s book Sipsworth was a favorite read last year and because I remember loving the first volume of short stories I read by him years ago.
But unfortunately this book just wasn’t working for me. It felt a bit like swimming through jello to try and work out what the point of the stories were. The writing felt like it was trying too hard and just ended up falling flat for me. After not liking or engaging with any of the characters in the first two stories, I have decided that this isn’t the book for me.
This was a hard one to give up on because the author’s book Sipsworth was a favorite read last year and because I remember loving the first volume of short stories I read by him years ago.
But unfortunately this book just wasn’t working for me. It felt a bit like swimming through jello to try and work out what the point of the stories were. The writing felt like it was trying too hard and just ended up falling flat for me. After not liking or engaging with any of the characters in the first two stories, I have decided that this isn’t the book for me.
February 5, 2019
داستانهای خیلی معمولی و کوتاه و روزمره زندگی آدمها با روایت و نتیجه گیری که ارزش خوندن میده به کتاب... شاید هم دوست داشتنی مثل حس آروم و بی دغدغه ای که بعد ازپشت سر گذاشتن اتفاقای مختلف زندگی و فاصله گرفتن ازشون سراغ آدم میاد.
April 29, 2016
از آن کتاب هایی که وقت خواندن شان دلت می خواهد یک مداد دست بگیری و زیر جمله ها خط بکشی؛ بعد دائم برگردی و جمله ها را بخوانی و حظ وافر ببری.
March 28, 2019
درباره کتاب همینو بگم که من هنوز اسم موسیو بونت یا جاناتان میاد گوشه چشمم اشک میگیره. کتاب خیلی نرم و بی زاویه ست. مکث های خیلی زیبایی داره و واقعا پس از خوندن هر داستان به هوای آزاد احتیاج خواهید داشت
August 10, 2017
Breakdown:
Love begins in winter 3 stars
Tiger, Tiger 1.5 star
The missing statues 3 stars
The coming and going of strangers 3.5 stars
The city of windy trees 2 stars
Lovely evocative language!
Solitude and depression are like swimming and drowning.
Every moment is the paradox of now or never.
Every adult yearns for some stranger, but it is really childhood we miss. We are yearning for that which has been stolen from us by what we have become.
The rain tapped gently against the window, magnifying the backyards in long watery lines. The roofs of the buildings glistened black, and a tiny alphabet of birds hung motionless in the sky
Love begins in winter 3 stars
Tiger, Tiger 1.5 star
The missing statues 3 stars
The coming and going of strangers 3.5 stars
The city of windy trees 2 stars
Lovely evocative language!
Solitude and depression are like swimming and drowning.
Every moment is the paradox of now or never.
Every adult yearns for some stranger, but it is really childhood we miss. We are yearning for that which has been stolen from us by what we have become.
The rain tapped gently against the window, magnifying the backyards in long watery lines. The roofs of the buildings glistened black, and a tiny alphabet of birds hung motionless in the sky
July 11, 2016
وهم جدايى از اين نويسنده رو بيشتر دوست داشتم، شايدم به اين علت ِ كه من با مجموعه داستاناى كوتاه مشكل دارم!
November 24, 2022
All rather dull.
July 10, 2011
This is really more of a 3.5. And it may even wind up being upgraded at some point because I feel like these are stories I will continue to think about. My problem is that the whole time I was reading it, I couldn't decide if I liked it or if I was annoyed by it. Some of the stories felt overly precious and too much like self-conscious attempts to impart a moral lesson or greater thought. At some points it edged uncomfortably close to Alchemist territory, which I know is not a negative for everyone but is not usually something I'm a fan of.
However, there were some really startling turns of phrase and unusual use of language that I really appreciated, and some of the insight, self-conscious as it was, was moving. I will definitely read more from Mr. van Booy.
However, there were some really startling turns of phrase and unusual use of language that I really appreciated, and some of the insight, self-conscious as it was, was moving. I will definitely read more from Mr. van Booy.
January 4, 2014
Wow, unexpectedly beautiful. HIGHLY recommended.
July 22, 2011
I don't read a lot of short stories. I tend to have a fondness for huge tomes that I strengthen my arms with by dragging them around with me wherever I go (they're too hard to read in bed, though - a problem). I like short stories, but sometimes they just end too fast and I want more. There are exceptions to this - I love Hemingway's spare stories and now I'm adding Simon Van Booy to this list.
At their core, these stories are about loneliness, the yearning for connection, the difficulty of making it and keeping it. In many ways these are people who can't quite remove themselves from the center of their own universe, can't quite let go and allow themselves to see what the world has on offer. Loneliness and longing define them and when they find a connection it is one of life's minor miracles for them.
All of this could be sentimental and sappy, but in Van Booy's hands it is not. Although at times it feels like he's trying just a little too hard, those moments are far overshadowed by his beautiful use of language. Most of all this reminds me of my Mississippi grandmother, Jesse.
My grandfather died relatively young and grandmother continued living her life alone - teaching and, after she retired, traveling all over. She used to always say that she "didn't need an old man to take care of." And then on one of her trips she met her second husband, Vernon. They were both in their seventies and had known each other in college - grandmother and grandaddy double dated with Vernon and his wife. Long story short they fell in love and had about fifteen glorious years together before Vernon died.
They were both amazing people - kind, loving, and giving. I can remember always thinking of them at times in my life when I was alone and lonely and felt like that would never change. I'd think, "Remember grandmother - it ain't over 'til its over." They taught me a lot about being open to love and connectedness and living in the joy of that. It's a lovely memory and was quite happy to read stories that evoked that for me. Thank you, Mr. Van Booy.
At their core, these stories are about loneliness, the yearning for connection, the difficulty of making it and keeping it. In many ways these are people who can't quite remove themselves from the center of their own universe, can't quite let go and allow themselves to see what the world has on offer. Loneliness and longing define them and when they find a connection it is one of life's minor miracles for them.
All of this could be sentimental and sappy, but in Van Booy's hands it is not. Although at times it feels like he's trying just a little too hard, those moments are far overshadowed by his beautiful use of language. Most of all this reminds me of my Mississippi grandmother, Jesse.
My grandfather died relatively young and grandmother continued living her life alone - teaching and, after she retired, traveling all over. She used to always say that she "didn't need an old man to take care of." And then on one of her trips she met her second husband, Vernon. They were both in their seventies and had known each other in college - grandmother and grandaddy double dated with Vernon and his wife. Long story short they fell in love and had about fifteen glorious years together before Vernon died.
They were both amazing people - kind, loving, and giving. I can remember always thinking of them at times in my life when I was alone and lonely and felt like that would never change. I'd think, "Remember grandmother - it ain't over 'til its over." They taught me a lot about being open to love and connectedness and living in the joy of that. It's a lovely memory and was quite happy to read stories that evoked that for me. Thank you, Mr. Van Booy.
July 26, 2014
I began to love this book, even though winter is far away... Ironically, Bombay (Mumbai), the city I reside in, doesn't actually have an elaborate winter season. Winter here is similar to European summer. But love somehow manages to visit and leave me from time to time. Let me focus on the object of my literary love at the moment.
Love begins in Winter
In the book ‘Love begins in winter’, the season is a metaphor for the state of mind of its protagonists. Love finds two strangers in the midst of their blues.
Rarely has text induced goose bumps on my rigid skin... 'Love begins in winter' managed to do just that. A short simple story where the moody poetic writing style makes the story special. At the very start of the book, the protagonist is playing his cello to the audience. Simon Van Booy elaborates that single line in such a way that the reader can actually feel every emotion the protagonist feels while playing his music. Nothing much happens in the book in terms of a plot and yet so much keeps playing on minds of the characters that it doesn't matter whether there is a plot or not. This is one of the rare love stories that touch the reader with it's raw emotional power without being melodramatic.
Love begins in Winter is one of the five books in this series of stories by Simon Van Booy
Some of the gems from the book:
Grief is a country where it rains and rains but nothing grows.
Music is what language once aspired to be.
The only authentic memories find us—like letters addressed to someone we used to be.
Music, paintings, sculptures, and books of the world are mirrors in which people see versions of themselves.
Music helps us understand where we have come from but, more importantly, what has happened to us.
October 26, 2014
Страхотно пише авторът! Заради него ще заобичам да чета разкази.
Music allows us to face God on our own terms because it reaches beyond life.
Actually years mean nothing. It's what's inside them.
Trusting is harder than being trusted.
Going back somewhere at night is almost like haunting the world after death.
Grief is a country where it rains and rains but nothing grows.
While lies and deception destroy love, they can also build and defend it. Love requires imagination more than experience.
Solitude and depression are like swimming and drowning. In school many years ago, I learned that flowers sometimes unfold inside themselves.
Coincidences mean you're on the right path.
I wanted the day to rewind itself.
Freedom is the most exciting of life's terrors.
All wars are the external realization of our internal battles.
It's true the people we meet shape us. But people we don't meet shape us also, often more because we have imagined them so vividly.
We think of the world as the place of beginnings and ends, and we forget the inbetween, and even how to inhabit our own bodies. And then in adulthood, we sit and wonder why we feel so lost.
Life had called his name, and without thinking, he had stepped forward.
Music allows us to face God on our own terms because it reaches beyond life.
Actually years mean nothing. It's what's inside them.
Trusting is harder than being trusted.
Going back somewhere at night is almost like haunting the world after death.
Grief is a country where it rains and rains but nothing grows.
While lies and deception destroy love, they can also build and defend it. Love requires imagination more than experience.
Solitude and depression are like swimming and drowning. In school many years ago, I learned that flowers sometimes unfold inside themselves.
Coincidences mean you're on the right path.
I wanted the day to rewind itself.
Freedom is the most exciting of life's terrors.
All wars are the external realization of our internal battles.
It's true the people we meet shape us. But people we don't meet shape us also, often more because we have imagined them so vividly.
We think of the world as the place of beginnings and ends, and we forget the inbetween, and even how to inhabit our own bodies. And then in adulthood, we sit and wonder why we feel so lost.
Life had called his name, and without thinking, he had stepped forward.
November 25, 2015
It is impossible to read a book written by Simon van Booy without an arsenal of pens to underline all the beautiful sentences that he writes.
Also, the author biography cracks me up: "Simon van Booy was born in London and grew up in rural Wales and Oxford. After playing football in Kentucky, he lived in Paris and Athens."
One of these things is not like the other?
"I firmly believe that while lies and deception destroy love, they can also build and defend it. Love requires imagination more than experience."I'm not a huge short story reader, but I bought this collection because I loved his novel Everything Beautiful Began After so, so much. I liked these stories, too, but there was an element of...preciousness, maybe, to them that kept me from falling in love with them. It's essentially the same style he used in the novel, but it just doesn't hold the same magic for me in shorter form. It prevented the characters from really developing into something concrete, something multi-dimensional, and the reader is left instead with a lovely collection of delicate words that don't quite tell you the whole story.
Also, the author biography cracks me up: "Simon van Booy was born in London and grew up in rural Wales and Oxford. After playing football in Kentucky, he lived in Paris and Athens."
One of these things is not like the other?
October 19, 2014
Breathtaking. Beautiful. Brilliant. These are the some of the words that come to mind to describe the prose of Simon Van Booy. When Simon Van Booy writes, he imprints his images upon your heart and soul. The title story, "Love Begins in Winter," is one that will live on in my heart forever. This is the third book I have read by Van Booy. I am definitely a fan and look forward to reading more from him.
January 23, 2025
This beautifully written book of just five short love stories captured my heart. Each is very different from the others, as each one focuses on a different kind of love in poignant, almost visceral ways. But they have one thing in common: They are all about the pain of loneliness and the salvation of love.
• "Love Begins in Winter" tells the story of a famous and accomplished cellist, who still mourns the loss of his childhood friend, Anna, when she was 12 years old. This achingly lonely man senses her presence with him on stage until one day in the oddest of ways he meets Hannah, a woman who is mourning her own childhood loss. These two people find each other and in the process find themselves.
• "Tiger Tiger" is the story of a woman in a committed relationship—with no intention of marriage—and how they navigate her partner's parents' rocky marriage and divorce. Let's just put it this way: The woman has a bizarre way of showing her affection.
• "The Missing Statues" tells the tale of a single mother and her four-year-old son, who are waiting outside a Las Vegas casino for her latest boyfriend, who has taken all her money for gambling. They wait all night. And then near dawn a gondolier from the Venetian Hotel and Casino approaches them and something magical happens in the love and care he shows them.
• "The Coming and Going of Strangers" is the story of young Walter, who takes one look at a young orphan girl from Canada who has moved with her younger sister to Walter's hometown of Wicklow on the east coast of Ireland and falls hopelessly in love. The ending is both predictable and surprising. And the backstory of Walter's family is a study in the love of community when prejudice should have gotten in the way.
• "The City of Windy Trees" tells about the life of sad, lonely, and isolated George Frack of New York City who receives the most unexpected news in a letter from Stockholm: He is the father of a five-year-old girl, the result of a one-night stand six years ago at a truck stop in upstate New York. What he does next is life-changing for him, the girl, and the girl's mother.
As different as these stories are from one another, the shared thread is the tendency of each of the main characters to give up, to live their life in isolation. Instead, when strangers come into their lonely world, they are able to find their dreams. Author Simon Van Booy writes with keen insight into the human heart…witty, wise, and tender.
• "Love Begins in Winter" tells the story of a famous and accomplished cellist, who still mourns the loss of his childhood friend, Anna, when she was 12 years old. This achingly lonely man senses her presence with him on stage until one day in the oddest of ways he meets Hannah, a woman who is mourning her own childhood loss. These two people find each other and in the process find themselves.
• "Tiger Tiger" is the story of a woman in a committed relationship—with no intention of marriage—and how they navigate her partner's parents' rocky marriage and divorce. Let's just put it this way: The woman has a bizarre way of showing her affection.
• "The Missing Statues" tells the tale of a single mother and her four-year-old son, who are waiting outside a Las Vegas casino for her latest boyfriend, who has taken all her money for gambling. They wait all night. And then near dawn a gondolier from the Venetian Hotel and Casino approaches them and something magical happens in the love and care he shows them.
• "The Coming and Going of Strangers" is the story of young Walter, who takes one look at a young orphan girl from Canada who has moved with her younger sister to Walter's hometown of Wicklow on the east coast of Ireland and falls hopelessly in love. The ending is both predictable and surprising. And the backstory of Walter's family is a study in the love of community when prejudice should have gotten in the way.
• "The City of Windy Trees" tells about the life of sad, lonely, and isolated George Frack of New York City who receives the most unexpected news in a letter from Stockholm: He is the father of a five-year-old girl, the result of a one-night stand six years ago at a truck stop in upstate New York. What he does next is life-changing for him, the girl, and the girl's mother.
As different as these stories are from one another, the shared thread is the tendency of each of the main characters to give up, to live their life in isolation. Instead, when strangers come into their lonely world, they are able to find their dreams. Author Simon Van Booy writes with keen insight into the human heart…witty, wise, and tender.
February 15, 2023
This book... may I dare say that this book is my favorite book of all time. The writing of Simon Van Booy is unrivaled in so many ways. I think he understands humanity, grief, and love better than anyone. I cried so many times reading this book, and I cannot express how much his writing means to me. I feel as though he does not only write about the lives of humans, but truthfully, he is able to dive deeper and write about their souls. This is the second collection of his that I have read, and I am not going to be able to stop until I have read all of his works, I think.
If you need to revive your hope in humanity, I especially recommend Simon Van Booy's works! (If that's not you, I STILL recommend his works.)
I am going to wrap up this review with one of my favorite quotes (though there are many) from the book:
If you need to revive your hope in humanity, I especially recommend Simon Van Booy's works! (If that's not you, I STILL recommend his works.)
I am going to wrap up this review with one of my favorite quotes (though there are many) from the book:
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