Are you okay?

Oh, Fugitive Pieces. It's been awhile since I've cried so much while reading a book. This led to two personal trainers at the gym and a stranger on a bus asking the titular question. The answer may be debatable.

That said, the book description should give anyone a fairly good sense of how upsetting it will be. Essentially, it is about the shattering effects of World War II and the Holocaust, and how they reverberate in the lives of three men from different generations. That set-up is certainly powerful in and of itself, but what really drives the novel is the language/prose and description of how the characters perceive the world and make sense of their experiences.

Here is a quote from the dustcover that sort of sums up what I mean "And in this layered process of re-entering life, Jakob learns the power of language - to destroy, to omit, and to obliterate; but also to witness and tell, conjure and restore." The novel explores this duality and is concerned with other seemingly contradictory dualities and how we make sense of them in the face of terrible trauma and tragedy.

Now, I realize like many of the books that I love, this makes it sound bleak and sad. And it certainly is, but it is also so. . . I'm not sure the right word. Beautiful was what first came to mind, but I do not want to imply on any level that I think there is anything beautiful about acts of atrocious, unspeakable violence. And yet, there is something awe inspiring, tender, and exquisite in the ability to survive, to endure, to not try to cover over these tragedies or forget, but to fully face and fully grapple with them and their impact on lives. I do find something beautiful in that, but obviously it's very complicated.

Here are some favorite quotes:

"To be proved true, violence need only occur once. But good is proved by repetition."

"I can't save a boy from a burning building. Instead he must save me from the attempt; he must jump to earth."

"Perhaps the electron is neither particle nor wave but something else instead, much less simple - a dissonance - like grief, whose pain is love."