Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The Secret Lives of People in Love


Simon Van Booy

An intricate small book filled with short unusual Love stories.
The stories snakes itself around wonderfully sculpted sentences. You can find a new meaning or a new direction in every single sentence or segment.
My favorite short story was "Snow Falls and then Disappears" a story of having a choice of leaving or having already been left.

Some highlights bellow:

"There is a small tear in the couch I never noticed until now; a piece of leather hangs off like a tongue. It is a small rip but has ruined the whole couch and thrown the apartment into disarray. The ashtray is empty and tempts me to smoke again. My lungs ar hollow and long for the return of weight."

"Would you like to wash her face?" The nurse asked.  He turned to his sleeping wife and imagined swishing a wet cloth through the tiny canyons and then across the plains of her cheeks. He felt awkward and his hands turned to wood"

"My grandmother may know that Isabella is not really part of the family, but only I know her real name and her history (which is bleak). No, I would never say anything because everyone in the family (including her) is in love with another."

"He thinks how strange life is with its frayed edges and second chances; and though by morning he will have forgotten that he ever though it, Gerard feels as though he is being followed, that there are voices he can´t hear, that the footsteps of snow on the windown are just that, and like Lucy´s conception - life is a string of guided and subtle explosions."

With that I wish you a day of wonderful small explosions.

With Love 
Kristin