The last few weeks of this year have turned out to be rather busy and hectic. Happily, it's largely been in fun and interesting ways! Which is a bit of a departure from the more usual end of year craziness at work coupled with my dwindling ability to deal with the lack of daylight and generally being low on energy.
I should definitely plan more breaks in October/November going forward, and do it early enough so that it doesn't end up feeling like so much of a chore that we end up not doing anything at all :|. Speaking of which, the end of November ended up rather packed with travel!
First, there was a short trip to Zurich for work. Being later in the year compared to last time meant that it was proper winter rather than late autumn. One big difference? Christmas markets! There seemed to be loads of them, one could barely walk five minutes in any direction before finding one :).
The schedule made things rather packed, yet with enough time to appreciate the city a little. I left feeling like I was a bit less run down compared to the trip last year. It also helped to have a later flight back, gave me a certain space to decompress. Which came in handy, because the very next day we were off to Amsterdam!
I've travelled through Amsterdam many times in the past, not least because of family living in the south of the Netherlands, but had never actualy stayed there before. This was a weekend trip to catch up with some friends and explore the city :).
It ended up being a largely relaxed meander around parts of the city center, with occasional rest stops at a variety of fun eateries :). We tried, amonst other things, freshly made stroopwaffels from a street market, the "best ribs in Amsterdam", a very yummy Dutch-Indonesian place and Thanksgiving dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe :D.
We also enjoyed a lovely evening canal boat trip which doubled up as a tour of the annual light festival. The various installations were fun, mesmerizing, intriguing and confusing, sometimes many of those things at the same time! The audio commentary track was often interesting in its own right, but only occassionally illuminating the actual subjects :).
So all of that was even before we got into December! Which was also a rather weird month when it comes to the weather. Not only did no snow arrive, it was too warm for any snow to have stayed had it arrived! For the first time in my time living in Norway the ground wasn't rock hard a week before Christmas! On the upside, that meant we could continue to go running without worrying about the conditions underfoot :).
Soon enough though, it was time to wrap things up for the year. The work Christmas party served as something of a closing off point for most. Since then, we've been in the UK, with some very sunny but bitterly windy weather to accompany us during the festive period! Maybe there's even been a bit of snow back in Asker!
In between the fun family time, awesome food and the walks to recover from said food, I've also had some time to get through the few hundred remaining pages of The Covenant of Water.
I'd say that my feelings about the book are not very straight forward to articulate. Or at least that I'm not finding it easy to articulate them. On the one hand, the writing is beautifully evocative of both characters and the environment. There is such careful focus on the characters' feelings, without resorting to the coarse artifice of each character expounding in detail about their feelings.
Yet, that same feature of the writing means I've found it very difficult to feel detached from the lives unfolding on the pages. This I suppose is what authors want, so as far as that goes, excellent. The difficulty I've had with Covenant I think, is that the story seems to progress through the gradual build up towards a series of catastrophes. And these genuinely are catastrophes for various protagonists in various ways. I've found it necessary to stop and absorb these impacts, so to speak. Being unable to quickly move on.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Having generally given it some days, in one case over a week, I've had the opportunity to then appreciate how the story does eventually move on, with compassion. Characters find peace, redemption, closure, often merely finding their various ways towards acceptance.
For me, what stopped a frequently distressing story from becoming depressing was the compassion with which the distress was accepted, or otherwise dealt with. And I found Big Ammachi to be the anchor for that through much of the story.
There can hardly be space for two such deeply explored characters in the same story, so I can understand why Digby is very much in the background for most of the time. And to be fair, I'm not sure I wanted to see much more of him. In a large caste of flawed characters who often seem to transcend their flaws one way or another, Digby seemed a bit of an outlier, although quite how I can't say.
A reader cannot help but bring their own context, biases and prejudices into the reading of a story of course. Of all the thoughts and feelings evoked by reading the work of another, how does one know which parts are one's own and which are not? Maybe in the end it doesn't matter.
One last thing about the book - the passage of time, like that of water, happens regardless of whether one wants it to or not. And at a rate that is not always anticipated. Yet, the only point where the narrative flow is broken is of course quite inescapable, and rather natural. Thinking back on my musings about the narrative style in my previous post, I'd say there is little need for scepticism. The omniscent voice is benevolent, never deceiving, yet sometimes concealing. Not always for the worse.
I think, rather than diving into the specifics of the highs and lows of the last orbit around the sun, I'll leave it with a thought borrowed from one of the artworks of light in Amsterdam. Everything we see is a version if it from the past. Sometimes recent, sometimes less so. It is similar with stories. But our pasts inform our futures, in simple and not so simple ways.
Here's to facing the future with hope, compassion and acceptance. Happy new year!
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