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A review by bookswithchaipai
The Nine-Chambered Heart by Janice Pariat
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
4.0
“I am oriented only by your presence, or your absence. You are my north.”
“This year I turned 30, so i chose to travel… on my own… because I wanted to learn how it is alright to journey alone…”
This was the perfect book for the month of love. What could be better than nine people professing their love for the same woman, and recounting the first time they set their eyes on her? Truly brilliant!
We get to see vignettes of a woman’s life through the eyes of her paramours. We never get to meet the woman in person, or find out her thoughts, she is not given a voice. But we are allowed to watch her shadow, as she threads in and out of nine people’s lives, leaving a deep impression on them, so as to influence them to tell her story as they perceive her.
She is an enigma which makes her presence surreal, flitting from one place to another, catching someone’s fancy and then disappearing. For them she is perfect, flawless, untouched, and they know she can never be theirs forever.
I am mesmerised by the words, each chapter is narrated by one of the paramours, and they are creatively named “The Saint”, “The Butcher”, “The Caretaker’, and the narration reads like a love letter written to a woman referred to as “You”. The absence of names for people and places adds to the dream-like effect of the book, allowing us to concentrate on the deep beauty of the words.
I have placed an order for Pariat’s book, Everything the Light Touches, and I can’t wait to get lost in her words again.
“This year I turned 30, so i chose to travel… on my own… because I wanted to learn how it is alright to journey alone…”
This was the perfect book for the month of love. What could be better than nine people professing their love for the same woman, and recounting the first time they set their eyes on her? Truly brilliant!
We get to see vignettes of a woman’s life through the eyes of her paramours. We never get to meet the woman in person, or find out her thoughts, she is not given a voice. But we are allowed to watch her shadow, as she threads in and out of nine people’s lives, leaving a deep impression on them, so as to influence them to tell her story as they perceive her.
She is an enigma which makes her presence surreal, flitting from one place to another, catching someone’s fancy and then disappearing. For them she is perfect, flawless, untouched, and they know she can never be theirs forever.
I am mesmerised by the words, each chapter is narrated by one of the paramours, and they are creatively named “The Saint”, “The Butcher”, “The Caretaker’, and the narration reads like a love letter written to a woman referred to as “You”. The absence of names for people and places adds to the dream-like effect of the book, allowing us to concentrate on the deep beauty of the words.
I have placed an order for Pariat’s book, Everything the Light Touches, and I can’t wait to get lost in her words again.