JulieHasMoved

So this image could easily depict either of our two MCs or we as a reader. *unable to locate original image* :( I am left utterly torn up over the book and honestly left with no idea how to rate or review this at all. So bear with me as I ramble through this one.

First off, the writing is painfully beautiful and quite poetic...captivating me as a reader and really leaving me not wanting to put this book down. Which considering the following is really rather impressive...

1. The entire book is written first person, almost like a journal by our Narrator. There is no dialog, although the narrator tells of conversations using "he told me", "he said", etc.
2. We are never told the name of our main MC/Narrator. I really am kinda at a loss on this. He is not an extremely likable character and honestly I think he himself was to blame for much of what happens to the other MC (Mitko) in this book. Perhaps this omission is then on purpose?? Is it that he was ashamed of his actions and therefore did not want his name used??
3. Other than 2 other characters, including the other MC, all other characters were called by a single initial. K, R, S, etc. What the fuck?? Is this again an attempt an anonymity? Which leads me to wonder if this is a true story? Perhaps it is or certainly meant to be read as such.
4. The book is broken up into 3 sections, the second of which Mitko is not present at all. Instead we are told about our Narrator's past, his father (who's actions were sickening), and a first love which all in all was disturbing and quite awkward to say the least.

The relationship between our MCs is quite tragic. There is really no love here at all, and yet there is a sense of it. And while there are times I wonder the point of what is happening, like I said, I could not turn away. I was drawn in and as this book came to close, I was torn apart honestly with loss and just utter sadness that seemed to be Mitko. Just heartbreaking.

Even so, I lay beside him, I held him as he held my arm, embracing it against his chest. When he had calmed he began to speak, and his hands, which had been still as he wept, started to knead me again where they gripped me, taking up again their strange motion. Obichash li me, he asked, do you love me, but it wasn’t a question; I know you love me, he said, not waiting for me to speak. I know you love me but I can’t love you, I’m sorry, you are my friend, he said, priyatel, that word that could mean so much and so little, you are my friend but poveche ne moga, I can’t do anything more.

Ultimately Mitko wanted love and whether he could no longer give it or receive it the way he wanted, he needed it. He needed it so badly.

BR with Teo and Nathan

Status Updates:

8%
Never before had I met anyone who combined such transparency (or the semblance of transparency) with such mystery, so that he seemed at once overexposed and hidden behind impervious defenses.
Pretty intrigued but my brain is getting a literary workout. :)

16%
He lay like some marine creature wrapped around me, wrapping around me again if I shifted or half woke, and I slept as I have seldom slept, deeply and almost without disturbance, held like his beloved or his child; or held, I suppose it must be said, like his captive or his prey.

29%


37%
From that day, all the ease we had enjoyed together was gone. He took away the safety I had felt, the certainty of my bond with my father, the first bond; until that day I hadn’t realized it could be dissolved like any other. And it was as though I lost something of myself as well, as though I became somehow less real as my father withdrew from me, less substantial or less certain of my substance, as though I too were something that might dissolve.


46%


78%


87%
Making poems was a way of loving things, I had always thought, of preserving them, of living moments twice; or more than that, it was a way of living more fully, of bestowing on experience a richer meaning.

97%
...and again I was filled with grief for him, seeing him standing alone on the street. He had always been alone, I thought, gazing at a world in which he had never found a place and that was now almost perfectly indifferent to him; he was incapable even of disturbing it, of making a sound it could be bothered to hear.
Gawd...just so fucking depressing. :-(