The wilderness was massive. It was a place, Wade came to understand, where lost was a rule of thumb. The water here was the water there. Nothing in particular, all in general. Forests folded into forests, sky swallowed sky. The solitude bent back on itself. Everywhere was nowhere. It was perfect unity, perfect oneness, the flat mirroring waters giving off exact copies of other copies, everything in multiples, everything hypnotic and blue and meaningless, always the same. Here, Wade decided, was where the vanished things go.—Tim O'Brien, In the Lake of the Woods (1994)
Friday, May 25, 2012
Everywhere was nowhere.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is a beautiful passage, Matt. It reminded me a bit of "Train Dreams," which you had posted from a few months ago and which I just read last week. The book was not what I had expected, which makes me think I need to re-read it and approach it at a more tempered pace.
ReplyDeleteWould love to know your summer reading plans, by the way, if you have any books lined up.
Hi Kyle,
ReplyDeleteInteresting connection! Incidentally, I wouldn't recommend the above book, despite a few good chapters. I really enjoyed "Train Dreams" though -- mostly for the prose but also for the story. Its brevity makes rereading doable. What didn't you like about it? (Or did you like it?)
I started "Bleak House" yesterday. One of my goals at the start of this year was to read a big Dickens novel to celebrate his bicentennial. Given my reading pace, this could be the only book I read during the next two months...