Ilse’s Reviews > A Leopard-Skin Hat > Status Update
Ilse
is on page 34 of 122
Perhaps we all have lives the person closest to us knows nothing of? And perhaps this is what really attracts us to each other: the presence of this secret life which, from time to time, is revealed to us through a gleaming, narrow slit. The vision is fleeting and comes as a complete surprise; all our convictions are shaken because, however observant we might be, we hadn’t noticed a thing
— Sep 18, 2025 02:04AM
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Ilse’s Previous Updates
Ilse
is on page 80 of 122
But how can we hold such a tiny thing against her? Don't we all of us slay each other, day in, day out, hour after hour, with our exquisite smiles and shattering indifference, our lavish displays of wealth that the more impoverished members of society can only lower their eyes before?
— Oct 01, 2025 04:19AM
Ilse
is on page 60 of 122
How could he fail to be alert to the slightest of her intonations and remarks! When you see someone you love continually weighing in secret, like gleaming copper weights on the pan of a golden scale, on one side her life, on the other her death, and you see her stooping to examine precisely on which side it tips - how can you help but peer over her shoulder?
— Sep 27, 2025 02:46AM
Ilse
is on page 50 of 122
Hiking around with someone who doesn't look at things as you do is always interesting. Fanny moves through the landscape not in order to read there like the Narrator, but to live. The open sky and the rolling meadows lend themselves to the movement of her thoughts, whereas for the Narrator everything falls still so that he can savor - just savor -down to the tiniest detail - as a happy expanse of untamed countryside.
— Sep 22, 2025 09:18AM
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Sep 18, 2025 02:51AM
This initial reflection on the book reminds me of Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au. Definitely sold me on reading this book
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When your profession is not in keeping with your passions whatsoever, my take is: it is fated to happen ;)
Matilde wrote: "This initial reflection on the book reminds me of Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au. Definitely sold me on reading this book"Matilde, good point! This reflection echoes what is at play in the enigmatic relationship between the mother and the narrator-daughter in Jessica Au's book (like for that one, I felt the need to promptly reading this again after finishing, so yes, give it a go, it might resonate with you too).
P.E. wrote: "When your profession is not in keeping with your passions whatsoever, my take is: it is fated to happen ;)"P-E, isn't it fascinating, moving from one profession to another, how those passions are vividly live inside us, while they are not visible and entirely unknown to the other people we meet every day (as well as theirs are to us if not shared with us?). Your observation reminds me also of the surprise my husband had in store for his co-workers in the glass fiber factory when he left them after five years to work as a lawyer, having told nobody he had a degree :).
