Herta Müller at Last
Another book arrived from the library, this one by this year's Nobel Prize awardee. And this is the rather Kafkaesque beginning of it.
Snow makes you giddy, chalk makes you sleepy--add that to the diminishing litany that starts the passage and you have some very intriguing writing. I hope the remainder of the book lives up to the promise of this passage. So far as I have read, it does. I'm going to ask a friend about some of the Romanian details.
from The Appointment
Herta Müller
I've been summoned. Thursday at ten sharp.
Lately I'm being summoned more and more often: ten sharp on Tuesday, ten sharp on Saturday, on Wednesday, Monday. As if years were a week, I'm amazed that winter comes so close on the heels of summer.
On my way to the tram stop, I again pass the shrubs with the white berries dangling through the fences, like buttons made of mother-of-pearl and sewn from underneath, or stitched right down into the earth, or else like bread pellets. They remind me of a flock of little white-tufted birds turning away their beaks, but they're really far too small for birds. It's enough to make you giddy. I'd rather think of snow sprinkled on the grass, but that leaves you feeling lost, and the thought of chalk makes you sleepy.
Snow makes you giddy, chalk makes you sleepy--add that to the diminishing litany that starts the passage and you have some very intriguing writing. I hope the remainder of the book lives up to the promise of this passage. So far as I have read, it does. I'm going to ask a friend about some of the Romanian details.
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