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book_concierge's review against another edition
4.0
Subtitle: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World
This is Doerr’s memoir of a year he spent as a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The award came with a studio in which to write, an apartment, and a stipend. And, of course, the experience of a year in Rome. It also came at a time when his wife had recently given birth to twins. Undeterred, Anthony and Shauna set off for Rome with four-month-old twin boys, who were not yet sleeping through the night.
I was completely delighted by this memoir. I have no children, but have witnessed the absolute exhaustion brought on in new parents by days (weeks? Months?) without adequate sleep as they try to care for a newborn. Caring for two simultaneously? And yet …
Doerr and his wife managed to find some time for themselves (thanks to a great babysitter), to explore some of Rome’s less-well-known treasures and even to venture in the Umbrian countryside for some “alone time.” He recounts his efforts to write, his explorations of the city and surrounding area, his neighbors, his struggles to learn and speak serviceable Italian (asking for “grapefruit sauce” was a highlight!), and the experience of all new parents as these small bundles slowly become independently mobile and show signs of the individuals they will become.
This is Doerr’s memoir of a year he spent as a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The award came with a studio in which to write, an apartment, and a stipend. And, of course, the experience of a year in Rome. It also came at a time when his wife had recently given birth to twins. Undeterred, Anthony and Shauna set off for Rome with four-month-old twin boys, who were not yet sleeping through the night.
I was completely delighted by this memoir. I have no children, but have witnessed the absolute exhaustion brought on in new parents by days (weeks? Months?) without adequate sleep as they try to care for a newborn. Caring for two simultaneously? And yet …
Doerr and his wife managed to find some time for themselves (thanks to a great babysitter), to explore some of Rome’s less-well-known treasures and even to venture in the Umbrian countryside for some “alone time.” He recounts his efforts to write, his explorations of the city and surrounding area, his neighbors, his struggles to learn and speak serviceable Italian (asking for “grapefruit sauce” was a highlight!), and the experience of all new parents as these small bundles slowly become independently mobile and show signs of the individuals they will become.
avamarina's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
3.75
kathleenguthriewoods's review against another edition
4.0
Take your time with this. Allow Doerr's gorgeous descriptions to sink into you.
wanderingmole's review against another edition
4.0
“In a sense, this year, our predicament has been the same as Rome's: to reconcile the new life with the old life, to tunnel an exit back into the future.”
“"Habitualization," a Russian army-commissar-turned-literary-critic named Viktor Shklovsky wrote in 1917, "devours works, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war." What he argued is that, over time, we stop perceiving familiar things words, friends, apartments- as they truly are. To eat a banana for the thousandth time is nothing like eating a banana for the first time. To have sex with somebody for the thousandth time is nothing like having sex with that person for the first time. The easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes. This is true of chocolate and marriages and hometowns and narrative structures. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we're not careful, pretty soon we're gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack. In the Tom Andrews Studio I open my journal and stare out at the trunk of the umbrella pine and do my best to fight off the atrophy that comes from seeing things too frequently. I try to shape a few sentences around this tiny corner of Rome; I try to force my eye to slow down. A good journal entry, like a good song, or sketch, or photograph, ought to break up the habitual and lift away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart. A good journal entry ought be a love letter to the world.
Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience-buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello become new all over again.”
“"Habitualization," a Russian army-commissar-turned-literary-critic named Viktor Shklovsky wrote in 1917, "devours works, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war." What he argued is that, over time, we stop perceiving familiar things words, friends, apartments- as they truly are. To eat a banana for the thousandth time is nothing like eating a banana for the first time. To have sex with somebody for the thousandth time is nothing like having sex with that person for the first time. The easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes. This is true of chocolate and marriages and hometowns and narrative structures. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we're not careful, pretty soon we're gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack. In the Tom Andrews Studio I open my journal and stare out at the trunk of the umbrella pine and do my best to fight off the atrophy that comes from seeing things too frequently. I try to shape a few sentences around this tiny corner of Rome; I try to force my eye to slow down. A good journal entry, like a good song, or sketch, or photograph, ought to break up the habitual and lift away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart. A good journal entry ought be a love letter to the world.
Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience-buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello become new all over again.”
francosteen's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.0