This one took me a while to get through, but it was worth it. Normally I like to read a few books at the same time, but this dominated all my reading time for the past month. Not that I’m complaining. On the surface it’s a coming of age story in Ireland in the early 90’s, but it’s also the kind of darkly comic novel that will explain string theory in a way you may even understand it. Lots of unexpected goodness in here.
Don’t read this passage if you’re going to read the book, because it’s a tad spoilery. But isn’t this great?
“She looks, if it’s possible, even more beautiful than before - although maybe it’s not possible, maybe it’s just that that level of beauty is too bright to be fully retained in the memory, any more than you can photograph the sun - dressed in a man’s white shirt in which her perfection appears so simply and ineffably that it seems to present an answer to any question or doubt anyone might ever have had about anything, so quietly overwhelming that Howard forgets he hates her, instead is suffused with joy, thankfulness, relief, at least until he realizes that the man’s white shirt probably belongs to her fiance.”
Highly recommended… if you can put in the time.
