Four books that month. Not a bad run for winter reading.
"Paradise was lost for good, the revolution wasn't happening; all that remained was making noise." These kids—Anthony, Hacine—they're fourteen, seventeen, sons of factory workers, growing up somewhere in the East of France where the rust never stops spreading. Mathieu captures that ache of dead-end towns.
Part two of the Buru Quartet. "Every backward people is subjugated by every nation more advanced than it." Back to colonial Java, where Toer unfolds this massive historical canvas. The first volume hooked me; this one digs deeper into what imperialism does to a place and its people.
"Sure, dreamers won't save us, not them or their followers, but without dreams and dreamers the curse weighing on us would be seven times worse." Oz just left us. Never too late to discover or revisit his work though. This one hits different now.
"It's the intensity with which readers care about us—intensity that grows or fades over time—that gives us existence and keeps us alive." I'm becoming a full-blown Pierre Bayard fan. Waiting for his next literary investigation like it's a new season drop.