A review by ceallaighsbooks
Tsim Tsum by Sabrina Orah Mark

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

“Or if I was fastly awake under the grandfodder tree when One Turrible Water falled from the wooly Skyys. Those is not the byrds I meant. And neever is the parsnips, although One of the parsnip has a littlest feather on the tops of its heads. That parsnip is maded out of Magiks I obey.” — from “The Oldest Animal Writes A Letter Home”

TITLE—Tsim Tsum
AUTHOR—Sabrina Orah Mark
PUBLISHED—2009

GENRE—poetry 
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—Jewish identity, fairy tales, marriage & relationships, looking in/down on humanity, despair & hopelessness, the search for spirituality

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
BONUS ELEMENT/S—LOVED the Oldest Animal poems
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“She held her stethoscope to some of the humans who had gathered, beside her, to watch. And she held it to the animals who knew not to watch. There was nothing Beatrice dreaded more than something not beating like it should. “Something here,” she explained to Walter B., waving her arms around her head, then around his, then around the world as she understood it, “is very, very wrong.” She wanted Walter B. to take from her the stethoscope away.” — from “The Stethoscope”

I connected with this collection a lot more than with her first book, THE BABIES. There was a lot of themes and images—especially the fairytale references!—that really resonated with me and the language was more navigable for me as well. A new favorite for sure!

“He carried her until one day she was gone. And the space in his chest where he had once carried her grew large. He marveled at its largeness. And he knew he would go on carrying this largeness that was once inside him a Beatrice, for a long, long time.” — from “The Name”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Further Reading—
  • The Babies, by Sabrina Orah Mark
  • Wild Milk, by Sabrina Orah Mark
  • Ask Baba Yaga, by Taisia Kitaiskaia
  • Troubled Times, by Taisia Kitaiskaia
  • Lewis Carroll