Welcome to Litsy!

I loved this book but it made me melancholy. Morris describes it as an allegory & it is, but it is also a meditation on the nature of place & of cities in particular - their geography, their history - how they endure & how they don't. The second part, published in 2005, is a wistful, recognizable , portrayal of our post-modern, hyper-capitalist, post-9/11 world. Hav was always imaginary, but it becomes pure simulacra after 'The Intervention.'

“or like the dark calculating looks that cats sometimes give you...“

About halfway through Hav - written by the great Jan Morris. Her only work of fiction, it‘s not so much a novel as a travelogue of a fully realized imaginary place. I love the world building- in other hands it would be tedious but here it is masterfully done.

I'm loving Morris' fake travelogue "Hav": it must have been so much fun to write. It feels like it was written especially for people like me: nerdy about Mediterranean history *and* non-existent literary countries (Ruritania, Orsinia, Invisible Cities).

1. part was originally published in 1985 and 2. part in 2006. I was dragging my feet through the first part, because I just didn't get the point of a fictional travel account, that seems so normal and without a plot line. The second part, I basically gobbled up, because now there was a story!

Reading a fictional travel account while drinking coffee from a nonfictional travel souvenir.

Geez... I have a hard time with this book... I almost think I am not smart enough to get it, even though I consider myself as pretty smart... 😱

I was completely unaware of the adjective "quixotic" and have now stumbled over it in two books in a three week period... Have to practice it in a sentence, so that I can use it in conversation! ?

If there is one thing I have learnt from Hav, it is the uselessness of revenge. To be alive is punishment enough for the old ogre.

Karma has no appreciation for Hav, she had a rough day and needs her beauty sleep... I am 10% in and interested how the story will progress!

"We are intellectuals you see... There is no subject that we cannot discuss, and all subjects make us angry." ??

Goodness gracious! I have a pretty decent vocabulary. Better than most of the people I know as a matter of fact. This book is amazing! It sent me to the dictionary 11 times in 5 1/2 pages! Such a happy lil logophile!

Reading this to satisfy several* of my Read Harder challenges. Is anyone else doing Read Harder?
*8. Read a book originally published in the decade you were born, 12. Read a book by or about a person that identifies as transgender, and maybe 13. Read a book that is set in the Middle East

Just heard Alexander Chee recommend this on the So Many Damned Books podcast: a sci-fi novel that reads like a travel memoir – two novels, actually, now combined into one volume – by the preeminent, transgendered travel writer, Jan Morris. Introduced by LeGuin but she is NOT the author.