Tuesday, August 12, 2008

An Excellent Read

While camping, I finished reading Julius Winsome by Gerard Donovan. Never mind the fact that the book is now forever ruined by a torrential downpour that flooded our tent. Never mind that it was an autographed copy, which I was brilliant enough to take camping in the wild, wild woods. This is my new favorite book of the moment.

Julius lives with his dog in a cabin in the woods. His dog is intentionally killed by a hunter and Julius goes a little mad.

The language is the best part of this book, in my not so humble opinion. Julius is a man in love with books and his love shows up in the way he talks.

A little example:
"Hearing that, I realized that the medals and the rifle were not the only things my grandfather brought back from the war. The men he killed dragged themselves across seas and rivers, roads and hills, an inch a day, unerring as to the compass that pointed to my grandfather, and when they found him, they must have smelled his dreams, tasted them too, ate them until they were the only dream that was left in his head, the only one his sleep could produce, and so he soon stopped sleeping and spent the nights with his eyes open in the dark."

This one made me want to cry and cheer and beg for more at the end. Just a beautifully written book.

Which of us haven't wanted to take matters into our own hands when confronted with some injustice, no matter how seemingly trivial?

1 comment:

Janet said...

Having had two dogs deliberately killed, I can understand the point of view. You chose a wonderful passage to highlight. I'll have to read this. As soon as I finish Sarum. Which is 1000 pages, so sometime in the next decade.