When a friend perused my shelves and asked if he could pick a read for for me, this was not the one I expected him to pick. But I'm so glad he did. This book has been an utterly delightful read, full of dizzyingly beautiful description, stubborn dedication to the want of knowledge and experience, and, at its core, the story of a boy trying to find himself and his place in his rather disagreeable world (some time in the 1870s), finding solace close to earth, close to nature, with a great joy of watching the natural world unfold uninterrupted.
The other beautiful touching thing about this book, the part that makes it extra special (and a testament of good friendship) is that reading this in my late 30s, I can see that if I'd had this read to me/picked it up and read it as a child of 8, 10, 12, I would have utterly adored it and found much likeness to Yan (the author), and it would have been one of those books that I returned to repeatedly, had I been introduced then. I feel like my inner child has been greatly nurtured through this reading experience.