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A review by chaoticbibliophile
A Line Made by Walking by Sara Baume
5.0
In spite of being a Literature and Linguistics student and thus completely capable of understanding the level of subjective appreciation that any artwork entails, I have always liked to be categorical in my verdicts. "This book is good, this one is bad, this one is so-so, and here are my reasons."
Yet with this book, I simply cannot abide to that.
This is a subtle and plain book about a woman who is lost and sinking and drifting and paralyzed, all the same time. It is about her search, her questioning, her giving up, her transitions, her restarts. It is a book that a lot of people will be bored by, a lot of people will be indifferent to, and a lot of people will take to heart. I belong, clearly, to this last group. This book is so carefully crafted it might be presented as a true memoir and nobody might notice. It is perhaps this same mundanity that will be unappealing to others.
I have given this book five stars because what Baume has set out to do she has done flawlessly; the reception and impact it may or may not have upon a reader is entirely up to them. Such appears to be the nature of the conceptual art heavily featured in this book, and maybe this is exactly what this book is.
(On a personal note, I might add that this book has become a companion, a voice with which I empathize and which heavily empathizes with me. As I read I felt many of my own questions and searches mirrored, answered, tried, and I couldn't have asked for more, really.
As a warning, I would caution those who wish to read plot and actions that it would not be entirely hyperbolic to say that, in this book, nothing really happens. Enjoy.)
Yet with this book, I simply cannot abide to that.
This is a subtle and plain book about a woman who is lost and sinking and drifting and paralyzed, all the same time. It is about her search, her questioning, her giving up, her transitions, her restarts. It is a book that a lot of people will be bored by, a lot of people will be indifferent to, and a lot of people will take to heart. I belong, clearly, to this last group. This book is so carefully crafted it might be presented as a true memoir and nobody might notice. It is perhaps this same mundanity that will be unappealing to others.
I have given this book five stars because what Baume has set out to do she has done flawlessly; the reception and impact it may or may not have upon a reader is entirely up to them. Such appears to be the nature of the conceptual art heavily featured in this book, and maybe this is exactly what this book is.
(On a personal note, I might add that this book has become a companion, a voice with which I empathize and which heavily empathizes with me. As I read I felt many of my own questions and searches mirrored, answered, tried, and I couldn't have asked for more, really.
As a warning, I would caution those who wish to read plot and actions that it would not be entirely hyperbolic to say that, in this book, nothing really happens. Enjoy.)