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Reflections on ‘The Book of Goose’
Notable passages, over a year later
I learned about this book by Yiyun Li when I read this review by Eliza Lita of Coffee Time Reviews.
It is rare that a review intrigues me so much that I’m inspired to drop everything and read the book immediately, but that’s what I did here.
It is a haunting character study that reveals the complexity of human motivation and the unknowable forces that bind people to each other.
Here are some of the most memorable passages I highlighted:
“Often I imagine that living is a game of rock-paper-scissors: fate beats hope, hope beats ignorance, and ignorance beats fate.”
“The more we remember, the less we understand.”
“The world was often inconvenient or indifferent to us, and it was our ingenuity that made what was inconvenient and indifferent interesting.”
“The lucky ones have waited out the storms. The really lucky ones who have learned a few tricks to tame the untamable — however momentarily — have made their names.”
“The last few months felt like a trance. No one stays in a trance forever, true, but no one, shaken awake, lives on without feeling a void inside. A trance is a displacement. A trance is a wound.”
