Book No. 18 of 2021
A quietly devastating book that cloaks its tragedy in layers and layers of mundanity. There’s a voyeuristic, observational quality to the framework of the story that gives you the feeling of people-watching (gosh, I miss that), which of course makes you wonder about the life of the watcher. It’s the slow unfolding of the narrator’s history and how he came to be narrating in this fashion that drives the story forward.
Grief and misfortune are twin themes in this book, and while they are poignant on their own, they take on a deeper hue the closer you get to the present. I definitely had a lot of uncomfortable moments as a reader when I was forced to contemplate the role I play in stories like this.
(I realize this review is exceedingly vague; I’m intentionally doing so because I feel like knowing more going in lessens the reading experience, and a lot of the specific things that affected me in the story would be considered spoilers.)
Similar Reads
The haunting theme of memory (and what losing the individual stories attached to items and memories means) reminded me of Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police.
The overtones of death and loss reminded me somewhat tangentially of Genki Kawamura’s If Cats Disappeared From the World.