Man Walks into a Room

by Nicole Krauss

This is an amnesiac novel - the main character loses 24 years of his memory to a brain tumor. He's found wandering in the desert, not knowing his name, not knowing his wife or what he does.

I don't really know how I found this novel. I think Amazon.com recommended another one of this author's books, and I could only find this one in the Georgia Library System, and so, in a fit of frustration, I requested that it make a journey to me from UGA. And it was there, so I read it. And I'm glad.

It's a really good book. The end tends to drag a bit (there's only so long that a person could reflect on their loneliness without starting to frustrate people.) And the characters at the end were well drawn, but seemed more like archetypes in terms of the plot line... It's like the author couldn't help fleshing them out, but didn't really know what to do with them once she got there. But it was beautifully written. Made me want to give everyone I know and love a hug, try to fix them in my mind against the possibility of this sort of thing happening.

"'You know, sometimes I get the feeling that we're just a bunch of habits,' she said. 'The guestures we repeat over and over, they're just our need to be recognized.' Her eyes fixed on the TV, as if she were reading subtitles. 'I mean that without them we would be unidentifiable. We'd have to reinvent ourselves every minute.'....

She exhaled and dropped the cigarette into a glass, where it fizzled, and as she got up to brush her teeth she leaned in close and breathy as a nightclub and kissed his neck....The kiss stayed there with no place to go, no sensory reserve tha could absorb it and file it a way as a common act of intimacy, a thousand times received. He knew what Anna was asking: whether you could love someone without habits."

"'The misery of other people is only an abstraction,' Ray insisted, 'something that can be sympathized with only by drawing from one's own experiences. But as it stands, true empathy remains impossible. And so long as it is, people will continue to suffer the pressure of their seemingly singular existence.'

'And mistreat each other, won't they?'

Ray nodded. 'Horrendously."