“Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Sally Rooney

This book wrecked me. And not in the cathartic way that Where the Red Fern Grows or Year of Wonders could move me to vicarious tears of grief. No, Sally Rooney put me in a place where I had to stop and think and focus in order to remember the love and happiness and joy in my life. 

Not that I didn't enjoy the reading experience as I was being destroyed. Rooney is three for three in Books I Could Not Put Down, and FSG should be happy to hear that I will probably buy anything she writes from here on out (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). 

This is, unsurprisingly, another relationship story--not just a love story, because it encompasses friendship and, tangentially, family. Alice (a famous but somewhat reclusive writer) and Eileen have been best friends for years; the bulk of the book consists of their email correspondence, but their connections to Felix and Simon are often in the forefront. I feel like a main theme of the story is tension--the type that exists when you try to pull someone closer (especially when they resist) or push someone away (especially when you don't intend to). 

Once again (just like Rachel Cusk does), Rooney has created characters who have these deeply intelligent conversations (though in Beautiful World, most of them are actually conducted by email rather than face to face) and I’m stuck telling people that after I got home from work this weekend I realized that the butt seam of my scrubs was ripped wide open so no wonder I'd been freezing all day. And I just have to make myself feel better by telling myself that sometimes I have deeply intelligent conversations, though definitely not constantly; and surely no one at work actually saw my butt. 

"The Ebony Tower" by John Fowles

Here's a book that was heralded by the New York Times as "THE MOST ENJOYABLE FICTION OF THE SEASON!" in 1974. Sam read it first and he thought I would like it (at least the naughty bits) and I did. Not sure I would have rated it as The Most Enjoyable, but I guess I don't know what it was up against at the time. 

The Ebony Tower is a collection of five long short stories, or maybe even mini-novellas (at least one of them, for sure):

• The eponymous story, "The Ebony Tower," was the long one. It faintly reminded me of The Magus. The dialogue was frustratingly truncated, to the point where half the time I didn't know who was being discussed because the subjects were left out of the sentences, but I got the gist. It's a story about a young artist and critic who goes to the French countryside to interview a reclusive old painter who lives with two nubile protégés. 
• "Eliduc" is a retelling of an old French poem by Marie de France, with shades of Tristan and Isolde. 
• "Poor Koko," I think, may be the author's own nightmare. A writer staying alone in a friend's isolated country house is surprised by a burglar who ends up burning years of his work. (Oops, I think that was a spoiler. Sorry!) 
• In "The Enigma," the disappearance of an MP is the focus of the story until the lead investigator falls in love with the MP's son's girlfriend. (OMG did I just give another spoiler? Well heck. But hey, this book is nearly fifty years old and I think there should be a statute of limitations.) 
• "The Cloud." A group of Brits enjoys a lazy summer day in--oh, again?--yes, the French countryside. I think this story may be the one that sticks with me the longest (at least the bit where Peter and Kate get naughty, anyway). But WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END? Maybe this one should have been called "The Enigma." 

I have deviated from my typical book cover photo with this post, partly because the copy I read was almost as old as I am and looking rather tattered. And partly because as I read I noticed that my nailpolish color maybe should have been called Old Paperback Book Page and I was inspired to take a picture for posterity.