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A review by blueridgebookworm
Ways of Going Home by Alejandro Zambra
5.0
Bonner’s book club #5 - A wonderfully-crafted novella about a Chilean author sorting through the truth of his early life and his place as it relates to others in his childhood, and their political affiliations and the life repercussions associated with such affiliations. I really enjoyed that the protagonist was an author, so we got to see pieces of that labor and creative process interspersed.
“To read is to cover one’s face. And to write is to show it.”
“Learning to tell her story as if it didn’t hurt. That was, for Claudia, growing up: learning to tell her story precisely, bluntly. But it’s a trap to put it like that, as if the process ever ended.”
“Years ago I discovered I wanted a normal life. That I wanted, above all, to be calm. I already lived through emotions, all the emotions. I want a quiet, simple life. A life with walks in the park.”
“It was as if I wanted to punish myself absurdly while thinking how I loved this woman, how it was a complete love and not a worn-out way of loving. How she wasn’t a habit for me, not a vice that was hard to give up. And nevertheless, at that point I wasn’t, I’m not, willing to fight anymore.”
“To read is to cover one’s face. And to write is to show it.”
“Learning to tell her story as if it didn’t hurt. That was, for Claudia, growing up: learning to tell her story precisely, bluntly. But it’s a trap to put it like that, as if the process ever ended.”
“Years ago I discovered I wanted a normal life. That I wanted, above all, to be calm. I already lived through emotions, all the emotions. I want a quiet, simple life. A life with walks in the park.”
“It was as if I wanted to punish myself absurdly while thinking how I loved this woman, how it was a complete love and not a worn-out way of loving. How she wasn’t a habit for me, not a vice that was hard to give up. And nevertheless, at that point I wasn’t, I’m not, willing to fight anymore.”