Europe through literature discussion

Hi all!
As we have only got one nomination for a short story / essay from the Netherlands, we will skip the poll and can discuss Goldfish and Concrete already in this thread!

I read this last night and it was interesting. I liked the tone, but I think I'll have to read it again to get a better grip on it. A quick read.

Just finished this one, too. A quick read, I agree, though an unusual one...
As far as I understood this novella, it is about coincidence vs fate/destiny and the notion that everything is linked to everything else in a positive sense. In my opinion it is about coping with love and death.
I liked the tone, too, and thought it was consoling. I also quite liked the illlustrations.
I will look for her two novels and the short story collection...

Carolien wrote: "I read this last night and it was interesting. I liked the tone, but I think I'll have to read it again to get a better grip on it. A quick read."

What did you make of her reference to Anish Kapoor's blacker-than-black circle absorbing everything?

Orgeluse wrote: "Carolien wrote: "I read this last night and it was interesting. I liked the tone, but I think I'll have to read it again to get a better grip on it. A quick read."

What did you make of her referen..."

This theme lurks in a few places. In bullet point 3, she writes of her father "He's open to the whole world, everything goes in, as though he were an infinite landscape where everyone's welcome. a hole everything falls through".

Bullet point 1 has "The end is a full stop, a period. It's always just a full stop. But if you look carefully, that full stop is an opening, a little hole you can go through. Behind it, a beginning that takes much longer is waiting for you".
Also "A holist is convinced that everything is inseparably connected to everything else".

The hole seems to represent infinity and connection to her, I think. And in the end at Bullet point 25 the says: "I will reveal my belief to you: it is infinite".

Yes, I especially liked her idea about the meaning of a full stop :)!

The entire text is more of a philosophical approach of sorts to the big topics of life (e.g. love, death, time, creativity) rather than a "story".