The Vulnerables\u00a0by Sigrid Nunez<\/h2>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annabookbel.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/vulnerables-nunez.jpg?resize=250%2C400&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nI\u2019m so glad to have fitted this novel in at the end of the year as it elbowed its way into my best of list. Written in much the same vein as\u00a0The Friend<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0What Are You Going Through<\/a><\/em>, Nunez\u2019s narrator gives us another mixture of life and often flyaway musings on friendship, reading and writing. It\u2019s certainly a winning combination that keeps things light, and is told with a degree of clear-eyed self-deprecation and plenty of humour on the narrator\u2019s part.<\/p>\nThis is Nunez\u2019s lockdown novel, and charts how her unnamed narrator gets through it. She ends up parrot-sitting for a friend of a friend who\u2019s been stranded with Covid elsewhere and whose nephew who would usually oblige has made himself unavailable. Parrots are social creatures, so as she needs to spend several hours a day in the bird\u2019s company, she moves into the rather grand apartment. Said bird, named Eureka, is quite a character, and the narrator finds herself really enjoying their time together. <\/p>\n
The nephew returns though, and the two have to share the apartment and Eureka, the narrator finds herself almost jealous when it\u2019s his turn. She can\u2019t return home having lent her own apartment to an ICU doctor who needs to isolate herself from her family. The pair soon start to get along better, even developing a friendship over a shared joint, and the nephew\u2019s culinary skills. Finally, lockdown eases and everyone is able to return to their own homes \u2013 and thus the novel ends.<\/p>\n
I knew I would love this novel, but its very first page gave this gem of a quote, which got me thinking\u2026<\/p>\n
\nOnly when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described. They should teach you this in school, but they don\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nI would argue that both sides of this argument are right. Immersion in a novel in this way is wonderful, but remembering it is too, don\u2019t you think? Especially if you have someone to talk about books read with, like you, dear reader!<\/p>\n
This felt a quite personal novel in a way, for there were times when you could be forgiven for thinking the narrator, who is also a writer, is Nunez herself. Despite the title, we were all vulnerable during the pandemic, this was a much happier book than the previous two by Nunez that I read. Luckily no-one dies, and no tears were shed, instead I was charmed through the story. <\/p>\n
Source: Own copy<\/strong>. Virago hardback, Jan 2024, 242 pages. Now in paperback \u2013 BUY at Blackwell\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> via my affiliate link (free UK P&P)<\/p>\nThe Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller<\/h2>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annabookbel.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/C-of-M-Miller-H.jpg?resize=261%2C400&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nFrom a book that I loved, to one that I enjoyed so little, I only skimmed after the first 14 pages, making it a defactor DNF. It wasn\u2019t a hit with any of our book group either \u2013 only a couple of whom read it the whole way through. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ve never read any Henry Miller before, and frankly after this am unlikely to ever do so, ditto the book group. And this is cited as his best book by many including the author himself. Published in 1941, The Colossus of Maroussi<\/em>, is non-fiction, a travelogue set in 1939, in which Miller travels to Greece at his friend Lawrence Durrell\u2019s invitation, the outbreak of war would force him, as a dodgy American passport holder, to return to NYC. <\/p>\nAlthough he wasn\u2019t one of the Beats, The C of M<\/em> is written very much in a stream of consciousness style, with long, long paragraphs. It\u2019s also very repetitive, chronicling every drink drunk, every time the heat gets to him. After just fourteen pages I was bored stiff, that I just skimmed the odd paragraphs thereafter. The blurb on the back of the Penguin classics edition promised him nearly getting trampled by sheep \u2013 but I never found that bit. I couldn\u2019t be bothered with his encounter with the Greek poet Katsumbalis either, as the good bits are submerged in pages of waffle about food and drink and how he loves the Greek persona so much. I never got as far as discovering what the C of M was!<\/p>\nI had always wondered whether it would be worth reading Tropic of Cancer<\/em>, Miller\u2019s most infamous novel. This has cured me of any urge to so do!<\/p>\nSource: Own copy<\/strong>. Penguin classics paperback 201 pages. BUY at Blackwell\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> via my affiliate link.<\/p>\n\nLike this:<\/h3>\n
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nI\u2019m so glad to have fitted this novel in at the end of the year as it elbowed its way into my best of list. Written in much the same vein as\u00a0The Friend<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0What Are You Going Through<\/a><\/em>, Nunez\u2019s narrator gives us another mixture of life and often flyaway musings on friendship, reading and writing. It\u2019s certainly a winning combination that keeps things light, and is told with a degree of clear-eyed self-deprecation and plenty of humour on the narrator\u2019s part.<\/p>\n This is Nunez\u2019s lockdown novel, and charts how her unnamed narrator gets through it. She ends up parrot-sitting for a friend of a friend who\u2019s been stranded with Covid elsewhere and whose nephew who would usually oblige has made himself unavailable. Parrots are social creatures, so as she needs to spend several hours a day in the bird\u2019s company, she moves into the rather grand apartment. Said bird, named Eureka, is quite a character, and the narrator finds herself really enjoying their time together. <\/p>\n The nephew returns though, and the two have to share the apartment and Eureka, the narrator finds herself almost jealous when it\u2019s his turn. She can\u2019t return home having lent her own apartment to an ICU doctor who needs to isolate herself from her family. The pair soon start to get along better, even developing a friendship over a shared joint, and the nephew\u2019s culinary skills. Finally, lockdown eases and everyone is able to return to their own homes \u2013 and thus the novel ends.<\/p>\n I knew I would love this novel, but its very first page gave this gem of a quote, which got me thinking\u2026<\/p>\n Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described. They should teach you this in school, but they don\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I would argue that both sides of this argument are right. Immersion in a novel in this way is wonderful, but remembering it is too, don\u2019t you think? Especially if you have someone to talk about books read with, like you, dear reader!<\/p>\n This felt a quite personal novel in a way, for there were times when you could be forgiven for thinking the narrator, who is also a writer, is Nunez herself. Despite the title, we were all vulnerable during the pandemic, this was a much happier book than the previous two by Nunez that I read. Luckily no-one dies, and no tears were shed, instead I was charmed through the story. <\/p>\n Source: Own copy<\/strong>. Virago hardback, Jan 2024, 242 pages. Now in paperback \u2013 BUY at Blackwell\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> via my affiliate link (free UK P&P)<\/p>\n From a book that I loved, to one that I enjoyed so little, I only skimmed after the first 14 pages, making it a defactor DNF. It wasn\u2019t a hit with any of our book group either \u2013 only a couple of whom read it the whole way through. <\/p>\n I\u2019ve never read any Henry Miller before, and frankly after this am unlikely to ever do so, ditto the book group. And this is cited as his best book by many including the author himself. Published in 1941, The Colossus of Maroussi<\/em>, is non-fiction, a travelogue set in 1939, in which Miller travels to Greece at his friend Lawrence Durrell\u2019s invitation, the outbreak of war would force him, as a dodgy American passport holder, to return to NYC. <\/p>\n Although he wasn\u2019t one of the Beats, The C of M<\/em> is written very much in a stream of consciousness style, with long, long paragraphs. It\u2019s also very repetitive, chronicling every drink drunk, every time the heat gets to him. After just fourteen pages I was bored stiff, that I just skimmed the odd paragraphs thereafter. The blurb on the back of the Penguin classics edition promised him nearly getting trampled by sheep \u2013 but I never found that bit. I couldn\u2019t be bothered with his encounter with the Greek poet Katsumbalis either, as the good bits are submerged in pages of waffle about food and drink and how he loves the Greek persona so much. I never got as far as discovering what the C of M was!<\/p>\n I had always wondered whether it would be worth reading Tropic of Cancer<\/em>, Miller\u2019s most infamous novel. This has cured me of any urge to so do!<\/p>\n Source: Own copy<\/strong>. Penguin classics paperback 201 pages. BUY at Blackwell\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> via my affiliate link.<\/p>\n\n
The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller<\/h2>\n
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nLike this:<\/h3>\n