I have just finished the book, having deliberately spent time savouring it. I loved it - really beautifully done. And I really liked the final paragraph: it rang true in this portrait of such an introverted and reticent man. And I really liked the way that Tóibín showed his self-knowledge, as for example this in describing a story he may be going to write, which is really the story of his own life:
Quote:
|
'I have in mind a man who all his life believes that something dreadful will happen to him,' Henry said. 'He tells a woman of this unknown catastrophe and she becomes his greatest friend, but what he does not see is that his failure to believe in her, his own coldness, is the catastrophe, it has come already, it has lived within him all along.'
|
He goes on to describe another possible story, and then when asked which of these stories he would write first, says:
Quote:
|
'I may already have embarked on both,' (Page 355)
|
What a great nomination. Thanks so much for putting it up, sun surfer.