Sunday, August 3, 2025

Reading with Difficulty

It's so hard to stop reading a book sometimes, when the writing itself is brilliant ...

I read "Luster" recently, by Raven Leilani, and was mesmerized and intoxicated with her exquisite use of language and metaphors, notably mentioned by a reviewer as follows, "sentences like ice that crackle or melt into a languorous drip." (Jazmine Hughes, The New York Times Book Review).

But I was very uncomfortable with the content, storyline and behaviors that I personally couldn't relate to, such as the protagonist digging around in her lover's wife's (open marriage) bathroom cabinet, finding a fentanyl patch, and using it ... I don't know which level I ought to have stopped on!

As I get older, I shock even myself with my creeping narrow-mindedness!


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