seeusoon

This was one of those magical books that I couldn't put down. So many of the reviews talk about how he wrote about the ordinary in magical ways, and he did, and there was more to it, more magic and insight into life and its twists and turns than I would expect from such a young person, and a man. He can write the thoughts and feelings of an elderly man struggling with telling his wife of many years that he is dying and his memories of being a gravedigger in the war and how no one knows this either; a young woman unexpectedly pregnant and scared; a scarred widower raising his daughter after being unable to save his wife; and so much more, like what it feels like to physically connect with another person that makes sex so much more, what it feels like to struggle with infertility and the cultural shame of it; and how some call out to Allah and some to Buddha and some to angels. A very complex story but so simple in its beauty... or as the publisher says, "hip and soulful." Plus it is written in a sort of prose/poem style that is powerful... I think I will borrow the phrase hip and soulful for now on for books I love... ""He says my daughter, and all the love he has is wrapped up in the tone of his voice when he says those two words, he says my daughter you must always look with both of your eyes and listen with both of your ears. He says this is a very big world and there are many many things you could miss if you are not careful. He says there are remarkable things all the time, right in front of us, but our eyes have like the clouds over the sun and our lives are paler and poorer if we do not see them for what they are. He says, if nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable? He looks at her and he knows she doesn't understand, he doesn't think she'll even remember it to understand when she is older. But he tells her these things all the same, it is good to say them aloud, they are things people do not think and he wants to place them into the air." — Jon McGregor "If you listen, you can hear it. The city, it sings. If you stand quietly, at the foot of a garden, in the middle of the street, on the roof of a house. It's clearest at night, when the sound cuts more sharply across the surface of things, when the song reaches out to a place inside you. It's a wordless song, for the most, but it's a song all the same, and nobody hearing it could doubt what it sings. And the song sings the loudest when you pick out each note." — Jon McGregor (If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things)

2023-02-28 03:22