Michael Lonegro > Recent Status Updates

A slow start, as I remember This Is Happiness had as well.

And here is Shakespeare at last (The Winter’s Tale, probably aptly).

Townes Van Zandt reference. No Shakespeare references yet (unusual for literary fiction).

Last book of the year. Started out rather unassuming; wasn’t sure why it made it from the Booker longlist to the shortlist. But gradually it’s been getting in more emotionally insightful kicks, and now I can sense some bigger ones coming up.

“Little did he know, back then, that the worth of one’s faith depended not on how solid and strong it was, but on how many times one would lose it and still be able to get it back.”

https://classical.music.apple.com/us/...

The varying lengths of the time-shifting episodes—their irregular rhythm—are what make the concept of this book work, I think. And so far very little foreshadowing of the foreign, hyperdramatic denouement with which the book opens. Some faint thematic traces, though.

Can’t read the name Ursula without thinking of Ursula Brangwen.

Also, the chapter titles: “Snow had fallen, snow on snow.”

Lines quoted from Neruda:
“There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.”

First reaction: a gradual sense of dread.

Impressive.