Forrest’s Reviews > Stones Beneath a White Star > Status Update

Wow, has this book hit a chord within me. As a military brat, some of the places of my upbringing are either inaccessible or just don't plain exist anymore. Being able to revisit those places and reconcile my older self with my younger self is a transformative experience, and Locker has hit the emotion of it all right on the bloody head. This'll be an introspective review: fair warning.

Most of the way through and I still couldn't tell you what this is "about". But I will say that it is one of the most beautiful prose pieces I've read in a long, long time.

Just sent Martin payment for his non-fiction book Protection and Property, which I'm quite excited to read. And also just sent him a letter. Thinking of which, I owe a few more letters . . . if you're on my list (you know who you are), I haven't forgotten you.

If you asked me what this story is "about," I would be hard pressed to give a short answer. I suppose it's about relationships, first and foremost. Familial, spiritual, friendly relationships. And it's about the historical intricacies of the Pyrenees region and the variegated religious psychogeography of the region. It's about place and hope and faith. It is many things. Some of them for which I don't have words.

This is like J.K. Huysmans for the Pyrenees mountains. Lush. Decadent. And yet, rustic.

Hugo's story reads like an encyclopedia of the heretical. The historical nuances of religion in the mountains will make your head spin. One important lesson is that the history of religion, especially in the montagne regions, is anything but simple. Doctrinal and ritual lines are a complex arrangement formed by historical circumstance, personal and group preferences, and (gasp!) aleatory forces lacking reason(s).

What a powerful beginning! Locker has set up a situation balanced on the knife's edge where an end for one is a beginning for many, yet I feel that we might later loop back into this initial end. But will it be to a sense of finality or eternal doors opening? It could go either way as it stands now and being on the lip of that precipice is delicious. And we've only just begun.