BOOK: Choosing Spectacles by Rosalind Belben, Serpent's Tail £7.99.
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Choosing Spectacles by Rosalind Belben, Serpent's Tail £7.99.
"It is all a question of deceiving and teasing the eye, said the eye doctor, in order to obtain the truth": the title-piece, or eponymous chapter, of this sparkling short novel - or it is seven interlooped stories? - is a tour de force of terse, philosophic narrative. In related chapters, its hero dreams his life, or perhaps retails his life as it penetrates his dreams - life-dreams that verge on nightmare, all of division, exile, fragmentation, abandonment. One moving, intricate, hard-eyed part is woven from snippets of the letters, thoughts, sensations of a couple separated by a totalitarian regime which he has escaped, leaving her behind. He, split, is everywhere as the world splits (in France when the Gulf War breaks out, in Germany as the Wall comes down), always an outsider, perpetually bemused and longing.
It is a small book that packs a strong punch, if your tastes run to powerful emotional writing that takes no romantic prisoners. Belben's lacquered, ice-pick prose has a Continental whiff to it, almost as if it actually were translated; her collision of high thought and earthy detail sounds un-English, her language dedicated to "making strange" in order to feel and record more freshly. She should be much more celebrated.
Julia Sutherland
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments