pickI was surprised by how much Ullmann's portrayal of her father's last months affected me. In the patterns of his reasoning and speech I was reminded of my grandfather at the same period in his life. My grandfather was born the same year as Ullmann's father and died almost exactly two years after him but because my grandfather rarely spoke to me and Ullmann's father was a public figure, unfortunately I know more about the latter than the former.
'I will exercise caution in describing her. She will want to do that herself. Every once in a while she baffles me with a look so infinitely her, an *other* altogether, right in the midst of her childhood, relentless in its grip, and even though she will soon abandon it, or it will abandon her, it will follow her for the rest of her life.'
'She doesn't dare say that the garden is the reason she rented this house in the first place, doesn't dare say that it took her forever to find precisely this house and this garden, that everything was supposed to be perfect this time, doesn't dare say that while still in Oslo, she had sent for real estate brochures, twenty, maybe more, with photographs of houses and gardens and trees and rooms, ⬇
'It's fantastic, you know, that over the years I've built up such a collection... all these books... music... all these records on my shelves.'
'...her father is rarely angry with her. But he can get very angry, He has a bloody temper, the mother says, he can fly into a rage and shout, but the girl knows where the anger is and dodges it. She is skinny. Skinny like a filmstrip, the father says.'
#3books #thatwererecommendedtome
The lovely people at my favourite independent bookstore recommended these books. They sound good!
Unquiet: A Novel | 
