"Impasse Verlaine" [The Verlaine Impasse] by Dalie Farah
"Impasse Verlaine" by Dalie Farah is a rare and deeply moving book, one that stands out immediately for its honesty, emotional power, and the precision of its language. The narrative takes the form of a Bildungsroman, following the narrator from birth to the age of eighteen, the decisive moment when she leaves the family home. Interwoven with this trajectory is that of her mother, Vendredi, which gives the novel one of its most striking singularities: it also becomes, unexpectedly, a coming-o...
In Lessons, Ian McEwan offers a quiet, expansive meditation on a life shaped by time, memory, and early experience. The novel traces the trajectory of Roland Baines from childhood to old age, following him through decades marked less by dramatic turns than by the slow accumulation of consequences. At the heart of this life story lie the formative moments of youth: piano lessons, an early relationship with his teacher, and an intimacy that leaves a lasting imprint on his emotional development....
When I picked up The Corrections, I was guided by the New York Times, which placed it among the one hundred most important books of the twenty-first century: number five on the list. Such a distinction sets expectations high, and Franzen’s novel, in many respects, meets them. At its heart, The Corrections tells the story of the Lambert family: Enid and Alfred, an aging Midwestern couple, and their three adult children, Gary, Chip, and Denise. Enid dreams of gathering everyone for one last per...
