Status Updates From The Bridge

Mano's prose, so musical, begs to be read aloud: The pigeons flew complex and precise formations—six or eight layers that passed freely through each other, shuttling, weft thread under warp thread. The birds were voiceless but transmitted in their wings the sound of sails, at a distance, collapsed by wind.

So Keith is going to give me nightmares...re: the multiplying insects and his dying mum - "In her final days, an unvaried humming had come from his mother’s body, not precisely audible, but there at his fingertips when he touched her forehead."

Interesting to read straight after Riddley Walker - more satirical, more brutal and despairing. Mano's view of us as a species, and of Faith and Xian thought-structures, continues to be deeply impressive and enjoyably provocative.

Gross. Interesting. The Road without the self-indulgent style and better plot