Maeve’s Reviews > Bel Canto > Status Update

The more completely he concentrated on chess, the more he was able to push the pain aside. He never forgot it, but during the game he did not live exactly in the center of it.

Living not exactly in the center of your pain is interesting

Cesar began to sing the Rossini while he finished up his work. He had the kitchen to himself for a. moment and wanted to make use of this rare time alone. The sun came through the windows and shone brightly off his clean rifle and oh, how he loved to hear the words in his mouth.
Still, he wished he could open himself up th ay she did, bellow

Such interesting stuff too about the role of the translator. She landed on such an interesting node for a book being the translator. It all feels just quite masterful

With a great exhalation that could have signified the end of everything, the big man tilted his head down toward the floor

Simone Thibault, who sat there with his cookbooks wearing his wife’s blue wrap like a flag

How do you know Russian too? How do you know so many languages?
It’s my job.
No, no. It’s because you understand something and I want to know it, too.

She plays with gender and sexuality in such an interesting and surprising way here, actually. Nothing explicit at all but everything’s a little more fluid than you’d expect. It’s very curious and reflects the environment they’re in where boundaries break down I think. It’s kind of masterful. Reminds me a bit of jane eyre the beginning 90 pages or so

The few men, the servants, the infirm, came out behind them, looking helpless in the face of so much sadness for which they were not responsible.

The warm and taking even breaths was actually page 57 oops

Mess we glanced around at the bodies at his feet, all of them warm and taking even breaths. Really, he had seen worse.

i lke all of them warm and taking breaths