Claire > Recent Status Updates

Picked up at the library because it's the perfect time of year to read a literary chunkster and then be able to give it back. Might even get round to Middlemarch this winter if I'm lucky.

After an appeal and a retrial, fatigue sets in, Cindy Gsmbino has changed her stance towards her ex husband and a new witness comes forward who was following the car just before the accident happened.
On the home straight now.

True crime by Helen Garner from 2014 about a court case involving a young father who drove iff the road into a dam with his children in the car. Reading this after having finished The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations on a Triple Murder by Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sara Krasnostein.

Christmas Eve 1943 in Rome there is a planned event by the Choir, codename for the core group in the team who've set up the Escape Line, run by Itish priest Hugh O'Flaherty. One evening spread over 400 pages interspersed by transcripts from 1962 BBC research interviews with various members, an extract from an unpublished memoir, a will, a coded communiqué
Act 1 The Choir
Act 2 The Solo
More 1963 transcripts BBC

First time reading TJR, this makes astronaut training feel like high school, doesn't feel like historical fiction, because the 80's still feels recent, but its a fun read and a contrast after reading You Are Here which was very English romance and this is clearly very American romance.

The walk progresses, their manner with each other loosens, the delayed taxi gets delayed, the train missed, the walk endures, the friendship deepens, the alcohol loosens, the humour closens, it's inevitable...

Library pick because I thought it'd be an easy, propelling read, given the author. A coast to coast wet hike organised by Cleo, who invites friends who don't know each other, 2 of whom are in the separation/divorce phase and in need of getting out, Marie is self employed and feeling more and more donated, Michael is seeking it, becoming more and more reclusive.
Now they're all on a challenging hike together...

"We are all, Esme decides, just vessels through which identities pass: we are lent features, gestures, habits, then we hand them on. Nothing is our own. We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents."

On page 36-37 of Niall Williams The Time of the Child, George Moore's The Lake is referenced for the 1st time.
William's also presents the interiority of his character Dr Troy while he is driving to and from visiting patients, not because he must, but because this is his activity (like Lake walking) that allows him to soul-search.
In The Lake the drama passes within the priest's soul, as it does too with Dr Troy.

"my reason for liking 'The Lake' is related to the very great difficulty of the telling, for the one vital event in the priest's life befell him before the story opens...it was necessary to recount the priest's life during the course of his walk by the shores...weaving his memories continually, without losing sight, however, of the long, winding, mere-like lake, wooded to its shores, with hills appearing into mist

A knock at the door awakens a memory from 20 years ago, Dr Troy and Father Tom, a girl named Mary, afraid, "she trusted in me. I brought her to you."
The hardest person to live with is yourself, was a saying of his father's.
Regret is the salt in the wounds of life, it keeps them stinging. And stops us making the same mistakes.
Do you remember, Tom?
'You won't let them take me, will you?'

Long thoughtful chapters, slow progression setting up for the major find/dilemma.
A night visit to patients, the Doctor's regret, his impulsive action, impending dementia, the fair, the memory of a loss, the tragic find, the rosary, a miracle, a new secret sworn, Ronnie's awakening...

'Medicine was not nothing, from the anguish of spiritual meaninglessness there was reprieve in aiding another, though there remained the mystery why caring for the sick was easier than for the well, and for the stranger than your own blood. They were mysteries he couldn't solve...'

Dr Troy visits Mossie & Sine Crowe, sees a note Noe, America- recalls the boy who visited his daughters, 2 have now left, as has Noe(l), and the book he gave his remaining daughter Ronnie. The Lake by Grorge Moore.

Off down a rabbit hole following that lead, reference to an interesting Irish author connected to Joyce and Gogarty and French writers, artists ftom hid yime in Paris tgat influenced his work. A link...

The End the 1st 7 pages, the death of Tequila Leila before and as she is found.

10 minutes 38 seconds is a record of persistent brain activity in people who have just died. The medical examiner ponders what happens during this time. Shafak uses those minutes to structure Part1, The Mind, a narrative as Leila's death prompts certain memories, aromas, connections with friends until Part 2 The Body.

Read 50 pages and it's giving 'not for me vibes', given to me by a friend who wanted my take on it. Clearly, it's not something I would have come across on my own, so trusting my intuitive feeling to let it go and pick up from my own stack that I feel excited to read, not something that feels onerous.

The events in the brothers' lives lead them back to almost proximity, and Ivan can't unhear what he has learned about Peter, though he tries to ignore it.
Every character is being confronted with what they are not owning up to, and you can feel it all needing resolution. Brilliantly executed story arc.

Since being blocked by his brother Ivan, Peter self-reflects in a way that isn't usual for him - because

'He only wants what he has always wanted: to be right, to be once and for all proven right."

In his conversation with his mother, he observes he is protecting Ivan, with Naomi he defends himself from allegations of hypocrisy, with Sylvie he plays victim, "he doesn't care about me", with himself he can't lie.

Ivan 22 and Peter 32 are brothers whose father has just died after a 3 yr illness.
1st part details Peter's personal life, Sylvie, former long term girlfriend he still sees, has unresolved feelings for. Naomi, a 23 yr old student he hooks up with, their connection less stable, volatile.
Ivan a chess protege on the decline, connects with Margaret 36, at an event.
So far, the brothers seek sex for comfort.
They meet.

Never read Sally Rooney novel, saw this in the library, I'm curious to read a millennial voice.

This is such a gentle, enquiring, observational work of nature writing and a tender transformation of one human in her own ways, through the observation of the little known leveret, its home environment and habits. Loving it.