What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt

This book is one of those that really takes you by surprise when you're least expecting it.  It tackles some incredibly huge topics like tragedy, separation, anxiety, guilt, and the gap between relationships when you're not sure if you really understand all that is going on in your life.  The distance that others have when viewing your life from afar, often seem to give them a better understanding of what is really going on, and of course hindsight is the best kind of distance there is, which is how this book is written.

It is roughly split into 3 parts.  For the first 120 odd pages we learn, through Leo's voice, about all our main characters and how they came to be such a tight group, the ways that they interact and love each other.  There is Leo and his wife Erica, Bill is an artist and Leo's best friend and his paintings and conceptualisational art often seem to be the thing that holds the characters and the story together, his way of looking at the world can relate to the people around him.

We also have Bill's first wife Lucille, their son Mark who is the same age as Leo and Erica's son Matthew, and then lastly, Violet, Bill's muse and eventually his second wife.  We follow about 15 years of these characters lives, their troubles and good times, the love and the hurt, and we begin to really know them like we are a part of their group.  Erica and Violet are writers and very intelligent which often leads the dialogue and the theorising into abstract proses on life.  Leo is an art history professor and a writer as well so he is very much in tune with analysing what he sees.

It is an easy enjoyable first section of the book but I kept reading the words 'urban thiller' on the inside cover and wondering where it is all going to end up and when.

Part two begins with a tragedy so sad that it rocks our characters, especially Leo and Erica, into a way of living that they never quite recover from.  We delve very deeply into what it really means to grieve and we witness the unspeakable kindness and goodness in people as Bill and Violet look after their friends.  This section is especially beautifully written and you have to wonder whether the author hasn't experienced some personal tragedy of her own to portray the grief involved so vividly and realistically.

This middle section is bookended by two tragedies and the second death rolls us into part three and into an absolute page turner of a story.  We go even deeper into the depths of grief, of friendship, and then eventually into trust and love.  Some really odd characters enter their lives and affect them in ways that there will never be any going back.  Leo struggles with his own inability to realise what was right there in front of his eyes at the time, and his unquavering trust and love for someone he knew was unworthy.

The author really explores imagery here that I haven't quite read anywhere else before.  Her intellectual approach to writing about human experiences and emotions is very welcome and brilliantly done and has left me with a lasting impression of a thoroughly clever and enjoyed novel and an author I will look out for.

The book begins very modestly but the intensity of the story just keeps building up until you get to the last few pages where we return to Leo and his recounting the story of their lives.  It is a book I highly recommend.