2024/011: Burntcoat — Sarah Hall

2024/011: Burntcoat — Sarah Hall

Is it possible to work with a material so long and still not understand its condition? We are figures briefly draw in space; given temporary form in exchange for consciousness, sense, a chance. We are ready-mades, disposables. How do we live every last moment as this -- savant dust? [p. 166]

My desire to read this short novel was sparked by my discovery that it was, in part, about the narrator Edith's relationship with her mother, who suffered a brain haemorrhage when Edith was eight years old, and effectively became a different person whom Edith knew as Naomi. (I was ten when I experienced something very similar, though I did not bestow a new name on my mother.) ( Read more... )