David Leng Leng itibaren 2286 Jablovec, Slovenya itibaren 2286 Jablovec, Slovenya

I really enjoyed this book! It occupied most of my summer reading time as I was transported to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome. Cleopatra was a remarkable woman, and I enjoyed the authors notes at the end of the book, which demonstrated the intense and thorough research by Margaret George. This book generated great discussion in our book club, and I know that as I whittle down my "to read" list, I have great interest in reading other historical fictional biographies by Margaret George.

Oh, Ginsberg. My first and favorite poet.

SPOILER Does nobody else have a problem that HE IS MARRIED? Everyone loves this book but it is just meh for me

The beginning of this novel is amazing. By the end meanings whirl and fly apart and it becomes difficult to find cohesion in Darrieussecq's world. I love that she is interested in palpable absences, like staring into the gaping hole of a wound. In an interview she says: "The unsaid is that which advances literature, that which it explores as a virgin or submerged land. Ghosts are born of the unsaid. Children are particularly sensitive to them: they hear the specters shake their chains in the attic, they believe in monsters under the bed, they notice the stirring of creatures in the cupboards…What is hidden from them is always concerning death or sexuality: and these fundamental questions, passed in silence, oblige them to structure themselves using ghosts, to trust their imaginations to clarify the world... Fantastic literature is the fear of the dark which is rediscovered by adults. With regards to conjugal, familial, and social scales, what happens silently makes itself heard in one way or another: it is a map of psychoanalysis. To write is to give a voice to ghosts." http://www.uri.edu/artsci/ml/durand/d... If you are a student of literature or creative writing, this is a great example of a novel being given a layer of poetry and substance by drawing on critical theory (though of course that makes it a novel that is not for everyone).