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Yes, though I would not put the words aside completely. The visual form grabs you first, but the repetition of the same phrases is what starts to feel obsessive, almost like somebody pacing in the next room and trying to convince himself he is calm.
I agree, with one caution: if the formal tricks start feeling like a puzzle box, the family can recede. But when I first read it, the physical awkwardness made the mother and child feel closer to the edge of a real breakdown, not farther away.
Maybe that is just me liking books that misbehave.
And once the room feels off, the page does too. That is why I would tell someone to read it with a little space, not binge it like a thriller. It works better when you let the unease sit a while.
I think the family story gets stronger if you read it as grief first and horror second. The tricks then feel like a damaged record, skipping around the same pain instead of showing off. Have you tried reading it in smaller stretches, or does that make the unease worse?
I don’t agree that it is mostly a gimmick. The form does make it harder to care at times, sure, but that distance seems deliberate to me. It keeps the family from becoming a neat little haunted-house story, and I think that is part of the point.
I don’t think it’s the click itself, exactly. It’s the click plus the waiting, which is where the book earns its teeth. Just hearing the sound and expecting a failure can be worse than the failure.
A drip is exactly right. The mind starts filling in the rest of the house after that, and suddenly every board has an opinion about it. If the novel does anything well, it is making ordinary noises feel like evidence.
Yes, and the false certainty is what gets under your skin. The book keeps handing you…
I rather like your accountant image, though perhaps a kinder accountant. The comparison begins to fail if one imagines the tala as a prison; it is closer to a recurring frame that the player can lean into or dance around.
That is not quite the same as saying…
Yes, that is the useful point. In a good performance the breath and the boundary can coincide, and then the listener stops thinking about technique at all.
That is when the room gets quiet in a good way
That is exactly the sort of distinction I was trying to make in my own clumsy way. A map is useful because it shows routes and dead ends, not because it tells you how the journey feels.
Old books do this too, now that I think of it
That is a sensible note taking habit. I would add the drone too, because it can make the same phrases feel anchored or restless depending on how the performer leans against it.
A little thing, but it changes the room
That is a good practical way to hear it but I would add one small thing the time of day is not just a label either, it is part of the tradition in many cases and not only a feeling
If you want a practical angle, read it as a book about institutions that keep themselves warm. Every answer simply sends the heat elsewhere, which is…
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