books - part one

I finished the longest book that I have ever read. My edition of Rebecca West’s epic Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, the definitive ex-Yugoslavia travelogue, is 1,150 pages long. She’s such a dense writer it feels like twice that length.

This isn’t to say it’s bad. It’s amazing – just hard to take in long stretches. I have been reading it on and off – mostly off – since September. I’ve grown used to it, to being able to pick it up and learn the history of the region mixed with her thoughts about dancing or nearly word-for-word repetitions of the conversations she had or why the Serbs are the best people in the area.

I need to give the book back to K next week. I will be sad to see it go.