Currently reading
The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving-Kindness
River of Smoke: A Novel
Alif the Unseen
Half of a Yellow Sun
Taoist Qigong for Health and Vitality: A Complete Program of Movement, Meditation, and Healing Sounds
Sea of Poppies
AyurVeda: The Science of Self-Healing
Medicine Buddha Teachings
Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic and International Bestseller
The Fault in Our Stars
Open City: A Novel
Not gonna lie, I really wanted to like this more.Julius, the narrator, takes detachment to a whole other level. He makes Paul Auster characters seem like they drown in there attachment to others, even as they starve on in alley ways or petrify inside small apartments they refuse to leave. At first, this was not so distracting, and quite interesting, but to novelize this behavior seems a bit much. For a 40ish page story this would have worked marvelously. At nearly 200 pages, it drags on and makes you feel caught in his aimlessness, his tangential meanderings. I took so long to finish this because it basically made me agoraphobic, as Julius walks continued, the more I wanted to stay rooted, and see him rooted as well. I get that this was his coping tool -- one gets that by page 20 I'd say, but I became far more interested in what it was that he felt he needed coping from. And while he does discuss this, it always seems to be as a expository piece to get him on a journey. The writing itself is absolutely wonderful, and really what kept me going long after I felt bowled over by the meandering plot. Cole can write, there is no question. His words at time even feel like footprints. They are a melody of Julius's walking. But, even this could not save this book from feeling slight and far too detached, in fact it echos the detachment within too well perhaps.I am quite curious what he comes up with next, but I do walk away disappointed by this.
