Scan barcode
A review by anusha_reads
Held by Anne Michaels
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
BOOK#5 HELD, ANNE MICHAELS, LONGLISTED FOR @BOOKERPRIZE2024
This is the first time I'm reading a book by Anne Micheals, and I feel that I need to read more of her works.
The opening lines of the book:
‘WE KNOW LIFE IS FINITE. WHY SHOULD WE BELIEVE DEATH LASTS FOREVER?’
These lines were enough for me to take the plunge!
The narrative is non-linear, with a non-conventional storyline—more of a kaleidoscopic vignette of events that move back and forth, not necessarily in a particular order. This structure made me reread a few parts, sometimes more than once. It is a book that requires patience and needs to be mulled over to fully appreciate.
Places and times change, and connectedness is not something you seek; the sheer beauty lies in its discontinuity. The book is lyrical and reads like a collage of thoughts.
The book is divided into twelve chapters. The story spans from 1903 – 2025, covering four generations, fragmented stories of four strong women.
I thoroughly enjoyed the part about Marie Curie, Nobel laureate and Hertha Ayrton, mathematician, physicist, inventor, and suffragette. Their feminist and scientific and philosophical discussions were enlightening and had a feel-good element to them.
The book is a bouquet of recollections, past events, suffering, dilemmas, arguments about matters that are ethical or otherwise, existential quandaries, life-death, faith, superstition, singularity and duality of nature and much more.
I was very impressed by how the author used mathematical/scientific terms aptly throughout the book, terms like Langrangian, Asymptotic, and more
‘HIS PANIC WAS A CONTINUOUS SURFACE, AN ENDLESSLY REFLECTING PLANE, A MÖBIUS STRIP OR A FLEXAGON, A KLEIN BOTTLE. . .’
‘…THE NON-REPEATING, NON-TERMINATING SEA CAME IN AND IN. . .’
Is memory a continuous function, or do we have a discontinued flow of data? Maybe that’s what the author was trying to portray, the way our brain assimilates information, present and past, and all comes back in bits and pieces.
‘THE ELUSIVENESS OF THE FORM IS THE FORM.’
Although a tough read, it is a brilliant, must-read book!
This is the first time I'm reading a book by Anne Micheals, and I feel that I need to read more of her works.
The opening lines of the book:
‘WE KNOW LIFE IS FINITE. WHY SHOULD WE BELIEVE DEATH LASTS FOREVER?’
These lines were enough for me to take the plunge!
The narrative is non-linear, with a non-conventional storyline—more of a kaleidoscopic vignette of events that move back and forth, not necessarily in a particular order. This structure made me reread a few parts, sometimes more than once. It is a book that requires patience and needs to be mulled over to fully appreciate.
Places and times change, and connectedness is not something you seek; the sheer beauty lies in its discontinuity. The book is lyrical and reads like a collage of thoughts.
The book is divided into twelve chapters. The story spans from 1903 – 2025, covering four generations, fragmented stories of four strong women.
I thoroughly enjoyed the part about Marie Curie, Nobel laureate and Hertha Ayrton, mathematician, physicist, inventor, and suffragette. Their feminist and scientific and philosophical discussions were enlightening and had a feel-good element to them.
The book is a bouquet of recollections, past events, suffering, dilemmas, arguments about matters that are ethical or otherwise, existential quandaries, life-death, faith, superstition, singularity and duality of nature and much more.
I was very impressed by how the author used mathematical/scientific terms aptly throughout the book, terms like Langrangian, Asymptotic, and more
‘HIS PANIC WAS A CONTINUOUS SURFACE, AN ENDLESSLY REFLECTING PLANE, A MÖBIUS STRIP OR A FLEXAGON, A KLEIN BOTTLE. . .’
‘…THE NON-REPEATING, NON-TERMINATING SEA CAME IN AND IN. . .’
Is memory a continuous function, or do we have a discontinued flow of data? Maybe that’s what the author was trying to portray, the way our brain assimilates information, present and past, and all comes back in bits and pieces.
‘THE ELUSIVENESS OF THE FORM IS THE FORM.’
Although a tough read, it is a brilliant, must-read book!