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How Adorable Is Gabrielle Zevin?
Jan. 14th, 2023 10:44 amFinished Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
The protagonists are 12 when the novel begins, in their 40s when the novel concludes. The prose does grow more sophisticated as the protagonists age. A tour de force. So subtle!!!! Zevin’s a detail-conscious enough writer so that I think this must be an intentional effect. Bravo!!!!
The novel’s last scene is almost unbearably moving: Two old friends ruefully reconnecting once again after a 30-year relationship punctuated by moments that alternate between an almost telepathic closeness and intense bitterness.
I cried reading it.
Verisimilitude but not realism, I’m thinking.
Because in my experience at least, once that degree of bitterness infects a relationship, there’s no resuscitating it.
###
As is my habit when I finish a novel, I scoured the Internet for interviews with Gabrielle Zevin to gain greater insight into precisely what she’d intended and so, happened upon this photo:
How adorable is Gabrielle Zevin?
I immediately downloaded The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.
###
I haven’t picked up my own fiction in a couple of months. It’s just so hard to bounce back and forth between economic analysis and imagined worlds.
Nobody’s holding a gun to my head and forcing me to write economic analyses, of course. And I don’t need that $$$$ to cover the basic bills. The money I earn from economic analyses goes toward travel, hazelnut truffles, subscriptions to every streaming video service on the planet, Sybyl-the-cat’s medical bills, and similar extravagances. If I gave up travel, hazelnut truffles, etc., I could devote myself entirely to my Art!!!!!!
But I don’t want to.
My muse is very lazy. Likes hazelnut truffles. Loves Sybyl-the-cat.
###
What else?
It was freakishly warm yesterday, although very grey and dark, so I forced myself to go tromping:
I’m back in a merry mood and made it up to Level 4: Planet Knarr: Yoth City Ruins in Otto-Mattic. But I’m including the YouTube link to Level 1: Planet Earth ‘cause that level’s got the best music:
The protagonists are 12 when the novel begins, in their 40s when the novel concludes. The prose does grow more sophisticated as the protagonists age. A tour de force. So subtle!!!! Zevin’s a detail-conscious enough writer so that I think this must be an intentional effect. Bravo!!!!
The novel’s last scene is almost unbearably moving: Two old friends ruefully reconnecting once again after a 30-year relationship punctuated by moments that alternate between an almost telepathic closeness and intense bitterness.
I cried reading it.
Verisimilitude but not realism, I’m thinking.
Because in my experience at least, once that degree of bitterness infects a relationship, there’s no resuscitating it.
###
As is my habit when I finish a novel, I scoured the Internet for interviews with Gabrielle Zevin to gain greater insight into precisely what she’d intended and so, happened upon this photo:
How adorable is Gabrielle Zevin?
I immediately downloaded The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.
###
I haven’t picked up my own fiction in a couple of months. It’s just so hard to bounce back and forth between economic analysis and imagined worlds.
Nobody’s holding a gun to my head and forcing me to write economic analyses, of course. And I don’t need that $$$$ to cover the basic bills. The money I earn from economic analyses goes toward travel, hazelnut truffles, subscriptions to every streaming video service on the planet, Sybyl-the-cat’s medical bills, and similar extravagances. If I gave up travel, hazelnut truffles, etc., I could devote myself entirely to my Art!!!!!!
But I don’t want to.
My muse is very lazy. Likes hazelnut truffles. Loves Sybyl-the-cat.
###
What else?
It was freakishly warm yesterday, although very grey and dark, so I forced myself to go tromping:
I’m back in a merry mood and made it up to Level 4: Planet Knarr: Yoth City Ruins in Otto-Mattic. But I’m including the YouTube link to Level 1: Planet Earth ‘cause that level’s got the best music:
