The ending of Septology was, to further dip into book-review cliche, quietly devastating; in related news, Cleveland just got through one of the cloudiest Januaries of the last 70 years, which is only to say that my emotional pump was certainly primed for a slow, rhythmic, ruminative meditation on art and life and, of course, death, on a lot of things that may or may not have explicitly been on the pages in front of me but which I was certainly ready to read into them at a moment’s notice, as I’ve been thinking about art and life and, of course, death, and of the holes or lack of holes left behind by those who leave us behind, of what holes or lack of holes I’ve ever left behind in the wake of my own life, of hope and faith or lack of hope and faith in something better to come, of what it’s all for, in the end. Primed. Pumped.
To say that January might be the worst time to intellectually engage with this book but absolutely the most perfect time to emotionally engage with this book might imply some kind of inverse relationship to how one would experience the book in, say, July, but I literally can not imagine having read this book any other way or any other time than I just did. Like, quite possibly, here, the worst summer book ever.
Great stuff. Five stars. Bummed me absolutely the hell out so hard.
Now I’m going to cheer myself up by reading Wanderers by Chuck Wendig. See you in March!