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A review by leifq
Mortals by Norman Rush
4.0
4 1/2 stars - just shy of perfect
"Mortals" does expertly well what I love most in novels - it hangs a plot on the lives of a few people to better tell their intimacies and interactions, to better show their humanity and reveal our own to us. For all of the fighting, the bombs, the guns, the escapes, the spying (well, sort of), the fires, the danger, I was most tense and riveted during the early bathing scene between Iris and Ray. Their 50+ page (or near - I'm recalling off the top of my head) discussion, skirting around their relationship problems, Iris's need for newness, Ray's need for sameness, their mutual desire to get what they want while hurting the other as little as possible, their moves and words polished by years of loving one another was absolutely thrilling to me. This is a book about the ways that we love people and the sacrifices that we sometimes make thinking that we are done with them while later realizing that many of those sacrifices are instead rights of passage and cannot be skipped - doomed to be undertaken at the right time or the very wrong time. I found this book to be wildly daring and extremely satisfying. The ending in particular (the final 40 or so pages) which gives us Iris's point-of-view and her very human and rational reasoning, her final send-off to him (as well written of this type of scene that I can remember having read), and the conclusion to the one story and beginning of the next for each was true, real, refreshing, and remarkably gratifying. I loved Ray's arc and I loved Iris.
The ancillary characters were good (Kerekang in particular was compelling) but paled (as surely they had to) by comparison. Morel was a wonderful construct - perfectly built to be exactly what was needed for each character whom he fueled.
I loved this book
"Mortals" does expertly well what I love most in novels - it hangs a plot on the lives of a few people to better tell their intimacies and interactions, to better show their humanity and reveal our own to us. For all of the fighting, the bombs, the guns, the escapes, the spying (well, sort of), the fires, the danger, I was most tense and riveted during the early bathing scene between Iris and Ray. Their 50+ page (or near - I'm recalling off the top of my head) discussion, skirting around their relationship problems, Iris's need for newness, Ray's need for sameness, their mutual desire to get what they want while hurting the other as little as possible, their moves and words polished by years of loving one another was absolutely thrilling to me. This is a book about the ways that we love people and the sacrifices that we sometimes make thinking that we are done with them while later realizing that many of those sacrifices are instead rights of passage and cannot be skipped - doomed to be undertaken at the right time or the very wrong time. I found this book to be wildly daring and extremely satisfying. The ending in particular (the final 40 or so pages) which gives us Iris's point-of-view and her very human and rational reasoning, her final send-off to him (as well written of this type of scene that I can remember having read), and the conclusion to the one story and beginning of the next for each was true, real, refreshing, and remarkably gratifying. I loved Ray's arc and I loved Iris.
The ancillary characters were good (Kerekang in particular was compelling) but paled (as surely they had to) by comparison. Morel was a wonderful construct - perfectly built to be exactly what was needed for each character whom he fueled.
I loved this book