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Stay Close, Little Ghost: A Novel
Quirky and romantic, Stay Close, Little Ghost is an ecstatic debut novel flecked with fever dream fairy a girl with no eyes scratching personal messages into the walls of the subway tunnel, a woman whose running mascara streaks over her body as she fades into a shadow on the wall, a missing child seen swimming across a lake bottom, a lost secret city where love is like tasting the real thing after tasting the fast food version for your entire life, a house whose painted landscape and sky walls erupt into a blizzard, magic glasses that translate languages and see inside people, a map of all the four-leaf clovers in the city, miraculous diamonds that hold the key to any question in the world, and a little wolf that lives inside the stomach of the narrator. Against this fantastic backdrop, a wonderfully flawed mathematician unravels as he collides with the most famous open problem in modern computer science. The result is a love story unlike anything else.
180 pages, Paperback
First published July 31, 2013
1 person is currently reading
416 people want to read
About the author
Oliver Serang
2 books17 followersOliver Serang is an American computer scientist and author of two novels, Stay Close Little Ghost (2013) and AT OCEAN (2016).
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 31, 2014
(This review was originally written for and posted at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography's site. I won the book--which would have been a perfect five-star read if not for my own frayed edges getting snagged on typos often enough to jar me out of an otherwise euphoric reading experience--through a First Reads giveaway.)
Written while the author was also finishing his Ph.D in some field that's well beyond my range of comprehension (or genome sciences, whatever), Oliver Serang's debut novel, Stay Close, Little Ghost, is a meditation on loves both past and present that is made all the more personal by the mathematician protagonist sharing a name with his creator. It slams the rigidly logical vehicle of mathematical distillation into the hallucinatory fog of magical realism while the neither-black-nor-white realm of romantic love and the games it can make people play hang in the balance of such a collision, giving rise to a maelstrom of jagged emotions, discombobulating experiences and brutal self-discovery set against a backdrop that's at once universally familiar and hazily disorienting.
The story begins with city-dwelling Oliver meeting up with friends who introduce him to the chronically flirtatious Yuki (whom he'd already met in an elevator under less than auspicious circumstances). It's plainly obvious that their ensuing romance is not long for this world, given Oliver's lingering damage from previous relationships and the rightful jealousy he fosters over Yuki's inappropriate displays of affection for her male friends. They fight, they make up, they break up, they reconcile, they fall to pieces all over again until the last Oliver sees of the girl who was so careless with a boy she deemed far more wholesome than herself and his still-freshly wounded heart is her slow disintegration into a subway tunnel shadow, where she remains a stubborn reminder of a last desperate attempt to mend irreparable harm every time Oliver passes her frozen silhouette.
Oliver flounders around the city for a while as he's plagued by strange happenings--an eyeless girl scratching subterranean messages to our hero, mirror realms, secret worlds of which only a chosen few are told, unnaturally persistent homeless subway riders, obliterated mental maps charting the locations of all the city's four-leaf clovers--and the all-too-common ruefully single man's ruminations on his other ex-girlfriends, like Anne, the girl who began his transformation into something more jaded and jagged than he used to be, and "you," the one Oliver speaks of most regretfully and to whom he directs his narration. He eventually flees to a lakeside house far from the city, where he befriends both a gravesite and, later, a skittish, artistic girl named Laika whose innocence and need to be protected allow Oliver to shed the role of the wholesome half in a pair. It seems that Laika's fragility exists in tandem with the kind of gentle heart that can soften some of the prickliness that Oliver has acquired with time and experience, but she, too, falls victim to infidelity; their love disintegrates as the painted landscape in her home turns from idyllic to cataclysmic, driving Oliver out of her life with a frenzied snowstorm.
The story ends as it began, with a letter to the "you" Oliver has lost and the love he'll be trying to replicate for the rest of his life, only the concluding letter is so awash in remorse over the past being an out-of-reach dream to which the future merely pales in comparison that it would actually hurt to read the final pages if they weren't infused with the kind of hope that comes with accepting the dualities of growing up, that one cannot know the pain of exquisite heartbreak without stumbling upon something sublimely beautiful first, and that learning from both gives them a place in the peaks and valleys of one's personal landscape.
Playing fantastic elements against the universally felt bitterness of a broken heart and the people whose purpose for passing through our lives is to remind us that not all love stories conclude with the fairy-tale endings they deserve puts a strange spin on an otherwise ordinary rite of passage into adulthood. It's so easy to dwell on the slings and arrows we've survived like tragic heroes while conveniently glossing over the times we dealt those same cruelties to others. Here, Oliver watches a sobbing Yuki turn into a frozen shadow and a wailing Laika disappear in the snow, in silent, metaphorical acknowledgment that the end of their romances hurt more than him, regardless of the women's cavalier attitudes toward romantic loyalty.
Oliver finally accepts that we all do desperate, unknowingly hurtful things to simultaneously satisfy our need for self-preservation while tightening our hold on the one person we've entrusted with the safekeeping of our most vulnerable selves, observing that the "you" he's writing to has always seen past his transgressions to accept him as a good person who couldn't help but commit a few wicked acts: When someone means the world to us and they make it clear their love is divided among others, it's only natural to let our lesser selves lash out like a hurt animal--but that doesn't damn a person to unconquerable rottenness.
Maybe it's because I'm coated in a little residual magic from recently revisiting the similarly feverish, preternaturally dreamlike world of Haruki Murakami, or because I've been wallowing in a surfeit of 30s-onset introspection about things that exist in a more distant past than their still-healing scars suggest, but Stay Close, Little Ghost offered one of those fated chance encounters of crossing paths with a novel at the absolute perfect time: It told me everything I've been needing to hear and I got to be the patiently, earnestly receptive audience it deserved. Perhaps I took interpretational liberties with this story but I do think that anyone who never got a sense of closure for a crucially formative but prematurely extinguished experience would have to be rubbed as raw as I was by this book: It's hard to resist personalizing a tale that serves as a tribute to the heartaches both inflicted and suffered that usher us away from childhood's temporary refuge by tempting us with romances fueled by intensities we can't understand and are destined to burn out in spectacular disasters we can't yet imagine.
Written while the author was also finishing his Ph.D in some field that's well beyond my range of comprehension (or genome sciences, whatever), Oliver Serang's debut novel, Stay Close, Little Ghost, is a meditation on loves both past and present that is made all the more personal by the mathematician protagonist sharing a name with his creator. It slams the rigidly logical vehicle of mathematical distillation into the hallucinatory fog of magical realism while the neither-black-nor-white realm of romantic love and the games it can make people play hang in the balance of such a collision, giving rise to a maelstrom of jagged emotions, discombobulating experiences and brutal self-discovery set against a backdrop that's at once universally familiar and hazily disorienting.
The story begins with city-dwelling Oliver meeting up with friends who introduce him to the chronically flirtatious Yuki (whom he'd already met in an elevator under less than auspicious circumstances). It's plainly obvious that their ensuing romance is not long for this world, given Oliver's lingering damage from previous relationships and the rightful jealousy he fosters over Yuki's inappropriate displays of affection for her male friends. They fight, they make up, they break up, they reconcile, they fall to pieces all over again until the last Oliver sees of the girl who was so careless with a boy she deemed far more wholesome than herself and his still-freshly wounded heart is her slow disintegration into a subway tunnel shadow, where she remains a stubborn reminder of a last desperate attempt to mend irreparable harm every time Oliver passes her frozen silhouette.
Oliver flounders around the city for a while as he's plagued by strange happenings--an eyeless girl scratching subterranean messages to our hero, mirror realms, secret worlds of which only a chosen few are told, unnaturally persistent homeless subway riders, obliterated mental maps charting the locations of all the city's four-leaf clovers--and the all-too-common ruefully single man's ruminations on his other ex-girlfriends, like Anne, the girl who began his transformation into something more jaded and jagged than he used to be, and "you," the one Oliver speaks of most regretfully and to whom he directs his narration. He eventually flees to a lakeside house far from the city, where he befriends both a gravesite and, later, a skittish, artistic girl named Laika whose innocence and need to be protected allow Oliver to shed the role of the wholesome half in a pair. It seems that Laika's fragility exists in tandem with the kind of gentle heart that can soften some of the prickliness that Oliver has acquired with time and experience, but she, too, falls victim to infidelity; their love disintegrates as the painted landscape in her home turns from idyllic to cataclysmic, driving Oliver out of her life with a frenzied snowstorm.
The story ends as it began, with a letter to the "you" Oliver has lost and the love he'll be trying to replicate for the rest of his life, only the concluding letter is so awash in remorse over the past being an out-of-reach dream to which the future merely pales in comparison that it would actually hurt to read the final pages if they weren't infused with the kind of hope that comes with accepting the dualities of growing up, that one cannot know the pain of exquisite heartbreak without stumbling upon something sublimely beautiful first, and that learning from both gives them a place in the peaks and valleys of one's personal landscape.
Playing fantastic elements against the universally felt bitterness of a broken heart and the people whose purpose for passing through our lives is to remind us that not all love stories conclude with the fairy-tale endings they deserve puts a strange spin on an otherwise ordinary rite of passage into adulthood. It's so easy to dwell on the slings and arrows we've survived like tragic heroes while conveniently glossing over the times we dealt those same cruelties to others. Here, Oliver watches a sobbing Yuki turn into a frozen shadow and a wailing Laika disappear in the snow, in silent, metaphorical acknowledgment that the end of their romances hurt more than him, regardless of the women's cavalier attitudes toward romantic loyalty.
Oliver finally accepts that we all do desperate, unknowingly hurtful things to simultaneously satisfy our need for self-preservation while tightening our hold on the one person we've entrusted with the safekeeping of our most vulnerable selves, observing that the "you" he's writing to has always seen past his transgressions to accept him as a good person who couldn't help but commit a few wicked acts: When someone means the world to us and they make it clear their love is divided among others, it's only natural to let our lesser selves lash out like a hurt animal--but that doesn't damn a person to unconquerable rottenness.
Maybe it's because I'm coated in a little residual magic from recently revisiting the similarly feverish, preternaturally dreamlike world of Haruki Murakami, or because I've been wallowing in a surfeit of 30s-onset introspection about things that exist in a more distant past than their still-healing scars suggest, but Stay Close, Little Ghost offered one of those fated chance encounters of crossing paths with a novel at the absolute perfect time: It told me everything I've been needing to hear and I got to be the patiently, earnestly receptive audience it deserved. Perhaps I took interpretational liberties with this story but I do think that anyone who never got a sense of closure for a crucially formative but prematurely extinguished experience would have to be rubbed as raw as I was by this book: It's hard to resist personalizing a tale that serves as a tribute to the heartaches both inflicted and suffered that usher us away from childhood's temporary refuge by tempting us with romances fueled by intensities we can't understand and are destined to burn out in spectacular disasters we can't yet imagine.
December 22, 2013
Whaaat? Ready for a fantastical trip reminiscent of dropping acid back in the day? Or a crazy dream that you desperately try to hang onto even as it drains from your mind when you awaken? You are in for a special treat with Oliver Surang's debut novel. The imagery is so vivid it almost made my eyes blur. See the recurring homeless man with the sticky brown smile, the little girl with no eyes who etches messages onto the walls of the subway tunnels.
The narrator is a mathematician by trade, he thinks of himself as a math farmer. He also has a small wolf living in the pit of his stomach and constantly strives not to become nocturnal. He has a gift for finding four-leaf clovers. Having a map of the location of thousands of them in his mind, he harvests as needed. He has a pair of X-ray glasses that allow him to see inside people, including souls that have gone gray.
The idea of a woman's house with painted landscape and sky walls so real that a blizzard boils up inside is crazy good. And what could be truer than the notion of this - 'If everyone wins, then the value of winning is nothing.'? We would do well to keep this in mind in today's world.
This is a love story unlike any I have read. We all want a love that is irreplaceable, but sometimes the burden of carrying such a weight is too much. Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy of his book to read. It was an awesome trip. This novel may not be for everyone, but if you are ready to trip the light fantastic, settle in and enjoy.
The narrator is a mathematician by trade, he thinks of himself as a math farmer. He also has a small wolf living in the pit of his stomach and constantly strives not to become nocturnal. He has a gift for finding four-leaf clovers. Having a map of the location of thousands of them in his mind, he harvests as needed. He has a pair of X-ray glasses that allow him to see inside people, including souls that have gone gray.
The idea of a woman's house with painted landscape and sky walls so real that a blizzard boils up inside is crazy good. And what could be truer than the notion of this - 'If everyone wins, then the value of winning is nothing.'? We would do well to keep this in mind in today's world.
This is a love story unlike any I have read. We all want a love that is irreplaceable, but sometimes the burden of carrying such a weight is too much. Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy of his book to read. It was an awesome trip. This novel may not be for everyone, but if you are ready to trip the light fantastic, settle in and enjoy.
July 3, 2015
Edit: I wish I knew how to work html.
This book was sent to me, by the author, for an honest review, Thank you!
This review was originally published on The Lit Pub: http://thelitpub.com/stay-close-littl...
The TNBBC blog is a place for every book nerd, especially the book nerds who like books written and created by Indie writers. One day, Oliver Serang took over the blog and I watched the videos, read the blog posts, participated in the giveaway contest, and that was how this book ended up in my hands. It seems like a cute, lovable book, short, and the title itself. But the book doesn’t really give you any hugs, it’s all an illusion.
The story goes like this, the narrator, who also happened to be named Oliver, failed a lot at relationships. They never lasted, his heart broke, and he broke others’ hearts. There was something missing in this equation — he was a mathematician that never seemed to find the solutions for his heartbreak. He never found the right piece that fit with his. The whole story was a letter written to a nameless person, referred to as “you” and a bunch of asterisks, which was somebody that he must’ve dated in the past. There was no clear evidence over whether or not this “you” was dead or alive or lived somewhere else. I figured that maybe she moved away and died eventually. Maybe that person didn’t exist at all, since throughout the book, this was where the magic realism kicked, the main narrator experienced these hallucinations, and these fever dreams.
These fever dreams seemed to be messages for the impending dooms of any of his relationships. The first one was Yuki, a flirty girl he met in the elevator. She was insecure, a constant crier, and couldn’t make up her mind. She loved Oliver, or claimed to, but she hung around and flirted with any man that caught her eye, including her friends. This caused him to break up with her, every time she cried, she shed her eyeliner. Eventually, while chasing after him in a train, she disintegrated into a shadow on a train station wall, becoming a sort of black silhouette stain. There was also another girl he had been with, that disappeared into a snow storm. After Oliver had broken into a room that she kept closed off, to hide a secret. A hand behind a large grate near a vending machine reached out for him. A young girl scratching messages into walls, a young boy who drowned and continues to haunt the lake. Those are some of the odd summer fever dreams and oddities that he experienced. From talking strange hobos that predict your future, that seem to move at light speed, disappearing girlfriends forced out by his betrayal, and the sparks that faded away. Then there was the wolf in his stomach or mind. For some odd reason, I imagined the wolf being in his belly, a dark cavern, hidden away from everyone. This wolf seemed to be the narrator’s repressed emotions or more like what repressed his emotions. Every whimper, howl, and growl seemed to be the wolf’s defense mechanisms, the narrator’s defense mechanisms of what he truly felt, feared, or desired.
Stay Close, Little Ghost is a novel of loneliness and that aching feeling of being betrayed, yet you feel this sort of guilt deep within you, questioning whether or not it was your fault. Even if it is, you still feel this pain that could never be put back together again; nothing can be returned or regained. This comparison seems kind of silly, but I felt like this novel was sort of the birth child of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I’m not sure why, but the prose sort of has this childlike, doe eyed innocence, with a sprinkle of fairy dust, combined with the drug, sex, wild youth of the 60s, that has continued on today. There’s this strange sort of feeling of isolation, where connections with others feel more like brief flashes of light. This whole story is a love story and the fever dreams are his responses to his fear or acknowledging the fact that it will indeed, all end. He seemed to accept this at some point.
Stay Close, Little Ghost is like the modern day fairytale, a love story of this generation. At first I was quite unsure of myself when reading this. In the beginning I was reading it slowly, not because I didn’t like it, but because I wanted to absorb the prose little by little, because despite its simplicity, the words were filled with a new story, a new face of the character. I felt that if I missed a word, I would miss a piece of the character. So I had to latch onto each sentence. Here’s a sentence I underlined with a pencil, it doesn’t really fit with what I am saying, but there were so many other sentences that I would like to underline, that it would ruin the book.
“Being irreplaceable confers the greatest value that anything can have. Deciding that a person will be irreplaceable to you is the greatest thing you can ever give them. Knowing that you are irreplaceable to someone else is the only way to truly feel loved.”
So I had to slow down my reading a bit and absorb it as much as possible. This prose is quite a beauty though, one of those observances of life, the words of the people who question the reason why their cells float on the universe. What’s the point of being some random mound of cells that interacts and looks for the affection of other mounds? We’re so easy to replace, yet the act of replacement is so hard to deal with, the previous can’t be erased.
This book was sent to me, by the author, for an honest review, Thank you!
This review was originally published on The Lit Pub: http://thelitpub.com/stay-close-littl...
The TNBBC blog is a place for every book nerd, especially the book nerds who like books written and created by Indie writers. One day, Oliver Serang took over the blog and I watched the videos, read the blog posts, participated in the giveaway contest, and that was how this book ended up in my hands. It seems like a cute, lovable book, short, and the title itself. But the book doesn’t really give you any hugs, it’s all an illusion.
The story goes like this, the narrator, who also happened to be named Oliver, failed a lot at relationships. They never lasted, his heart broke, and he broke others’ hearts. There was something missing in this equation — he was a mathematician that never seemed to find the solutions for his heartbreak. He never found the right piece that fit with his. The whole story was a letter written to a nameless person, referred to as “you” and a bunch of asterisks, which was somebody that he must’ve dated in the past. There was no clear evidence over whether or not this “you” was dead or alive or lived somewhere else. I figured that maybe she moved away and died eventually. Maybe that person didn’t exist at all, since throughout the book, this was where the magic realism kicked, the main narrator experienced these hallucinations, and these fever dreams.
These fever dreams seemed to be messages for the impending dooms of any of his relationships. The first one was Yuki, a flirty girl he met in the elevator. She was insecure, a constant crier, and couldn’t make up her mind. She loved Oliver, or claimed to, but she hung around and flirted with any man that caught her eye, including her friends. This caused him to break up with her, every time she cried, she shed her eyeliner. Eventually, while chasing after him in a train, she disintegrated into a shadow on a train station wall, becoming a sort of black silhouette stain. There was also another girl he had been with, that disappeared into a snow storm. After Oliver had broken into a room that she kept closed off, to hide a secret. A hand behind a large grate near a vending machine reached out for him. A young girl scratching messages into walls, a young boy who drowned and continues to haunt the lake. Those are some of the odd summer fever dreams and oddities that he experienced. From talking strange hobos that predict your future, that seem to move at light speed, disappearing girlfriends forced out by his betrayal, and the sparks that faded away. Then there was the wolf in his stomach or mind. For some odd reason, I imagined the wolf being in his belly, a dark cavern, hidden away from everyone. This wolf seemed to be the narrator’s repressed emotions or more like what repressed his emotions. Every whimper, howl, and growl seemed to be the wolf’s defense mechanisms, the narrator’s defense mechanisms of what he truly felt, feared, or desired.
Stay Close, Little Ghost is a novel of loneliness and that aching feeling of being betrayed, yet you feel this sort of guilt deep within you, questioning whether or not it was your fault. Even if it is, you still feel this pain that could never be put back together again; nothing can be returned or regained. This comparison seems kind of silly, but I felt like this novel was sort of the birth child of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I’m not sure why, but the prose sort of has this childlike, doe eyed innocence, with a sprinkle of fairy dust, combined with the drug, sex, wild youth of the 60s, that has continued on today. There’s this strange sort of feeling of isolation, where connections with others feel more like brief flashes of light. This whole story is a love story and the fever dreams are his responses to his fear or acknowledging the fact that it will indeed, all end. He seemed to accept this at some point.
Stay Close, Little Ghost is like the modern day fairytale, a love story of this generation. At first I was quite unsure of myself when reading this. In the beginning I was reading it slowly, not because I didn’t like it, but because I wanted to absorb the prose little by little, because despite its simplicity, the words were filled with a new story, a new face of the character. I felt that if I missed a word, I would miss a piece of the character. So I had to latch onto each sentence. Here’s a sentence I underlined with a pencil, it doesn’t really fit with what I am saying, but there were so many other sentences that I would like to underline, that it would ruin the book.
“Being irreplaceable confers the greatest value that anything can have. Deciding that a person will be irreplaceable to you is the greatest thing you can ever give them. Knowing that you are irreplaceable to someone else is the only way to truly feel loved.”
So I had to slow down my reading a bit and absorb it as much as possible. This prose is quite a beauty though, one of those observances of life, the words of the people who question the reason why their cells float on the universe. What’s the point of being some random mound of cells that interacts and looks for the affection of other mounds? We’re so easy to replace, yet the act of replacement is so hard to deal with, the previous can’t be erased.
January 12, 2014
The narrator’s voice is beguiling in this short novel, which has a certain existentialist feel, but readily engages the reader. The storylines follow Oliver’s relationships which prove as difficult to resolve as the mathematical problem he works on; but then life isn’t a simple algorithm, there are no easy answers, and relationships do not always work out. Oliver is troubled by dreamlike visions which have psychedelic elements, although perhaps it is best to lose oneself in this, rather than search to rationalise the darker symbolism of the girl scratching letters on subway walls and such.
I was reminded of Steppenwolf (as Yuki brings out the ‘little wolf’ in Oliver), and a little of the underground man after losing Liza (Oliver’s Laika?) in the snow, although there is a little more compassion felt for the protagonist in Stay Close Little Ghost. The end result – proof that it is best to have experienced love... Written with personal spirit and, in my opinion, a gem.
I was reminded of Steppenwolf (as Yuki brings out the ‘little wolf’ in Oliver), and a little of the underground man after losing Liza (Oliver’s Laika?) in the snow, although there is a little more compassion felt for the protagonist in Stay Close Little Ghost. The end result – proof that it is best to have experienced love... Written with personal spirit and, in my opinion, a gem.
March 12, 2017
I received my copy through Goodreads' Giveaways directly from the author and I'm sorely grateful to be that one time winner.
I must admit that I'd rather read this kind of genre occasionally only (quirky and romantic as it is stated on the back-cover) and maybe for that reason it has utterly outgrown my expectations.
The so-called "unreliable" narrator made me feel so mesmerized by his way of describing the emotions or situations - the most colourful rumination and hindsight of life I've ever stumbled upon, at least in a book.
Maybe if it hadn't been for some little inconsistencies in the pace of the plot, I'd have rate it as "amazing".
I have to say that I'm not sure if I would recommend reading this book to everyone, because of its quirkiness, however (paradoxically) I asume that must be the reason why I liked it so much:)
Pros and cons aside, it was a truly pleasurable and memorable trip to the bottom of the lake, despite some gloomy undercurrents.
I must admit that I'd rather read this kind of genre occasionally only (quirky and romantic as it is stated on the back-cover) and maybe for that reason it has utterly outgrown my expectations.
The so-called "unreliable" narrator made me feel so mesmerized by his way of describing the emotions or situations - the most colourful rumination and hindsight of life I've ever stumbled upon, at least in a book.
Maybe if it hadn't been for some little inconsistencies in the pace of the plot, I'd have rate it as "amazing".
I have to say that I'm not sure if I would recommend reading this book to everyone, because of its quirkiness, however (paradoxically) I asume that must be the reason why I liked it so much:)
Pros and cons aside, it was a truly pleasurable and memorable trip to the bottom of the lake, despite some gloomy undercurrents.
March 15, 2017
Sometimes funny, but contains too much drugs, alcohol and sex too satisfy me.
May 5, 2015
I won this book through a giveaway here on Goodreads.
Sure as hell, it was strange. At the beginning I was not sure if I liked it. The story could be easily followed, in fact it is quite linear, but sometimes the protagonist's reflections were a bit too tangled and I had to read them more than once to really understand what he meant. But as I went on with the reading, I began to appreciate him more and more, thanks also to the writing style of the author, which I really liked.
At the end, I understood that this was just the journey of a man into himself. Oliver, the main character, is divided between the animal part of himself, that only wants to hurt people and feels good in doing so, and the human, kind part, ready to give anything to others. In the whole book there is the battle between these two sides of him, and both show themselves able to take control over him.
The strange encounters that he makes are just personifications of what he is concerned with in that moment. Honestly, these were really frightening. But I suppose that they are described in that way in order to emphasize the importance of the dilemmas that Oliver is facing: he is reevaluating his whole life and slowly understanding his true self, which are not easy things.
The background of all the story -the point of departure and arrival of all- is his love for an unspecified person. This surely is the part I liked the most. Even if he did not know, the only thing he was looking for in all the events that happened to him and in all the thoughts he had was always her. The last chapter was a little masterpiece, in my opinion: the way he described his love for her, the fact that he has finally understood that he does not need to be perfect but that we are made of a "good" and a "bad" part, and how he is ready to give her both and to let her do whatever she wants with them, it was truly poetic.
It was a really beautiful book, indeed.
Sure as hell, it was strange. At the beginning I was not sure if I liked it. The story could be easily followed, in fact it is quite linear, but sometimes the protagonist's reflections were a bit too tangled and I had to read them more than once to really understand what he meant. But as I went on with the reading, I began to appreciate him more and more, thanks also to the writing style of the author, which I really liked.
At the end, I understood that this was just the journey of a man into himself. Oliver, the main character, is divided between the animal part of himself, that only wants to hurt people and feels good in doing so, and the human, kind part, ready to give anything to others. In the whole book there is the battle between these two sides of him, and both show themselves able to take control over him.
The strange encounters that he makes are just personifications of what he is concerned with in that moment. Honestly, these were really frightening. But I suppose that they are described in that way in order to emphasize the importance of the dilemmas that Oliver is facing: he is reevaluating his whole life and slowly understanding his true self, which are not easy things.
The background of all the story -the point of departure and arrival of all- is his love for an unspecified person. This surely is the part I liked the most. Even if he did not know, the only thing he was looking for in all the events that happened to him and in all the thoughts he had was always her. The last chapter was a little masterpiece, in my opinion: the way he described his love for her, the fact that he has finally understood that he does not need to be perfect but that we are made of a "good" and a "bad" part, and how he is ready to give her both and to let her do whatever she wants with them, it was truly poetic.
It was a really beautiful book, indeed.
August 15, 2014
Sandwiched between two letters to an undisclosed lover, this novel dissects the human connection, a balance between the impulse to trample others in an effort to rise above them and the desire for closeness that leaves us vulnerable to wounds from our harsh surroundings. The narrator lays himself bare in moments of blood-thirsty aggression and feelings of impending insanity, daring the letters’ recipient to accept him, flaws and all.
But this synopsis makes things seem far more straight-forward than they proceed - the writing flows in what can perhaps best be described as magic realism on hallucinogenic drugs. Familiar settings - riding the subway, vacationing on a lake - overlay a bizarre world - an eyeless girl scratching messages to Oliver in the subway tunnel, and an indoor storm that rages in a forbidden room of a mysterious woman’s lakeside home. It is all a bit dizzying, but looking back on passages I’d underlined makes me want to go on the ride again and weather the storm that ends with hurting and hopeful longing.
Full disclosure: the author provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review when he saw it on my to-read list. And I thought there’d be nothing better suited to reading during the relative lull between thesis writing and my defense than a novel written by a former Harvard University researcher. Downside of choosing to read this book at perhaps the busiest time of my academic life - the review got much delayed (sorry Oliver!).
“I still have one good hand, one piece of myself that hasn’t been scarred and robbed of all its extra nerves and love and hope, and I’m saving it only for you. But I also want to give you the scarred one, too.”
But this synopsis makes things seem far more straight-forward than they proceed - the writing flows in what can perhaps best be described as magic realism on hallucinogenic drugs. Familiar settings - riding the subway, vacationing on a lake - overlay a bizarre world - an eyeless girl scratching messages to Oliver in the subway tunnel, and an indoor storm that rages in a forbidden room of a mysterious woman’s lakeside home. It is all a bit dizzying, but looking back on passages I’d underlined makes me want to go on the ride again and weather the storm that ends with hurting and hopeful longing.
Full disclosure: the author provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review when he saw it on my to-read list. And I thought there’d be nothing better suited to reading during the relative lull between thesis writing and my defense than a novel written by a former Harvard University researcher. Downside of choosing to read this book at perhaps the busiest time of my academic life - the review got much delayed (sorry Oliver!).
“I still have one good hand, one piece of myself that hasn’t been scarred and robbed of all its extra nerves and love and hope, and I’m saving it only for you. But I also want to give you the scarred one, too.”
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June 25, 2017*I got this book in a giveaway*
Dear Oliver,
I found your bag in the train. Inside there was a letter. It wasn't intended for me but in some moments it felt as if it was. I am sorry, yes, I read it. I couldn't help it. You know, I had no clue about who was the owner of the bag and the letter was the only thing that could help me find him. Because him it was, as the name that was at the end of the letter, told me: 'Oliver'. Sadly, even after getting to the end, I still have no clue of who you really are or where do you live, so... I will have to keep the letter.
I have to say that I was touched by it. It is not perfect (what story, what opening up of our fears and feelings is?) but it had that purity and innocence that is sometimes lacking in more polished works. In some moments it was as if I was reading a biography (mine). Is this Oliver playing tricks on my mind?, I thought, reading with interest.
Your letter, which has a curious title, "Stay Close, Little Ghost", is a really good one. I was a little bit lost with the talk of diamonds and wolves (the first one could be a little bit more polished, the second one was a little bit repetitive), but otherwise no other complaints will be raised by me. It is a story of loss, of fears and of disappointments. It is also a story of love, and how we try to find it in many places, some of them the wrong ones, where, you know, we shouldn't be looking. Because, well, we may need that. Love.
That a story has heart, life, is one of the most difficult things to do. That it grabs the reader and makes him or her keep turning pages till the last one is not an easy trick (disclaimer, it is not the first time I read something that was not intended for me; no literary work ever is). The ending left me wanting for more, but well, I think you did not intend the letter to be an ending, but just a chance for a new beginning.
So, Oliver, I was glad that I read your letter, even if it was not intended to me. That is why I have written this reply to you. I will put it in your bag and leave it again in the train. Maybe you will find it someday. And it will bring a smile to your face.
And with your permission, I will show yours around, because there are moments of extreme beauty and others quite original and I think many people would enjoy it. And, you know, maybe your letter, by falling in the wrong hands, will give love to someone. Even if they were not the intended receiver.
(Original English Version)
Dear Oliver,
I found your bag in the train. Inside there was a letter. It wasn't intended for me but in some moments it felt as if it was. I am sorry, yes, I read it. I couldn't help it. You know, I had no clue about who was the owner of the bag and the letter was the only thing that could help me find him. Because him it was, as the name that was at the end of the letter, told me: 'Oliver'. Sadly, even after getting to the end, I still have no clue of who you really are or where do you live, so... I will have to keep the letter.
I have to say that I was touched by it. It is not perfect (what story, what opening up of our fears and feelings is?) but it had that purity and innocence that is sometimes lacking in more polished works. In some moments it was as if I was reading a biography (mine). Is this Oliver playing tricks on my mind?, I thought, reading with interest.
Your letter, which has a curious title, "Stay Close, Little Ghost", is a really good one. I was a little bit lost with the talk of diamonds and wolves (the first one could be a little bit more polished, the second one was a little bit repetitive), but otherwise no other complaints will be raised by me. It is a story of loss, of fears and of disappointments. It is also a story of love, and how we try to find it in many places, some of them the wrong ones, where, you know, we shouldn't be looking. Because, well, we may need that. Love.
That a story has heart, life, is one of the most difficult things to do. That it grabs the reader and makes him or her keep turning pages till the last one is not an easy trick (disclaimer, it is not the first time I read something that was not intended for me; no literary work ever is). The ending left me wanting for more, but well, I think you did not intend the letter to be an ending, but just a chance for a new beginning.
So, Oliver, I was glad that I read your letter, even if it was not intended to me. That is why I have written this reply to you. I will put it in your bag and leave it again in the train. Maybe you will find it someday. And it will bring a smile to your face.
And with your permission, I will show yours around, because there are moments of extreme beauty and others quite original and I think many people would enjoy it. And, you know, maybe your letter, by falling in the wrong hands, will give love to someone. Even if they were not the intended receiver.
(Original English Version)
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