The language in this novel is unbelievable. It dances at times, tiptoeing circles and squares and hauntingly precise, sad comparisons, then it spars, using individual words as boxing gloves, paragraphs as raw fists.
I’ve decided to read slowly, though I am behind, due to some prior obligations. I’ve decided to reread every word that offers a candid look at such terrible reality. Usually I tap tiny dots at the edge of a line to indicate something to read again, to write down, or to further look into. Impossible if line after line offers so much to reflect upon.
On page 15, for instance, the two first paragraphs give comparisons between women and men. They also tell us what men and women do during the day. They show us what men think of their women, which is not too kind, “…their lips moved faster than their hands. Faster, their husbands said, than their minds.” But it also gives us insight in what binds them together and how curiosity makes the men more patient toward the women.
At the bottom of page 17 we see the dance of covert ethnic separation and the contest in open turf war. Patrick Dalton vs. Vaclav Skala. (I keep thinking of the poet and past Czech President Vaclav Havel when I read that name) And though these two men are separate entities, pitted against each other by ethnicity (and by horses) they share worries over economy, weather, and the plague of insects.
What amazes me most is the way Mr. Machart’s use of language softens the blow of evil actions without taking away the actual sting. There seems to be so much harmony in describing human deconstruction. We are asked to identify the person’s identity but we are shielded from the horrible truth if we chose to do so. Like after a car accident, we are free to lift the blanket, touch the broken bones and cry over a beloved bloodied face, or we can turn our heads and look in the other direction.
I tend to look for beauty in anything and I especially don’t like reading about child or animal abuse, about the way nature and (non)nurture bend the lives of so many individuals into unkind pawns of adverse conditions, instead of letting them bloom into colorful specimens. But I do appreciate the beauty of words strung together into poetic images while they perform their duty as tools of communication. I do see the beauty of thistles as well as that of poppies in the field.
So far I have several favorite passages already and just want to copy one here. It seems to encompass the theme of the book and the content in general. And that so early on in the game, at the bottom of page 16, teasing us with easily overlooked truths. In one long sentence that dances, compares, brings together, separates, philosophizes, looks back and into the future. This is about Patrick Dalton and Vaclav Skala:
“They’d been there, after all, and in their memories they’d borne witness to the race the same way their wives had borne their children – with the assurance that they’d each played a vital and thankworthy role, and with the misguided confidence that, for having done so, they would remain forever attuned to both the memory of the bearing and the born alike.”
