Tonight we're gonna party till they shut the club down

I really admire The Bridge on the Drina. So many novels are remarkably similar, which you realize when you read a lot of them. I'm a bit tired of biographical novels, and thus this one was such a breath of fresh air for me. I loved the way it is constructed; having a novel about a bridge rather than a person gives such an interesting perspective and sort of highlights the complex relationship between people and the worlds we create for ourselves.

That said, I was predisposed to like this one going into it, since I have a strange sort of thing for Bosnia. I know this sounds terrible, but let me try to explain. I've been asked multiple times if I am Bosnian, specifically a Bosnian refugee. This has led to me feeling like I should have this connection to Bosnia. Okay, explaining it doesn't really make this sound any better.

Actually, that sort of thing happens to me not infrequently. The most memorable instance was the argument I had with a Parisian in Vienna about how he was certain that I had to be French or perhaps Polish, and that there was no way that I could be American. It was a surprisingly long argument. Different people have provided me with different interpretations about his motivations for this discussion. I maintain that his motivation was that he needed to have his eyesight and hearing checked.

Anyway, a favorite passage from The Bridge on the Drina:

 Men who knew the world and its history often thought that it was a pity that fate had given this woman so narrow and undistinguished a part to play. Had her fate not been what or where it was, who know what this wise and humane woman, who did not think only of herself and who, predatory yet unselfish, beautiful and seductive yet chaste and cold, ran a small town hotel, and emptied the pockets of petty Casanovas, could have been or could have given to the world.