this all happened was the latest assigned reading for my pleasantly surprising atlantic canadian literature course... billed as a fictional memoir, the first page acknowledges the fact that though none of the characters are literally real, their mannerisms, idiosyncrasies and overly emotional existence in the novel may evoke a sense of familiarity... basically, you're bound to find a little of yourself in one of these colourful figures living in st. john's, newfoundland...
i'm the kind of man who craves to be alone, but once alone, i crave company. it's as though i'd prefer to live in a tough situation than to live in a vacuum. i'm thinking that i have to learn to live alone, but what i really need to learn is how to live with someone else. happiness seems impossible.
each chapter is a month of a year in the life of gabriel, a tortured man in his mid-thirties, struggling to understand what he wants and who he wants to share it with... he's a writer (naturally) and yet is so randomly focused on his surroundings that you wonder what he could ever conjure up on a page... in short, he enticed, enthralled and engaged...
it's like when you enter a movie and youre absorbed. but it's the world of a movie, separate from you. after two hours you'll leave, entertained, but you return to your own world. and the movie knows nothing of your life. we both silently gauge ourselves by this.
simplicity sells...
