The Anomaly

What’s it about?

This novel contemplates how one event affects eleven different characters. “He doesn’t try to explain, but to bear witness, in simple terms.”

What did it make me think about?

I just kept thinking “I am not smart enough to get this book” but the writing is so interesting that I just kept turning the pages. ‘ “I have not made a single gesture in my life.  I know that, from time immemorial, it is gestures that have made me, that not one movement at has been made under my own control.  My body has been happy to come alive, pulled by strings I did not attach.  It is presumptuous to imply that we master the space around us, when we simply follow the curves of least resistance.  The limitation of limitations.  No takeoff will unfold out sky, ever.’ ”

Should I read it?

Well….  I really appreciated so much about this novel.  However, I did not always get it.  This was an extremely hard book for me to rate- in some ways this is a 10 star book and in some ways I could justify 5 stars.  The first 150 pages are all setting up the last 200 plus pages plus.  For some readers this may be tedious- although I did not mind the first section.  The book is existential, philosophical, contemplative, and maybe a little sci-fi so any readers who really want to think deeply about what life is will enjoy this one.  I am glad I read it and am ready to discuss it with someone.  A dose of humility while reading is always good- right?

Quote-

” ‘Nothing.  Nothing will change.  We’ll wake up in the morning, we’ll go to work because we still have to pay the rent, we’ll eat and drink and make love just like before.  We’ll carry on behaving as if we’re real.  We’re blind to anything that could prove that we’re fooling ourselves.  It’s only human.  We’re not rational.” ‘